My personal opinion is that point in history was November 22, 1963; at 12:30 PM Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas.
Today, we see that the sociopaths and narcissists far outnumber the simply neurotic in our government at the highest levels. Dr. Victor Frank's book Bush on the Couch, was a best seller not because it was humorous or satirical, but because it struck such a truthful, credible note. We rarely hear of the almost one million killed civilians in Iraq since the beginning of our invasion in March 2003, or the three to four million refugees that Operation Iraqi Freedom has created in its wake. Americans have become as indifferent to these casualties as General Le May was to the potential casualties among our NATO allies, as well as those of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact nations, in October, 1962.
We are all becoming little Stalins, for whom one death might be a tragedy, but a million deaths are simply statistics. And therein lies the source of the evil that imperils our nation's future.
We have turned human beings, living and dead, into things. The true essence of evil is when we make people into things, removing any and all empathy or other emotion from our make-up when we consider their well-being or fates.
Let us look at the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, in contrast to the casualties in Iraq.
The dead and injured in Haiti are brought to us every night on the network news, and virtually around the clock on the 24/7 cable news stations. We see the dead bloated bodies, the crippling injuries, the miracle rescues; and our hearts naturally go out to the people of Haiti, as they should. But I must admit, it is rapidly becoming what David Sirota calls "disaster Porn:" pictures of disaster put out there to satisfy the prurient interest of the viewer, rather than provide real information. I think that it overwhelms us with the horror, dulling our reaction to a thousand other tragedies the media ignores.
In Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, we have seen almost nothing of the fighting in that country, or its aftermath. The view the military provides for the embedded correspondents is as carefully controlled as if it had been produced on the back lot of a Hollywood studio. It doesn't show that there are probably three times as many dead in Iraq, and probably twice as many refugees, compared to Haiti. The American government and its compliant media has so sanitized the debacle in Iraq, that it has succeeded in making us unwitting co-conspirators in one of recent history's blackest acts: by permitting our government to turn the dead and displaced Iraqi people into statistics.
Nor is our lack of compassion and outrage limited by a lack of distance: when was the last time you saw a major TV story on the people who have lost their homes in New Orleans, where many people have discovered their homes condemned, torn down and seized for taxes, or eminent domain?
Our senses in this case have been dulled by the media's assumption in the early days of that disaster that if it was an African-American carrying their possessions through the floodwaters they were looters; if it was a Caucasian, then it was assumed that the items were theirs.
Four years after Hurricane Katrina, less than half the houses in the infamous Ninth Ward have been rebuilt, and the two largest public housing projects have been condemned, and are ready to be demolished, with no plans to rebuild them. Have you heard of any recent requests for help for those people, so that New Orleans has a chance to regain its old time flavor?
I didn't think so.
Post Hurricane Katrina New Orleans demonstrates that even our fellow Americans cannot escape becoming forgotten statistics, rather than mourned and pitied human beings whose lives matter in the great scheme of things.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."
If we are to number ourselves among those who would make peace in this world, we must remove our blindfolds, and see the world as it is, not as we assume it is. We must accept that patriotism is more than simply blind adherence to our nation and its government without question or complaint. The famous quote by Stephen Decatur (which is almost always misquoted), "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong." (Toast, April 1816, proposed at a banquet in Norfolk, Virginia to celebrate Decatur's victory over Algerian "Barbary pirates.") In other words, support our country when she is right, but if you believe she is wrong, oppose and correct her errors.
This is doubly true when dealing with individuals or groups of individuals in a nation's government, as well as any other hierarchical system: whether they are the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the President of the United States, your employer, a major corporation, or your homeowners association. I have quoted Robert A. Heinlein before on this subject: government like fire is a dangerous servant, and a terrible master. But always remember what they have one point in common: they are people, not things.
Too often, our leaders are like the poor monkey in India, with a fist full of food trapped in a coconut shell with a hole, which in turn has been staked to a post. All that the monkey has to do to escape is let go of the food and pull his unclenched hand out of the hole in the coconut. But his desire for that food has overcome his desire to be free. Soon the man who made the trap will come along and have the monkey as a pet.
