The
World Is As Dangerous
As We Think It Is
By James Rothenberg
01 May,
2008
Countercurrents.org
Some things are clear. We are
roughly in a period of what is referred to as “peak oil”,
meaning from now on we will be using more than we find, meaning it’s
all downhill from here. At least where oil is concerned. That can
be depressing and political leaders do not like to depress their own
people. Or frighten them into stampede. That’s part of why Cheney’s
secret energy meetings are still secret.
The rational course is not so clear because what is deemed rational is a product of who is doing the rationalizing. It depends on their worldview. For instance, a one-world view leads to dramatically different conclusions than a parochial view.
In a one-world view a single part may not act in a manner injurious to the whole, whereas in a parochial view some are to be favored. Small town or local parochialisms are usually seen for what they are and are disdained. Few are able to step outside certain bounds, however, and see, for what it is, a larger form of parochialism – patriotism – or what it currently amounts to in our country, nationalism.
Prejudice of the sexual, religious, and racial varieties is regarded differently from prejudice of the national variety, that is when it is our own nation under consideration. We are not slow in picking out the nastiness in a designated enemy’s patriotic-nationalism.
It is not a difficult matter for the government to command the allegiance of the people. Besides the threat of force there exists, in each of us, the primitive urge to run with the herd for its survival benefit. Convince people that theirs is the good side and the force seldom has to be used.
The innate goodness of our patriotic-nationalism is the dominant belief in our country, but most Americans do not feel that their patriotic-nationalism comes at the expense of others (the decked out automobiles with yellow and red-white-blue stickers ignoring that expense). It is not taught that way in our schools nor inscribed on the walls of our institutions. It is not revealed by authority because to dwell on the deficiencies of the nation is to expose it to the wrath of an awakened people.
Kurt Tucholsky wrote, “A government is not the expression of the will of the people, but rather the expression of what the people will tolerate.” This was aimed at his erstwhile homeland, Germany, while under the throes of National Socialism.
What do we tolerate in America today? Torture, for one thing. The administration claims (and does not meet serious, really serious, opposition) that domestic and international laws and social norms do not apply in special cases. This means that all the fuss about torture being a despicable practice only applies to people we don’t feel a compelling need to torture. So why the pretense of the legal protection?
Targeting of Muslims, for another, and for the historically astute, this alone should be sufficient tip-off. Retaliation against whistleblowers. Intimidation of critics. Censorship of competing ideas. Paid propaganda posing as impartial opinion.
Big Brother is watching us and his corporate cousins are creating the surveillance boon. We’re tolerating mail and email snooping, financial snooping, telephone wiretapping, physical checkpoints (Don’t worry about the airport imagery undressing – isn’t revealing your penis and breast shapes worth the increased feeling of security you gain?), fingerprinting, and various other forms of ID tech-mania.
And then there are the cameras – the everpresent cameras. Ever notice how the stores inform you that the cameras are for YOUR protection? Wouldn’t you like to have them in the bathrooms, where predators are likely to be lurking?
Or this.
An individual sprays gunfire on a group of strangers. We regard such
an individual as crazed. The highest political officials in the land
spray fire upon an entire country of strangers. Some individuals call
for the arrest of the criminal perpetrators. We regard such individuals
as crazed.
The longer the Afghanistan and Iraq occupations go on, the less attention
paid to the original motivation for the invasions. That would be,
at the least, the establishment of a force presence in the heart of
the Caspian Sea/Persian Gulf resource-rich regions, an area of “national
interest”. But we’re not supposed to know this, even though
we know this. It’s an open secret, one of the marks of which
is it can only be referred to obliquely by officialdom.
The longer the occupations go on, the more we will seem to be “past” the point of our motivation’s original relevance. All the really “serious” talk now is restricted to the narrow confines of today’s “responsibilities” toward these countries. But how one even defines responsibility in this case is determined by one’s worldview. It can be put in the form of a simple question. Do we have a right to be in these countries?
If we answer yes, responsibilities will take the form of providing security and stability, fostering reconciliation, and protection of the central government. Talk will then be about troop strength levels necessary to achieve these aims. Then there is the cynical responsibility to insist that the put-upon victims in these countries take more of the responsibility upon themselves.
It is difficult to answer yes without also claiming that our presence is desired by these central governments. This, however, is a self-invitation because only those politicians submissive to the U.S. could make it into the central government.
If we answer no, that we do not have a right to be there, different responsibilities will surface. Resettling refugees numbering in the millions, withdrawing all troops, granting the military bases to those countries to be converted for civilian use including shelter and airports, forsaking all claims to resources, paying reparations for lives, limbs, and property, and foremost, apologizing (it will take a subsequent administration to apologize).
Two different worldviews. In one we are at the zenith of our position as the dominant world force with the responsibility of shaping that world in our own best interest, with it naturally following that it is in the best interest of the rest of the world.
In another view we are at the zenith of a shameful period in our brief history.
