|
 America's Hegemonic Snooze
by ROBERT ZIMMER, JR.
Tuesday, August 13, 2002
LOS ANGELES, CA.
I wish someone would just come out and say it. Americans are lazy.
Two great arenas of finger pointing have occupied the news cycles in the past few months. One, the issue of how much we knew pre-September 11, and what we could/should have done about it; Two, the issue of corporate accounting scandals. Again, who knew what and when, and what could have been done to prevent the disasters. Blah, blah, blah.
The self-righteous posturings, takings of the Fifth Amendment, the defensive legalistic excuses – not only are these obnoxious, but they are the semantic noise that fundamentally obscures the core issue: that the United States has become a terribly passive and lax civilization. It permeates our morality, both personal and corporate; it compromises the functioning of our government, both domestically and in foreign affairs. We have been fat with profit, King of the Hill, drunk with stock options and self-absorbed pop culture. “Who cares about the rest of the world,” our culture shouts. “We’re fabulous!” Our 2000 presidential election was a perfect example of this idiocy. Most people didn’t care – over 50% of the nation’s eligible voters didn’t – and so we got a president who didn’t even really seem to want the job as much as his greedy handlers.
|
.
|
Sadly, it took the debacle of September 11 to shock us out of our torpor. I wish to take nothing away from the honor of those who perished either in the attacks or trying to save the victims, but our feverish obsession with them, and the blind patriotic rage that followed, was mostly a painkiller to mask the shame we felt at having been caught with our britches down. Yes, we kicked ass in Afghanistan, but we should have taken care of that business a long time ago instead of throwing a couple of softball cruise missiles across the planet whenever an embassy blew up.
Let’s face it: By abandoning the Mujahedeen, we helped create the environment in Afghanistan which allowed the Taliban, and then Al Queda, to take hold. And let’s face this, too: If the FBI, CIA, military intelligence, FAA, and INS had bothered to pull their heads out of their asses and talk to each other (or even themselves), it would have been really obvious ten years ago that it was time to wipe Al Queda out. But no – the bureaucracy.
It’s the same arrogant laziness that has caused the economy to collapse. “Who cares if we break all accounting laws and line our pockets – THERE’S SO MUCH MONEY FLYING AROUND, NOBODY WILL NOTICE!” And who cares about Social Security or Medicare! We have a surplus, so let’s just write checks out like mad! What idiocy that tax refund is in retrospect. Is it any surprise that the Bush campaign flew Enron jets?
But back to corporate scandal, government ineptitude, and personal morality (and yes, I will pick on Clinton shortly) --Isn’t the true measure of character found in what someone does when the hall monitor is NOT looking? Isn’t the true measure of character found in the actions one judiciously initiates, not in our sloppy reactions? And when it comes to self-defense, how much courage and integrity does it take to react when provoked by violence? Even a wimp will hit back when enough sand is kicked in his face. What ever happened to the wisdom behind the cliché of “The best defense is a good offense”?
We now know that there was a proactive plan already in existence to destroy Al Queda, developed in the last months of the Clinton Administration. I am not going to join the leftist bandwagon that blames Bush for not having acted on it, but I do want to use it to reinforce that the Al Queda threat could have and should have been addressed aggressively. Similarly, when the economy was booming like mad, why didn’t somebody recognize that human beings are greedy, and revisit and tighten accounting rules and corporate regulations? In this case, I will blame the Republicans, because the Congressional Record will clearly show they are the ones who blocked Clinton’s dogged efforts in this arena. (Yes, I do note the irony of Clinton’s lax personal morality.) But as I said, let’s transcend the blame game and consider what our future behavior should be.
This brings us to the issue of Iraq. In our last cliffhanger episode of this tragicomedy, we had wiped out half the Iraqi army, leaving tens of thousands of corpses and empty road between the United States Army and Baghdad. I have heard every argument for why we didn’t march the remaining short distance and ice Saddam Hussein, and all of them are feeble. The most compelling rationale, in fact, is that we are back at square one with this guy. Our sanctions have starved the common Iraqi citizen for eleven years and done zippo to dislodge their psychopath ruler, who dines on caviar nightly while shuttling back and forth between palaces – this, when he’s not too busy assassinating his family members and friends, a la Nero, to ensure he stays in power.
This colossal human suffering could have all been avoided if someone had had the balls to take this asshole out when we originally had the opportunity. It was repulsive and gruesome enough that we killed as many Iraqi troops as we did in the Gulf War. Now we will have to do it again, and this time to get the job done properly, it will also require significant civilian losses, not to mention the likely obliteration of beautiful, historic Baghdad. This all having been said, this war on Iraq is – sadly – the right thing to do, overall. Why? Because the president – and it pains me to say this, considering my disdain for his policies in general -- is rightfully committing the country to a proactive course of action. The era must end of waiting for disasters to occur before we take action.
The United States did not come to its great stature by reacting to circumstance. The liberating brilliance of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights did not come into existence by passive men who cared for nothing but their retirement accounts and who was having a baby on Friends. The great societal changes engineered by the U.S. Supreme Court, such as Brown v. Board of Education, did not come from reactive interpretations of law. (The Supreme Court has since graduated to the pathetic realm of disregarding law to facilitate election-stealing.) The landing of a man on the moon did not spontaneously happen. It was born when John Kennedy posed this question: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” And Ronald Reagan, for all his economic foolishness, asked Gorbachev the bold and sweeping question: “Why don’t we just cut the number of nuclear missiles?”
It’s time that we ask ourselves these sorts of bold questions again. If your life is going pretty well, get off the damn couch and ask yourself -- what can you do for your country? It’s time we realize that the best and noblest parts of ourselves emerge when we seek to help others improve their condition, instead of only concerning ourselves with our own. This is true at work, not just at home.
It’s okay to have the courage to admit our terrible national secret: that we have been delinquent with our own souls, and with the collective soul of the nation. It doesn’t mean we’re a bad people, without possibility for redemption. Far from it. Americans are resilient. So if we criticize ourselves, it just means: America, it’s time to wake up. Remember who you are, and take action – everyone; that means you too – do everything you can to make this country everything it ought to be.
ROBERT ZIMMER, Jr., IS A FILM AND TELEVISION WRITER-PRODUCER LIVING IN LOS ANGELES, CA. |
 Send your comments to Coffee Shop Times editorial observer Robert Zimmer, Jr.
Copyright © 2002 The Coffee Shop Times
|
