Why Don’t We Rise Up?

I received a very welcome email yesterday from a reader. He wanted to express his appreciation for the even view expressed in this blog and to comment on a few of a similar vein that he found too personally biased. I appreciate his comments very much, though I often think that I put a bit too much of myself into my comments, too. It’s hard to avoid, and some days it’s entirely irresistible.

He also raised a question that I have asked myself many times and put forth in these blogs a few times as well. That being, why don’t we rise up? Why, given that those of us who write in this vein and those of us who read and believe what’s written understand what a mess this country is in, aren’t people in the streets like the citizens of France marching on the Bastille?

Another reader posed the same question in a similar message last week. I answered her in one word – Soma – and I really believe that’s it. Like the run-of-the-mill citizen in Orwell’s “1984”, we are all pretty much contented with our lot in life. I can stretch out in comfort in a nice warm living room any time I want to. If I want to take a cool drink and a salty snack to the couch with me, I only have to go a few steps out of the way to raid the well stocked refrigerator and cabinets, and, should I run short of something, it’s a short run to the nearest grocery store to stock up.

Given that this is true for most of us, it is asking a great deal to expect folks to leave the comfort of their couches to protest what they see as the coming doom.

It’s the same with the war. Over 70% of Americans now understand that invading Iraq was wrong. Many if not most of them also realize that BushCo did their best to mislead us into this war. But they aren’t out on the streets demanding impeachment – as my friends in the Peace Network of the Ozarks have been – because the politicians understand that as long as they keep the realities of the war at arms length, people won’t get PERSONALLY upset.

That’s why I have argued against “embedding” reporters. That’s why I have long been an advocate of reinstating the draft. (Not just military draft, BTW, but national service of whatever kind the draftee selects from a wide ranging menu.)

If investigative reporters were free to roam the war zones like they were in WWII, the American people would have a much clearer view of the state of things in Iraq than they are given through the biased windows offered by reporters attached to a military unit and unable to go anywhere that unit does not go.

If we had a draft every family in America would be on edge about what was happening to their children. Leaders would be held much more ethically accountable than they are for what happens to enlistees – many of whom come from circumstances the middle class doesn’t even know exist in this country.

Additionally, if we had a draft, military personnel would be less likely to revel in the possibility of going to war. It takes a certain type of person to want to sign up when war is at the other end of the pen. Draftees into WWII, Korea and even Vietnam were willing to fight in the belief that their country needed them. Enlistees in pre-emptive wars are likely to be less discerning and more compliant than informed draftees, so they provide another check on our overly ambitious administrations.

The real arbiter, though, is the bulk of the American citizenry. An informed, active citizenry is a danger to any autocratic regime. That’s why they keep us full of the soma of short, shallow news, long in-depth infotainment, and constant mindless entertainment. That keeps us off the streets.

It won’t work, though, if things get too much tougher. The middle class is collapsing under the greed of the ruling 1 percent. The lower class and even the lower middle class are starving while working two jobs. If that trend continues, the riff-raff – that’s us!! – will one day take to the streets with their rakes, hoes, and scythes – oh, wait that was 200 years ago – with arms off our LaZ Boys, computer keyboards and the AK-47 everyone has in the back room – and drive the money changers out of the temple.

Again.


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle