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Thanksgiving Thoughts on The Many Useful Uses of Gratitude, Appreciation, and Contentment

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When I married at twenty-one, my grandmother admonished me to feel very very grateful for such a rich start in life. She reminded me very solemnly that many of my contemporaries, some of my cousins even, could barely squeak by during those difficult times.

 

I loved and respected my grandmother, but never asked her my burning question: how does one go about honestly “feeling grateful” when one doesn’t really feel particularly grateful?

 

In fact, I thought myself legitimately entitled to the handsome, charming man I had fallen for, and equally entitled to the many luxuries we enjoyed. My friends were marrying similarly educated, professional men, and after all, my family had made it clear to me that it was my job to marry “wisely.” I never considered marrying any other sort of man. Far from feeling lucky, I felt rather more constrained and obligated to marry a financially solid type. Why, I wondered, should I now feel fortunate to have earned that reasonable expectation?

 

But my grandmother said I should feel grateful, and my grandmother, I always thought, was very good and very wise. So how did I go about cultivating a feeling of gratitude? And, for that matter, why? And who might possibly profit from such feelings of gratitude?

 

I was at a stage in life where I had rejected many of my childhood religious beliefs, and my newly revised version of God was different than the old, unattractive, sycophant-approving sort somehow dependent upon his children’s continual praise and gratitude for his jollies.

 

My parents and husband knew I was grateful for their many gifts—for my education, my life, their love, time, and talents—but that wasn’t what Gram meant. Surely working at feeling grateful couldn’t change anything in my life. Wasn’t gratitude a lot like worry, in that it couldn’t change a hair on my head? If so, why do it? If gratitude couldn’t affect anything, what was the use of it?

 

I finally decided that Gram wanted me to constantly feel at least a little guilty for having so much good in my life while others in the world had so little, which truly seemed like a waste of my time. I mean, what could be good about feeling bad about the good in life? Could she reasonably expect me to feel guilty about being young and healthy and smart and funny and sexy, when, frankly, I didn’t feel like I was to blame for it, but was sort of just born that way? If others were not so, even if many others were living miserable lives, how was that my fault? How could my feeling guilty all the time possibly help them?

 

In fact, I felt already too heavily burdened with guilt to feel grateful about anything, and I wasn’t eager to add on any more guilt. Like many young people, rather than feeling accomplished, I always felt I was falling way behind in what I was capable of, in what was expected of me. Instead of acknowledging my achievements and possessions, instead of noticing the good and the beautiful in my life, and in the-world-as-it-is, mostly I just felt guilty because I hadn’t done more, hadn’t been more, hadn’t acquired more. I was all too clearly aware of every one of the mistakes and misdirections of my brief life so far, and I was certain that, had I been more conscientious, made better choices, been less selfish and more wise, I could have been much further along in attaining the somewhat vague adult state of global perfection I thought I was supposed to pursue.

 

I rarely slowed down long enough to feel grateful for anything I earned or accomplished, aside from the first quick momentary flush of happiness and pride before I dismissed the importance of whatever I’d done. I never even went to any of my graduation ceremonies, but instead, silently accused myself of being a slacker (“I should have done this much quicker…”) before rushing on to focus on the next thing. I had enthusiasm and talent and smarts, but a poor work ethic, no concept of goal-setting or commitment or loyalty or clear personal goals, a belief that I should know the answers already (so don't ask questions) and no understanding of doing my best. So I took little pride in anything I accomplished. Even the fact that I had accomplished something diminished its value, because I knew well my careless habits: surely if I could do something, anyone could have done it.

 

From both my upbringing and the pressures of a materialistic culture, I always felt that much more was expected of me than of most others, certainly more than I had ever achieved. I knew that more was expected of those to whom much was given, and indeed I had been born, if not with a gold spoon in my mouth, at least a silver one. So I always felt rushed and pushed and far behind-the-eight-ball. Taking the time to stop and savor my achievements seemed a little like false pride, considering my advantages, and anyway, although I sometimes felt conceit, I rarely felt proud.

 

I looked at life as an arbitrarily and unfairly handicapped race to a vague and impossible-to-reach finish line that was general human perfection. I was resentful of those who seemed to have an unfair “head start” on me, the girls with more money and character and possessions and direction and good habits and good sense, not to mention more adventures and fun.

 

I rarely looked around me to notice how comparatively very lucky I was, rarely compared my good fortune with those having less than I. I was too busy focusing on all the other people who seemed to have a head start on me. It never occurred to me that life might not be a race, that each person’s goals could be finite and unique, or that where one starts or arrives is far less interesting or commendable than what one does with the time and opportunities one has. All I knew was that my life seemed very pressured, and that the broad goals of generalized human perfection seemed chaotically both mutually competitive and completely unattainable.

 

Ten years later, years filled with gains and losses and an ever-louder drumbeat reminding me that I was falling behind, falling behind, falling behind, screaming at me that all my many impulsive tradeoffs were bad choices or downright mistakes, I felt nearly hysterical about all that still seemed “expected of me” that I hadn’t yet attained.

 

One evening in my early thirties, at a small study group in a church, it was announced that we would do an exercise on gratitude.

 

Finally, I thought, maybe now I’ll learn what Gram wanted to teach me, so long ago. I knew by now that she couldn’t have been thinking of constant guilt….

 

We were asked to draw a word from a paper bag full of words, and then to meditate silently for ten minutes on our feelings of gratitude for whatever item we drew. The word I drew was: “my car.”

 

My car?! My stupid, ugly, old clunky and unreliable car, so embarrassing to drive and so costly to maintain. How on earth could I be expected to be grateful for my dumb car!? I couldn’t possibly be grateful for it for one minute, much less ten!

 

I was indignant, so sure that this idiotic exercise wasn’t going to work at all for me because I had drawn the wrong word, a thing no one could be grateful for. Maybe the exercise would have worked for someone with a nice XKE convertible….. but when I thought of my car at all, it had always been with resentment. I usually mentally kicked its leaky tires and cursed its doggy interior and rusting, peeling paint. What a pointless exercise.

 

But, dutifully, I sat…and thought. And realized, to my astonishment, that there were a million things my dumb old car made possible for me and for my little daughter. I began to count all the things that we couldn’t do, without my car….

 

By the end of the exercise, I was profoundly grateful for my car, and never again drove it without a feeling of deep appreciation. And that same gratitude has carried over to every other car I’ve ever owned.

 

And, as well, to every possession and person and achievement in my life from then on, each of which, I finally recognized, I would be very sad without.

 

Here’s what I didn’t get about gratitude, way back when: As far as happiness is concerned, the important difference between people is not what they do, have, or achieve, but whether they notice and appreciate what they have, do, and achieve. Those who cultivate gratitude (or contentment or appreciation) in their life are always much happier than those who don’t, no matter how materially rich or poor they are. For proof of this, consider how many wealthy bored housewives and restless husbands there are, spending their lives fretting and unhappy, while others far less materially blessed than they seem to find contentment in the tiny satisfactions of their ordinary, everyday lives.

 

I recently learned a little anti-insomnia exercise that never fails to put this me into a contented dreamland. Like the old Bing Crosby song, it’s about appreciation: “When you’re worried and you can’t sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep.” I focus on all the little things in my life, with appreciation for every little detail, right down to my sheets and my country, my pillow, the weather, my dear husband asleep beside me…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

The time I spend deliberately focusing on feeling grateful—counting my blessings—always adds to my happiness, just as the time I spend fretting over negative stuff always subtracts from my happiness.

 

My paean of appreciation, now, today, at this moment, is gratitude for these ideas, the words to express them, the freedom and free time to write them, this computer, the internet, my blog, my home, my husband’s support for all my activities, this cup of tea, my health, education, experiences, my hard-learned lessons….

 

Focusing on losses and worries is an artifact of living in the past and future (which don’t exist) instead of living in the present moment, the only time anyone ever has to live, love, work, to achieve or enjoy or build or celebrate anything. Regrets and envies and fears are always about the past and future. All good things, including appreciation, happen only right now.

 

Having lots of things doesn’t guarantee our enjoyment of them once the newness quickly wears off. Many who grow roses forget to stop and smell them, just as we can become oblivious of the many kindnesses which come our way, unless we stop to enumerate them. In truth, we never really possess anything, unless we take the time to appreciate it.

 

I also now practice a kind of reverse gratitude, something Buddhists practice, reminding myself that all of my blessings, and all of my “curses”—my challenges and heartaches—will all alike someday pass away. One of my favorite sayings nowadays is, “This too shall pass.” Appreciation truly comes with the realization that all things change with time, change being one of the few constants we can count on in this life. No matter what good or bad is in our lives, this too shall someday pass away. God giveth and taketh away. I try to hold in mind, not morbidly, but humbly, that a war or an accident or a natural disaster or a disease or someone’s moment of insanity could instantly take away everything.

 

My mother’s thirty-year struggle with an unusually severe case of rheumatoid arthritis helped me, in retrospect, learn to enjoy what I have, in the present. As her disease progressed inexorably, crippling a new area every few years—first her knees, then her feet, her hands, her shoulders, her jaw–she found it very difficult to see that she still had opportunities in the present moment to use and enjoy the faculties which she still had. I remember how, after each attack, she would sigh, “If only I had appreciated how much I could still do back when I still had my good feet (hands/neck…. )…when I could still chew and enjoy my food….” Although she did her best to protect her children from her sorrows, her very human focus on the negatives of her disease left her frightened and suffering much of her later life.

 

One of her many gifts to me, a gift I cherish, is the reminder to focus here and now, in every aspect of my life, not on my losses, or on worries about inevitable future losses, but on all that I still have to be grateful for, all that I still can enjoy. With every loss, I try to say, “Well, at least I still have (whatever)” and count my blessings for all that is still good and beautiful and worthwhile in this world and in my life at this moment, all I still can do, be, and have, and not what is no longer possible. Bad things have happened and will happen again in my life and in every life whether we worry about them or not, so I try to remember that worrying can only hurt but never help.

 

I also know unarguably, whenever I see a sad face along my path, that I could have been that person. Certainly I have made as many mistakes as most others have made, yet somehow had many second chances at happiness. I’m grateful for my awareness of the fragility of life, and the knowledge that, at least in this lifetime, all my joys and sorrows, my possessions and abilities and opportunities and loves will gradually (or finally) be taken from me. Rather than a depressing thought, this realization helps me live fully here, now, during the only time when life can be lived.

 

No one ever solves this great puzzle of human life, this problem…but maybe that’s OK; because maybe we’re not meant to solve it. Maybe life isn’t a riddle at all, but an open-ended adventure to be lived, different for each unique indiividual, but still, the gift of life….. Maybe I can learn to embrace my one-of-a-kind life “as it is,” in all its complexity and chaos and change.

 

A wonderful scene in Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, shows Emily rising up from her endlessly peaceful sleep on a graveyard hill, to go back and invisibly observe a day in her youth. Of course she sees herself, her parents, her future husband, and all the everyday richness and boredom and frustration and beauty of her life through newly appreciative eyes. In fact, she finds it all too poignant and painful to bear, and cries out, “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you…. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?”

 

The answer is, of course: No. We all get caught up in our dramas, delusions, and tragedies and forget to appreciate what is. But even knowing this, we can try, amidst our goals and our strivings, to remember to take some time to bless each person, each flower, each gift we give and receive, each moment, happy or sad, with our awareness and gratitude. Love, appreciation, acceptance, and forgiveness of the world, just the way it is, is the way I wish to walk always, in gratitude. I know my life will be happier, richer, and more alive for embracing such always-available contentment.

 

Another way, perhaps the best way, to notice how much I have, is to give it away—not only money and goods, but also talents, help, and forgiveness. All my gifts demonstrate to me how richly blessed I am, and my sense of wealth only increases with the giving. How much richer Bill and Melinda Gates must feel these days as they travel the world in support of their charitable foundations. And since we are all—in the most profound sense—one, whenever I give, I give but to myself, and it can be but my own gratitude that I earn.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If THE DEPARTED Reflects American Cultural Offerings to the World, Then We Yankees Truly Should Stay Home

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The Departed is a too-long slog through a repellent underworld of hopelessness, human frailty, and continual struggle. An angry, bitter old man’s cynical vision of despair and disillusionment, it mocks all human efforts to transcend past and primal influences. Its desired audience-response seems to be disgust.

 

Although The Departed offered challenging roles to talented actors and film-makers, I kept wondering, why did any of them, the immensely talented and capable Scorsese included, even bother? Why make this movie? What’s the point of pooling all that energy, creativity, and talent on such a boring, pointless script? The Departed is neither entertaining, nor satisfying, nor thought-provoking, nor enlightening, nor any other respected goal of movie-making—unless perhaps you find pleasure in staring at cripples or ogling car wrecks.

 

Scorsese’s many clumsy attempts at youthful (Tarantinoesque?) edginess played out as merely shock-by-politically-incorrect low-life humor,  inspiring only embarrassed titters. I found this film completely lacking in compassion, crass, boorish, and childishly defiant about religion, race, and responsibility. It was definitely a movie offering family values–all the wrong ones. For those hooked on action and violence who want to see positive values, start with L.A. Confidential or A History of Violence (see my review elsewhere in this blog), In the Line of Fire or The Fugitive. It can be done!

 

When I compare this kind of American blockbuster to, say, the Iranian blockbuster, Children of Heaven–also a depiction of human struggle under the most difficult circumstances–I can certainly understand why many Muslims find our culture decadent, and why they hope to prevent us from infecting their own cultures.

 

Always in search of high-quality action movies which my husband and I can both enjoy, we saw The Departed on opening night out of respect for Scorcese’s better (if uneven) previous efforts—The Age of Innocence, Taxi Driver, Casino, and Raging Bull. We even heard, while standing in line, that the reviews so far were stellar. What a disappointment.

 

Leonardo di Caprio’s and Mark Wahlberg’s brilliant performances were very appealing and convincing, but I found little else to like. The sound was uneven too—either way too loud (I literally protected my ears) or too soft.

 

In comparison, Invinceable—although formulaic—was a recent high-quality action movie we will add to our collection, one which I would be proud to export to other countries as an example of American culture and entertainment. That we might use our great wealth and freedom in order to corrupt the minds of our own youth and those around the world with garbage like the life-sucks-and-then-you-die story offered by The Departed is a truly depressing thought. 

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s Muslims: More “christian” Than Christians?

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People everywhere, many Americans included, have begun to think of Muslims as more “christian” than many Christians—in the traditional sense of “christian spirits” that are loving, forgiving, pious, selfless, gentle, kind, and peaceful in their attitudes toward other human beings.
 
While most Americans still aspire to such qualities, we are today viewed globally as both culturally and politically rather more mean-spirited than christian-spirited. Many foreigners now see Americans as greedy and materialistic, and think of America as an arrogant young nation that tries to tell others how to live, that foolishly and hurtfully pushes its culture, economics and politics onto unwilling others.
 
If Osama bin Laden had wanted to increase world awareness of past and present American support for regime changes, friendly tyrannies, and repression of democratic movements around the world, he succeeded brilliantly, even though few Americans are even aware of these sad and distinctly un-“christian” exploitations in support of American corporate interests.
 
And if Osama bin Laden had wanted to stir up empathy for Islam, he could hardly have dreamed up anything more brilliant than our current bloody military adventuring in the Middle East. Ignoring all expertise, we’ve turned a criminal, political, social and economic problem—terrorism—into a military one, barging willy-nilly into a very un-christian war against peaceful people who never threatened us.
 
But Osama’s biggest bang for his comparatively small, if immensely tragic, PR. buck was sending our reading public—most of whom previously couldn’t find Iraq or even Israel on a map—scrambling for best-sellers about Islam. Because, sometime during the last five years, Americans finally noticed that Muslim cultures, although very different from ours, are, in fact, very “christian” in ways we greatly admire—along with having many unique shortcomings, like every culture.
 
For example, many Americans are motivated by their christian spirits to protect women’s rights to equality—to enter any profession, to be educated, to be equal citizens—but they are also sadly free to become drunks, addicts, prostitutes, rape victims, divorcees and unwed mothers. Muslims’ “christian spirits” motivate them to overprotect their wives and children, with the many drawbacks that come with that approach. Future christian-spirited dialogue and exchange between our two cultures will bring us all closer to understanding and agreement about our common, universal, “christian”—if not exclusively “Christian”—values, all those which offer respect and support to all human life everywhere.
 
The single sad silver lining behind bin Laden’s blood-and-publicity-soaked attack was to open western eyes and hearts to Islam. We have finally seen enough Muslims to look past the angry, despairing extremists, past the unfamiliar turbans, suspicious scarves and rough accents, to see clearly the many kind human faces and wise human hearts of gentle fathers, bright mothers, laughing daughters and fierce sons—who are, after all, not really so different from our own.
 
For the first time, Americans are experiencing the christian spirits of this exotic and unfamiliar culture which devoutly prays many times daily, is devoted to family, and which, just like Christians, exhorts its children at home, mosque and school to acts of goodness, kindness, generosity, and peace.
 
When we choose to see them through christian-spirited eyes, we’ll see a gentle people who have suffered greatly during a century of relentless violence from outsiders, simply because oil was discovered on the land of their ancestors, who yet still reach out hospitably to all who come, not as occupiers and invaders, but as peaceful, respectful visitors and citizens.
 
Most Muslims, like most Christians, have “christian” spirits, wanting to raise families in a compassionate culture which nurtures universal values. Yet most Americans today agree that, somewhere along the way, America has lost many of her ‘christian’ ways.
 
Certainly we’re coming off very poorly in our latest war. Our national leadership has acquired a well-deserved international reputation as far-from-christian-spirited religious extremists, unschooled in diplomacy and too quick on the draw.
 
I am not an expert on Islam; I keep up with the news and have a lifelong interest in all world religions and philosophies. But I do know that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world, one which accepts Jesus as a great prophet, along with all his teachings.
 
I have closely observed my Muslim neighbors, and know them by what we used to call their “christian witness”—that is, by the way they live their lives. As a group, Muslims are pious, kind, neighborly, civic-minded, charitable and scholarly. Islam, as practiced by its most thoughtful and faithful practitioners, embraces the high ecumenical values espoused in Jesus’ teachings, particularly those about universal brotherhood, peace, charity, service, forgiveness, and love of God.
 
Yet, right after the towers fell, Christian extremists, perhaps fearing their congregations would be pulled away by curiosity about Islam, forgot to exhort their flocks to christian-spirited unity with their global brothers, and instead chose to preach sermon after mean, frightening, televangelical sermon demonizing Muslims as violent, cruel, scheming, and anti-Christian.
 
Muslims everywhere were dismayed and frightened by such un-christian televised messages, not to mention the rude insistence of multinational corporations to hawk materialist values and profitably push distinctly un-christian habits and lifestyles to anyone anywhere anytime.
 
Neither God nor Jesus nor any prophet, philosopher or saint cares which faith you pray to them from, nor what names you call them by, nor what form your prayers take; but they do care that all their many pleading and peaceful messages of acceptance, compassion, and reconciliation are spread everywhere to unify and bring peace to a frightened, suffering world.
 
On C-Span, CNN, and other media, Americans have heard the sad voices of Muslims in war-torn countries pleading to be left in peace, along with the voices of articulate and caring Muslim leaders sharing their concerns and patiently explaining their unfamiliar approaches. Many of us have also enjoyed the brilliant, award-winning family-values films and books streaming out of Iran and other Muslim countries.
 
We have also been terrified by American demagogues that Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon and use it against Israelis or Americans. Yet, just as worrisome to many, is the terrifying possibility that our own malleable President, egged on by powerful, trigger-happy sidekicks, will use our own vast American nuclear arsenal to initiate a very un-christian WWIII.
 
Muslims and Christians alike want most to live their lives in peace, in accordance with their beliefs and values. We want our children to grow up in warm, safe communities, in homes and schools that support—or at least, do not undermine—our heartfelt beliefs and values. Muslims and Christians alike think it unreasonable to be under continual attack from commercial and media corporations who use our freedoms and our public airwaves to hammer away at our cherished values.
 
Muslim immigrants come to America for the same reasons all immigrants have ever come: for the freedoms and benefits of good government which serves and supports the quality of all the human life which God created equal on this fragile blue planet.
 
We all want a justice system which respects and serves all people equally, quickly, and affordably. We all want fairly-elected, familiar local public servants who spend our hard-earned tax money on our youngest and neediest citizens, on convenient, quality health care for all, on retraining workers, on offering quality public services and infrastructure, on supporting emerging technologies and creating competitive economic opportunities within a thriving economy offering living wages. We all want well-disciplined, high-tech educational environments and opportunities that offer all children a real chance in life.
 
Instead, Americans seem stuck with a bloated and increasingly indebted federal government which cuts local services to pay for its steady stream of immoral foreign wars, which only line the pockets of corporate war profiteers, while bankrupting average Americans and compromising our children's futures.
 
Instead of offering good local government, where small local militias are well-trained in non-violent conflict resolution and stand ready to assist local communities during emergencies—floods, hurricanes, epidemics, invasions—we have instead a vast, far-flung military machine enforcing hegemonic American corporate interests wherever in the world they see an opportunity to make a fast, if un-christian, buck.
 
Soon—although not soon enough for the hundreds of thousands of dead, disabled, and desperate Muslims and Christians we have harmed—America will retreat from its current un-christian aggressions, will expensively buy peace in Israel and reconciliation in Iraq, and will stand aside while Muslims shake off their dictators and sort out their own political destinies, whether violently or in a more christian spirit, as would better suit all our mutual interests and befit the highest values of all our various religious and cultural traditions.
 
When their oilfields have been carved up among them, may our charitable American christian spirits uphold their right to spend their oil money creating opportunities for their hungry youth, while we refrain from using our own vast stores of nuclear weapons during this most-dangerous era of unaccustomed American humility, as we wait in line politely for Middle Eastern oil like any other paying customer.
 
Hopefully, we will all—Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, and atheist alike—support only leaders demonstrating christian lives and spirits—whether or not they are Christians—leaders who advocate politics which reflect the universally cherished golden rule of treating all others as we ourselves would want to be treated.
 
May Christians and all other Americans join with all people everywhere in making christian-minded personal choices, and may we all support only political representatives having peaceful christian hearts, words, actions and lives—regardless of whether they be Christian, Jew, Atheist, Muslim, Hindu, or any other.
 
 
Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

Sanctimonious History Overthrown in Stephen Kinzer’s OVERTHROW: AMERICA'S CENTURY OF REGIME CHANGE FROM HAWAII TO IRAQ

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Sanctimonious History Overthrown in Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
 
 
People like to feel good about themselves, and Americans are no exception; so only a relative handful of scholarly Americans are even aware of their government’s direct historical responsibility for a century of violent regime changes in fourteen countries from Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Honduras, to South Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
 
Kinzer offers a compelling case that, without exception, all this violent meddling has worked against the overall best interests of Americans, and—with the possible exception of Grenada—against the citizens of all these exploited nations.
 
Kinzer’s brilliant decision to summarize the colorful particulars of who-what-when-where-how leading up to, during, and following each overthrow, give range to his best journalistic talents, while reducing his biographer’s breadth and historian’s bounty of facts, figures, places, and times into fourteen short, lively, memorable tales of derring-do, intrigue, overreaching, ignorance, prejudice, greed, and mayhem.
 
Reading Overthrow brought to mind the darker aspects of Margaret Meade’s assertion, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has,” while adding credibility to the mounting evidence that the tragedy of today’s Middle East is indeed directly traceable to the benighted machinations of a few dedicated, powerful, and sorely misguided neocons in Washington, D.C. For each case of regime change, Kinzer implicates a small group of daring individuals usually acting for corporate interests, and always acting with presidential authority.
 
Kinzer’s reasonable-length history is backed by over twenty pages of end notes, as well as an impressive international, multilingual twentieth-century bibliography of nearly five hundred on-the-spot memoirs, biographies, government documents and news accounts, and a twenty-page index. Kinzer definitely entertains, but more importantly, he connects the dots and fills in the necessary details of significant historical events which many would prefer to erase, to our nation’s peril.
 
I’m very grateful for the years of persistent and generous scholarship necessary to produce this readable summary which surely deserves wide consideration. Overthrow fills in the many gaps and blanks left by incomplete reporting-at-the-time, and offers an opportunity for synthesis, analysis, and reconsideration of the patterns, results, and morality of our past violent involvements in the political, economic, and social lives of people in faraway nations, as well as their implications for the present and future:
 
“There is no stronger or more persistent strain in the American character than the belief that the United States is a nation uniquely endowed with virtue…. This view is driven by a profound conviction that the American form of government, based on capitalism and individual political choice, is, as President Bush asserted, ‘right and true for every person in every society.’…By implication, it denies that (culture) changes only slowly, and that even great powers cannot impose their beliefs on others by force…  For more than a century, Americans have believed they deserve access to markets and resources in other countries. When they are denied that access, they take what they want by force, deposing governments that stand in their way. Great powers have done this since time immemorial….When the United States intervenes abroad to gain strategic advantage, depose governments it considers oppressive, or spread its political and religious system, it is also acting in its commercial self-interest….Most American-sponsored ‘regime change’ operations have…weakened rather than strengthened American security. They have produced generations of militants who are deeply and sometimes violently anti-American; expanded the borders that the United States feels obligated to defend, thereby increasing the number of enemies it must face and drawing it ever more deeply into webs of foreign entanglement; and emboldened enemies of the United States by showing that despite its awesome power, it has a soft and vulnerable underbelly….Most of these adventures have brought (Americans), and the nations whose histories they sought to change, far more pain than liberation.”
 
These are important lessons we need to learn, and Kinzer has assembled the foundational stories, facts, and figures necessary to establish their credibility.
 
Stephen Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent with reporting experience in more than fifty countries on four continents, including service as New York Times bureau chief in Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua. He has previously written four well-received histories focusing on Iran, Turkey, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.
 
Kinzer prefers patient diplomacy to violent regime-change, pointing to the efficacy of our productive continuing dialogues with China, the former Soviet Union, South Korea, and countries in South Africa. While he asserts that nations always act in their own self-interest, I wish he had also concluded that, on today’s tiny, interconnected, fragile blue planet, everyone’s national self-interests are irretrievably tied to the interests of everyone else, everywhere else. Pragmatically, we can no longer afford to think in terms of “them,” but only “us.”
 
I pray that President Bush will soon decide to become presidential, Christian, politically astute, humble, and visionary enough to boldly shift from a doomed-to-fail, self-centered foreign policy based on international competition, to one of enlightened, self-interested global cooperation. Neither approach is simple, obvious, or guaranteed, but only one has any chance of succeeding.
 
 
 
 
   Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net
 
 
 
  

Creative Fun by Eppy

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Here are some of my hobbies (painting, cartooning, etc.) as well as a self-portrait, and a portrait of me by my five-year-old friend, Alexa. Look for them elsewhere in my website to see/learn more…. Thank you for visiting my website!  -eppyharmon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Fog of War Movies and Books

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A few months ago, I decided to watch some of the best-received war movies that came out of the Vietnam era—The Deer Hunter, The Killing Fields, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, and Coming Home, as well as some recent and older ones—The Battle of Algiers, Crimson Tide, Saving Private Ryan, The Enemy Below, and Black Hawk Down.
 
Although I’m definitely a quality-movie buff, I’m not easily entertained by violence, which explains why I avoided all of these movies when they first came out, despite a deep childhood curiosity about (and fear of) war.
 
I’m currently writing about the immorality of war, so feel compelled to watch such movies to help fill in my (fortunate) experiential gaps. I also watch them out of respect for their creators’ passion, dedication, and achievements in uniquely sharing their own war experiences.
 
Despite the fact that my father was a war hero and bird colonel with thirty-three years in the service (Silver Star, Purple Heart, and many more) he always firmly refused to share with us his sad or frightening WWII memories.
 
So after I left my military-brat life on-post, I dipped my toe into the vast body of quality literature coming out of Vietnam and other wars, admiring and enjoying Fields of Fire (go Jim Webb!), Dispatches, The Things They Carried, as well as War and Peace, Silent Flows the Don, and All Quiet on the Western Front. More recently, I loved Cold Mountain, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, Blowback, An American Requiem, and the wonderful Patrick O’Brian Aubrey/Maturin series.
 
I found amazing agreement in all these books and movies in their moral conclusions about war, even as each offered me a unique personal perspective and story unlike any other.
 
Over and over, every work expressed or implied the point of view that “their” particular war had been insane, cruel, hard, sad, misguided, and stupid, and that it had seemed to create far more problems than it resolved. Their actual acts of war—the killing parts—were consistently experienced as pointless, chaotic, numbing, unreasonable, inhumane, confusing, wrong–and often thrilling, in that the pointy end of the sword had actually gone into the other guy.
 
Each work of art also revealed war’s most appealing reality:  war, like any other deeply challenging experience from marriage to sports, offers stirring opportunities for revelation and nobility, compassion and achievement, faith and idealism.
 
The “highs” of war remembered in these works were based in youth’s vitality, resiliance and resourcefulness, in the belongingness, common cause, and humor of bands of young brothers, and of course, in the bittersweet exhilaration following survival in battles in which, although others died, you didn’t.
 
Nearly every work used war’s bleak, terrified, often mutilated children to emphasize the meaninglessness and tragedy of war. And they all made the point that fear for oneself and for one’s friends drove them to acts of cruelty and immorality unimaginable during peacetime.
 
War, in these books and movies, turns out to be not at all what was expected, nor what they were trained or prepared for—although with works of art like these, perhaps the next generation will be better informed.
 
None of these soldier/artists, with the exception of O’Brian, ever found a way to make killing feel psychologically acceptable, although they all killed as necessary, “doing their duty” and protecting one another; their childhood moral conditioning in human compassion too strongly resisted killing other people. (Jack Aubrey’s disciplined and enthusiastic patriotism and militarism overruled his compassion, as happens sometimes with seasoned soldiers, if less often, with artists, but Maturin’s disgust with war offered a thoughtful foil.)
 
All authors implied how indelibly their training in the hate and fear which is necessary to kill enemies in cold blood had carved black chasms in their psyches, changing them (and their families) forever in ways they could not express to anyone who hadn’t shared similar experiences—mixed as war memories are with both pride and shame.
 
When at war, every soldier longed for home, and when finally back home, missed the “highs” mentioned above.
 
Most celebrated the rare beauty of the foreign lands being fought over, and condemned the  environmental and human waste, and the high costs of war.
 
Another interesting commonality was how universally fascinated all were with how soldiers react to fear, and, most specifically, with how they would perform under fire. (Although I didn't care much for The Red Badge of Courage, it merits attention primarily for this focus.) Much consideration was given in each of these works to the fact that every soldier reacts differently to fear, and to the impossibility of hiding one’s unique sensibilities during war. Like vocation, parenting, friendship, scholarship, accident, disease, death, and every other peacetime human trial, war reveals much too clearly the best and the worst in each person’s character and personality, while offering, as all difficult challenges do, ample opportunities for growth and wisdom.
 
I feel deeply privileged (and emotionally gutted) to have read and watched these great works, and will continue to see and read more. Some of the war-related books I want to read (and review) next are: Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq; Carroll’s House of War; Ambrose’s Citizen Soldiers; and perhaps Keegan’s The Second World War. The movies next on my list are, first, war documentaries: Why We Fight, The Fog of War, The War on Iraq, Hearts and Minds, and Protocols of Zion, followed by Foyle’s War, The War Within, and Casualties of War.
 
Do you have any other suggestions for quality war movies and books? I’ll gladly share them with my readers.
 
 
 
  

CUTTING (Off Communication) AND RUNNING (From Dialogue)

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Messrs. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are so right in their recent complaints that pervasive modern media has made their war-making job a lot harder, because what media does best is disseminate information and instigate dialogue. And the more one knows and understands, the less one is likely to fear, hate, and make war on other humans.
 
Happily, we can watch, on one channel, various national and international leaders patiently strive to work through peaceful diplomatic channels in search of just, compassionate solutions to deadly conflicts, or flip over to another channel and watch Rumsfeld lambaste these same statesmen as unpatriotic pacifiers, appeasers and sympathizers.
 
Thank goodness for our networked globe, where millions of ordinary citizens daily exchange email with friends in every nation, sharing their hopes and plans for peaceful alternatives to war, even when our leaders haven’t the heart or common sense to do so.
 
The only reason these three cut off communications and run away from dialogue is to silence opposing voices and logic—whether partisan competitors' or foreign foes'–all of whom are trying to inject some sanity into the drumbeat toward never-ending war, whether in Iraq, Iran, or a slew of other places. I wish George Bush would learn that global clashes of ideologies are not won by guns, but by goodness.
 
Since our present administration's anti-war “foes” are easily capable of poking gaping holes in their justifications for war, unsurprisingly, they are all simultaneously (and disingenuously) being painted with the broad brush of fascism/Nazism in what appears to be a pre-emptive attack designed to ward off an anticipated similar, if more legitimate, accusation. Fascism as defined is authoritarian, corporatist, demagogic, anti-liberal, jingoist, militarist, expansionist…. Does anything sound familiar?
 
How could it be in our best interests for our leaders to refuse to talk with the very enemies we've been told (by those same leaders) to hate, because (as our leaders have also told us) they hate us. Why have expert diplomats if only to talk with our friends? If hate and fear are so dangerous—and they certainly are—why wouldn’t we try to improve such relationships by listening to our “adversaries'” grievances and hearing their suggestions for peaceful solutions? As Abraham Lincoln said, “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”
 
We could at least choose to be generous enough to listen to our enemies, even if we can‘t manage Jesus’ admonition to love them. Despite our leaders’ continual propaganda marginalizing and demonizing them (so we won’t listen to what they have to say) we shouldn’t forget that they are still human beings with perspectives that at least deserve a respectful hearing before we blow them away.
 
No doubt our leaders have already made their own peace with the damage they intend to inflict upon enemy populations, but they haven’t yet described to us even a small portion of the grisly and manifold inevitable injustices that will be visited upon us.
 
Only war resisters venture to estimate the possible extent of war’s predictable losses, for both sides, or ever dare to question its final outcome. By silencing such opposition, our leaders muddy constiuents' views of the potential calamity they’re getting us into. Historically, these particular three have proved themselves incapable of assessing what they passionately jump into; they anticipate quick easy victories and warm welcomes from cheering victims, blithely dismiss vague unspecified future losses as “necessary,” and assure us that “winning” the war will be “worth it.”
 
Participants in every 20th century war, both “winners” and “losers,” have consistently admitted to researchers that, had they known in advance the costs of those wars, they would have, in retrospect, settled their grievances peaceably, making the compromises and concessions necessary to avoid war’s costs to human lives and infrastructure.
 
Wars are never initiated by popular pressure, never fought from the bottom-up, but always from the top-down, at the whims of leaders who work hard to maintain their intricate ideological justifications. The task of selling war is indeed more difficult in what the Dalai Lama calls “the century of dialogue,” because dialogue is exactly what is fostered and nurtured by today’s free press—our beloved televisions, movies, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, and internet.
 
The Defense Department is currently attempting to manipulate our freedom of the press by demanding equal time for its pro-war propaganda. Happily, our free press neither answers to nor agrees with such self-serving ideas about what the job of the press should be.
 
And while we’re on the subject of freedom of the press, if you want to see exemplary presidential press access in action, check out any of the frequent, unscripted, free-wheeling, no-topics-barred press conferences held by President Ahmadinejad of Iran. Considering the number of public words he utters both at home and in his busy international speaking rounds, it’s not surprising that extremists have managed to extract a few to twist, spin, and mistranslate.
  

One would think the Defense Department would find our state of constant war sufficient public distraction from the embarrassing truth that we may have as much to fear from an administration capable of embracing its foes with nuclear arms, as we have from their confusingly shape-shifting “enemies”. Perhaps they hope that once we finally have a clear “enemy” to hate and fear, maybe we won’t notice that a significant contributor to our state of national insecurity is our unrepresentative, repressive, empire-building government. 1984 has indeed arrived, but apparently too late to completely manipulate a media-gorged nation which is so finally past buying into 20th century war insanities.
 
No one can avoid suffering some injustice in this well-armed and very frightened post-9/11 world, but the risk of injustice should not rush us into pre-emptive wars which always only add to the sum of the world’s injustices, while creating ever more global enmity and danger.
 
A far better and safer way to defend ourselves is through increased communication and dialogue among all peoples and nations.
 
Peace and justice can only be attained through dialogue, mutual understanding, compromise and compassion. No violent path ever leads to peace and justice. “Peace” treaties at war’s ends merely divide up losers’ spoils among still-squabbling “winners,” and inevitably sow seeds of bitterness our children will harvest.
 
Tragically, it is still possible in America for a small group of arrogant militants to act out their darkest fears and limited understandings by sending other people’s grandchildren off to unnecessary wars, whether or not their constituency agrees with them. In such a democracy, we could wake up tomorrow in the middle of World War III, whether arbitrarily initiated in Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Korea, Syria….
 
And if that happens, all our lives, and life itself on this fragile blue planet, will change irrevocably.
 
Our best hope is to work together to establish a cabinet-level United States Department of Peace, as beautifully specified in H.R. 3760 and S. 1756, which can support proven and effect strategies for diminishing violence in our country and in our world.
 
Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

Security and Peace in a Post-9/11 World

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Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al Qaeda, and other similarly militant organizations and individuals will never stop “terrorizing” until the far more wealthy, powerful, and better-armed leaders of nation-states stop sending their military and espionage forces to invade, occupy, assassinate, murder, war against, oppress, exploit, direct, victimize, and otherwise “terrorize” them. Terrorists are those who have given up on dialogue, diplomacy, and compromise, and have instead resorted to war and other kinds of violence to achieve their political goals. People who courageously stand beside their homes, defending them from invading outsiders who would threaten their way of life, are not terrorists.

 

We are too quick to believe what we read and hear about so-called madmen and lunatics. Powerful demagogues and fear-mongers in every land misquote, marginalize, and demonize—and make a lot of war-profits—by convincing people to hate and fear various international leaders, whether they be George Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Nasrallah, Moqtada al-Sadr, or Ahmadinejad.

 

On this small, fragile planet, our only hope for safety and peace is for each of us to independently investigate such charges for ourselves, and to then elect and support only those visionary local, national, and world leaders whose lives, words, and actions, like Gandhi’s and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, have been consistently peaceful, and whose international reputations reflect their devotion to compassion, empathy, acceptance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Only such leaders can unify all the world’s peoples, lifting them away from war and other forms of violence by fundamentally changing hearts and minds.

 

In this heavily-armed world, only one enemy presses for world domination, ceaselessly striving to throw every nation into never-ending inhumane war. That enemy is neither terrorist nor fanatic nor extremist, neither Muslim nor Jew nor Christian, neither Fascism nor Nazism nor Communism nor globalization.

 

The common enemy of mankind, the one ever urging us all toward overreaction and war and torture and every other kind of terror, is fear in all its forms: fear of change, fear of failure, fear of disgrace, fear of the unknown and unfamiliar and different, fear of want, loss, and death, fear of despair, fear of the past and future, fear of abandonment, of guilt and blame, of losing control, of being helpless and hurt, fear of being wrong….

 

And what is fear’s remedy? Love, in all its forms: caring, ideas, faith, hope, trust, dialogue, cooperation, generosity, cultural exchange, understanding, knowledge, kindness, negotiation, compromise, diplomacy, peace….

 

Instead of “allies” and “enemies,” we could choose to see all people everywhere, our own selves included, as alternately falling from one moment to another into either one of two interchangeable camps–people currently offering (us) help, and people currently needing (our) help.

 

No one can completely avoid suffering some injustice in this post-9/11 world; however, we need not add to its sum.

 

Patriotism and nationalism will not work so long as people continue to see “others” of different nations, beliefs and cultures as less valuable, less important, and somehow separate from “us.” Nationalism will fail if it stands in opposition to the highest universal human value–support and respect for the quality of human life everywhere–because the only rule which works in human relations, both personal and global, is the Golden Rule: Treat all others as we would want all others to treat us.

 

Until, one-by-one, we each courageously stand up in perfect love to cast out fear, until we proudly support the unselfish values which unite us all—the democratic ideals proclaiming the equality of all men and the inalienable right of all people everywhere to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—we will all continue to be vulnerable to a relentless battery of twenty-first century storms.

 

Please write comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to America's Future, Senator Allen, and More Power to It

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Virginia Republican Sen. George Allen's recent racist remarks reminded me of my own childhood racism against immigrants. Unlike him, I have seen the future of immigration in America, and it is good.

 

My military family moved to San Antonio during the late 1950’s, my middle school years. We had moved eight times before, years I spent in overseas post schools with middle-class multiracial/multiethnic classmates. Transferring now to a San Antonio “off-post” public school, I was surprised to be thrown in among many desperately poor Hispanics, and shocked to see their harsh treatment by my Anglo classmates.

 

Although some teachers treated all students respectfully, the consensus about “Meskins” among the Anglos in my school was that they were dirty, poor, immoral, violent, sneaky, and “too stupid” to speak English. The filter of racism soon blurred my own eyes, too, to the differences among these children, and eventually I clumped them all, even the occasional middle-class and native-English speaking exceptions, into a single rejected race.

 

Through whispered conversations, I “found out” what my schoolmates “knew”—that all these kids were children of “illegals” who had snuck across “the river” and were no doubt now sneaking around in bushes and backrooms doing filthy jobs our parents wouldn't dream of doing, living in hovels, probably stealing and breaking other laws too. We exchanged warnings about their poor side of town: “Don’t go near the San Antonio River unless you want to get knifed by a 'Mex'!” My wealthiest friends even bragged about “'owning' a ‘wet’ (‘wetback’) or two” hidden away on distant ranches in shacks stocked with sacks of beans, left to chop cedar at pennies a day.

 

Gradually I conformed, and viewed immigrants with suspicion and disgust. Sometimes we sneered at them, occasionally fought them, but mostly we ignored them. How quickly I went from feeling righteously indignant about their mistreatment, to apathy, to feeling more “in the know” and “appropriate” about how to feel and act—that is, prejudicially.

 

Needless to say, I knew nothing about racism, or about how hard it is to get ahead when you’re poor, or about the immense barriers of linguistic disadvantage, or the challenges of a new life in a different culture, especially an illegal life. I saw without seeing only the glaring commonalities of poverty, for indeed, many of my Hispanic classmates were dirty, their clothes were smelly, and their poor English made them seem ignorant.

 

I’m especially saddened to recall how kind many of the Hispanic children were to me at first, how attractive and fun they seemed to this lonely new girl. Too quickly, I came to “know better,” pulling away from them, frightened by the stronger social prohibitions against socializing with “Mexes.” I'm sure my cruel transformation and confused withdrawal hurt many feelings.

 

Fast-forward now to forty years later, to the recent year I returned to San Antonio to care for my dying father. To my astonishment, I found a completely changed San Antonio, a bright working city ornamented by a proud Hispanic cultural heritage. During that difficult year of family losses, every one of my childhood prejudices were firmly replaced with admiration and deep gratitude for the long line of outstanding care-giving and service professionals who helped me—nearly all native-English speaking, educated, middle and upper-class Hispanics.

 

From that ragtag bunch of schoolmates of yesteryear, no doubt largely parented by penniless, uneducated laborers who braved their way across the border, came this impressive line of smiling, capable, courteous, faith-driven professionals. Where “Meskins” were previously relegated only to San Antonio’s lowest social classes, now they were the home-care aides who tenderly washed and fed my father, the capable nurses who treated him, the orderlies who gently attended him in hospital, the dedicated doctors who set his broken hip, the hospice workers who comforted us, the owners of the funeral home, and the directors who helped us plan his funeral.

 

Hispanics now ably run much of the city, blending in with the Anglo minority attractively and patriotically. As I hurried through busy days, helpful Hispanic faces sold me groceries and hardware, delivered our packages, repaired our dishwasher, patrolled our streets, and repaired our phone. My father’s accountant was Hispanic, as was his attorney.

 

I recalled then my youthful astonishment when I overheard talk about nationally respected local “Meskins” such as Henry B. Gonzalez and Henry Cisneros, who later transformed the city for Hemisfair, refurbishing the San Antonio River Walk to become one of the world’s safest and most colorful international tourist attractions. I couldn't imagine then how these apparently benevolent leaders could possibly be drawn from the same racial pool I had learned to exclude from my personal repertoire of “nice people.” Or perhaps, even, “human beings?”

 

The San Antonio of today is a multicultural treat, largely run by courteous, ambitious Hispanics. Every Hispanic I met during that painful year was a genial, earnest, hard-working, well-intentioned person demonstrating solid values.

 

Welcome to the America of the future, Sen. Allen, and more power to it.

 

Immigrants break no laws they ever had a chance to democratically vote on. Immigrants are doing exactly what every one of us would do for ourselves and for our families, were we faced with an impossible present and future…and were we as daring and persistent as they.

 

Only the United States spends billions to guard its borders from terrorists (although quite a few nations are presently scrambling to arm themselves against American invasions.) No expensive walls are being built to keep terrorists out of Canada, China, Norway, or Sweden, although each of these countries has a similarly long, porous border. Unlike the U.S.A., however, they have friendly, cooperative foreign policies—i.e., fewer enemies.

 

When we elect leaders committed to creating fewer deadly enemies with hurtful trade and foreign policies, when we generously embrace the world’s problems as our own, then we will spend far less money on war and security, and have more to spend on a better life for ourselves and the immigrants we need to help make this country great again. Hopefully, some day soon, many more of these adventurers will claim for themselves that same bright prize our audacious American forebearers claimed throughout our history, that grandest lottery ticket gamble of all, the chance to win U.S. citizenship.

 

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

America’s Oldest Enemy Batters the Flag

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A sudden thunderstorm caught me as I walked in my neighborhood recently, some weeks after Independence Day. In the calm following the wind and rain, I found myself ducking in and out of yard after yard to indignantly prop up and replant all the little made-in-China plastic flags which had blown over into undignified little crash-sites. I felt a deep sadness at the thought that my country relies upon such a thin, flag-waving kind of patriotism to keep it safe and prosperous in such stormy times. Shallow nationalism can never protect us from the coming tumults of the twenty-first century, because nationalism too often puts short-term national greed and safety above the very reasonable right of all peoples everywhere, ourselves included, to live life in peace, and to build within our own cultural traditions and with the generous and peaceful support of others, ever more justice, freedom, and opportunity.

 

America recently has had a difficult time getting its arms around that oh-so-important concept of a universally agreed-upon, despisable national “enemy.” “Terrorists” and “terrorism” worked for a while, at least so long as people could conceive of unprovoked armies of irrational suicidal Islamic extremist nutcases eager to kill innocents for world domination. Thanks to our still-free press and internet, we are finally learning that what Islam wants most is to be left to live and conduct their own affairs in peace. Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Iranians, Syrians, Lebanese, even members of Hamas and Hezbollah, are not the maniacal fanatics we were once convinced were so envious of our freedoms that they continually plotted to invade America, to randomly kill, destroy, steal our resources, and ravage our way of life.

 

Unfortunately, too many Muslims believe that this is exactly what American leadership is about.

 

Because by flag-waving and fear-mongering, by arguing specialized expertise and inside knowledge, by offering leaky rationales about why America should aggressively “protect” not only our own country but others’ as well, narrow-minded and unrepresentative American leaders sometimes do indeed seem bent upon terrorizing everyone everywhere—Americans included.

 

Who gains from this insanity? A handful of wealthy political insiders and war profiteers who pocket the billions in war money our citizenry pours out—along with our children’s blood—tax money which should have been spent on worthwhile causes at home and abroad, and which is instead buying more fear, and its progeny—anger, vengeance, guilt, cruelty, misery, hatred. Soon, even more of our hard-earned money will be required to restore good will and rebuild destruction, money which will once again fill the coffers of rich opportunists.

 

A tragic result of American expansionism is a generation of angry, fearful, vengeful, polarized American citizens who have swallowed a steady diet of Limbaughesque propaganda justifying endless wars and goading a steady supply of soldiers. I recently heard a caller assert on C-Span that “America has the right to kill every man, woman and child in Lebanon because….” Whatever nonsense followed the word “because,” I shudder to think any human could place his faith in a theory which morally or legally justifies wiping out a whole country. And yet, to many Americans, “Nuke ‘em!” is the final solution to all our political problems.

 

We live in the richest, best-armed, most powerful nation the world has ever known, and yet we have become convinced that we should be the most frightened and the most belligerent.

 

Wiser leaders would work to create a peaceful, helpful, cooperative foreign policy and educational system (beginning by passing the excellent legislation establishing a cabinet-level Department of Peace—(see www.thepeacealliance.org .) We could sustain a patient, accepting American citizenry skilled in peace-making in both their personal and political lives, rather than continually advocate for the morality of threatening and killing as a solution for political challenges. As Islamic nations do, we should condemn all wars except those against invaders who violently attempt to invade and conquer our homelands.

 

Many Christians hope their faith will spread around the world (and many proselytize to spread it); just so do many Muslims hope their faith will eventually prevail globally. No one knows what the future holds, and only time will tell. So far, though, no Muslims (unless you count allies the West selects, empowers, and backs, like Saddam Hussein) violently invade and occupy others’ countries, nor commandeer others’ valuable resources, nor force changes in others’ institutions at the point of a gun.

 

In this heavily-armed world, as in all previous worlds, only one enemy has ever pressed for world domination, only one enemy strives ceaselessly to throw every nation into never-ending inhumane wars. That enemy is neither terrorist, nor fanatic, nor extremist, neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Muslim, neither Fascism, nor Nazism, nor Communism, nor globalization.

 

The common enemy of mankind, the one ever urging us toward war and torture and every other kind of terror, is fear—in all its forms—fear of change, fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of the unknown and unfamiliar and different, fear of want, fear of death and loss, fear of despair, fear of the past, fear of abandonment, fear of guilt and blame, fear of losing control, fear of being helpless and hurt, fear of being wrong….

 

This universal enemy of all mankind—this eternal enemy of Islam and the West alike—will always be fear itself (one name for what many traditional religions call “the devil.”) And what is fear’s remedy? Love, in all its forms—diplomacy, dialogue, negotiation, ideas, faith, hope, trust, cooperation, cultural exchange, understanding, love, kindness, acceptance, forgiveness, peace….

 

The very concept of the word, “enemy,” is itself a fear-based mistake. Instead of “allies” and “enemies,” we could choose—both personally and nationally—to see all people everywhere, ourselves included, as variously falling intermittently into either of two very similar camps—people currently offering help, and people who currently need help.

 

Human beings everywhere quite reasonably wish to preserve what they see as their good old ways, to expand their influence and power, and insure their future security. Yet patriotism/nationalism cannot work, on this small, interconnected, fragile planet, so long as people see “others” of different nations as less valuable, less important, and somehow separate from “us.” Patriotism/nationalism can only fail whenever it stands in opposition to the highest universal human value—support and respect for the quality of human life everywhere. The only rule which works in human relations—both personal and international—is the Golden Rule, treating all others as we would want all others to treat us.

 

Until Americans stand up together in perfect love to courageously cast out fear, until we proudly support the unselfish ideals which unite us all as Americans—the values proclaiming the equality of all men and the inalienable right of all people everywhere to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—America will continue to be vulnerable to a relentless battery of fearful twenty-first century storms.

 

 

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net