Reason and fear about extremists, torture and Guantanamo

Earlier this morning President Obama calmly and forcefully presented his position on abandoning torture, closing Guantanamo and working together for a secure future. His talk and his tone reassured me about his commitment to the rule of law and gave me hope that he might dampen the fires of fear which have driven us apart as a nation. Then Dick Cheney, with the anger and self-righteousness of an extremist, showed how fragile my hope was when he gave his fear mongering and demonizing speech filled with mockery of all opponents and of moderation itself, straw men, half-truths and probable falsehoods, false choices and innuendo.

Even though I’ve been around a long time and have the tools to filter out emotion and search for reason and probable truths, Cheney’s speech got under my skin and I found myself angry, frustrated, and sad; angry at him for the damage he continues to do because he places his convictions above all others-just as I am angry at terrorists who self-righteously kill and maim the innocent because they put their beliefs above all others- angry at myself for not processing his talk more constructively, frustrated because I know how effective his talk will be in appealing to our more fearful and childish instincts- especially as it gets taken up and placed on an equal footing with the President’s by a host of political and media enablers who blur the facts and flame the emotions- and sad because I personally have long time friends who love their country and yet swallow Cheney’s drivel hook-line-and sinker. The politics of fear has already driven wedges between me and some of my friends and I’m not sure how to keep these friendships and my own sense of values; I feel sadly vulnerable.

I have believed, since 9/11/2001 that the real threat to our country came from our reaction to the attack, not from the attack itself. In October 2004, I wrote an essay Why I Wont Vote for George Bush which includes the following:

I see in the tragedy of 9/11 a haunting congruence between the World Trade Center and our country. The WTC buildings did not collapse as a direct result of the planes’ impacts; our country will not collapse as a direct result of terrorist attacks. The twin towers demolished themselves when heat from the fires on their upper floors critically weakened their infrastructures. The fires raged for more than 30 minutes before each of the two buildings collapsed. It was the buildings’ own (centralized and hierarchical) potential energies, systematically created during their 10 year construction process which became the chaotic kinetic energy which destroyed them and killed over 2700 people.

 Our nation has been constructed like the World Trade Center. It is hierarchical and centralized. Its infrastructures are physical and mental. They include our political, legal, economic and belief systems. These infrastructures have been erected over the last three centuries to contain and control the physical and mental energies that keep our civilization working.

Since 9/11, we have seen the fires of fear burn and soften our beliefs about openness, trust and equality before the law. We have seen our political reaction take shape as a war to eliminate all terrorists at home and abroad and as a fight against an “axis of evil.” Public expectations and political reactions, particularly those of the Bush administration, have already weakened the social and personal infrastructures upon which our democracy rests. Enormous budget deficits, record trade deficits and massive borrowings by the federal government and by homeowners have likewise weakened our economic infrastructure.

We must respond effectively to terrorist threats and to economic problems, but in a way that doesn’t self destruct our civilization. Our obsession with terrorism is seductive; it enables us to self-righteously convert “them” while ignoring the urgent need to convert ourselves.

Untangling the extremist mess in our country- which means to help extremists choose to become moderates rather than merely changing causes- will take years of hard work, patience and vulnerability by people of good will; Obama can’t do it alone. For anyone who cares about the future of our Democracy, for ultimately that is what is at stake far more than our security, I again urge a thorough study of that classic volume on fanatics “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer.  He not only describes the fundamental motivations of extremists, he describes how extremist movements have been morphed into productive ones by “practical men of action.” It is a blueprint for how to morph our extremist inspired “war on terror” into a productive movement. If you’d like to discuss that book or challenge Hoffer’s assertions, feel free to reply. Perhaps we can generate healthy and useful exchanges.