A friend messages: “Aren’t you bothered by the fact that at a time when too many children in
\nthis country go to bed hungry, when senior citizens cannot afford medical care, when soldiers are
\nbeing sent home from Iraq in boxes, the U.S. Senate held public hearings on college football’s
\nBowl Championship Series? And you wonder why people blandly accept George W. Bush? We’ve
\nexactly the government we deserve.”<\/P>
\n
That got me to thinking: Have you reached the point of talking back to the network television Lately, whenever the just-passed $87 billion appropriation for Iraq is mentioned, and
\nnews programs? I have … whenever Gee Dubya Shrub comes on to tell me how wonderful things
\nare in that
\nRummy comes on shows like “Name That Tune” — sorry, “This Week” and “Meet the Press” — to
\nsay how
\ndowning of a helicopter) are “necessary.” <\/P>
\n
\nespecially when the $20 billion grant is mentioned, an involuntary reaction wells up. Nasty words
\nform like cartoon bubbles on my lips. This sort of backtalk is no help of course, only a symptom
\nof my desperation. It’s a measure of outrage and frustration lying too close to the surface.<\/P>
\n
\na majority of Americans are beginning to feel the same way (scroll down to fourth
\nparagraph)<\/I>. The reason — and here I’m taking the liberty of excerpting the words and
\ntransposing the reference points of one of the great writers of the 20th century — is that almost
\nevery American between the end of World War II and 9\/11<\/B> lived in the tacit belief that
\ncivilization would last forever. You might be individually fortunate or unfortunate but you had
\ninside you the feeling that nothing would ever fundamentally change. But since 9\/11<\/B> that
\nsense of security has not existed. Osama bin Laden and the terrorist jihad<\/B> shattered it as
\nthe Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis and even Vietnam<\/B> had failed to shatter it. We’ve
\nbeen living in a world in which not only one’s life but one’s whole scheme of values is constantly
\nmenaced. In such circumstances detachment is not possible. You cannot take a purely aesthetic
\ninterest in a disease you are dying from; you cannot feel dispassionately about a man who is about
\nto cut your throat.<\/P>
\n