Cowardice.
If you're not there at high noon, then, by process of
elimination, you must be a coward. Perhaps in your version of this story, it was a
playground at 3. But no matter. In both cases, there is still the presumption
that something is wrong with you if you don't want to fight.
I am not a pacifist and I am not perfect either. But it doesn't take much to
know that a violent fight that you can escape is likely to be one that you should. There
are only so many possibilities:
1. You hurt someone. Maybe real bad, maybe not. You're not really too hurt and
will be fine in a day or two, but you left them with a broken something or other
and possibly a hefty hospital bill.
2. Someone hurts you. You'll be bruised up for a few days, maybe worse. You're
embarrassed, but at least you showed up...like a man...kept your rep.
3. You both broke the other's skins pretty thoroughly. There's blood scattered
and you don't know whose it is any more. Whatever. Outside the movies and sports
with padding, this type of fight doesn't happen that much (between two people)
because most real fights are awarded to the person who lands the first punch.
That's about it. Those are all the glorious possibilities of "not backing
down." So, pretty obviously, it is sometimes very advantageous to just
allow yourself to be thought a coward and walk away. It's cowardly to run and
hide when a fight is the only way, but it is also cowardly to fight when it is
not needed. What about other times people use the word coward?
Bush.
I remember watching Bush after 9/11 as he condemned the attacks as
"cowardly." Puzzling, I thought to myself, how anyone can possibly
make such an assessment as to call a suicide bomber a coward. I have since then
taken some time to further consider just what makes an act cowardly. According
to Webster's, a coward is "one who shows disgraceful fear or
timidity." But who gets to determine what is disgraceful anyway?
I decided that the true meaning of coward is someone who doesn't do his
best at what he believes is right (because of fear). What really takes guts in this world, what
really separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls, is that one
makes one's best attempt to meet every situation appropriately. "An eye for
eye" was -and is- a pretty harsh statement, and it doesn't always hold up.
There is something less obvious, a full assessment of what is going on around
you, that is necessary to do what is right.
A suicide bomber is invariably a disgrace to some, but he is acting out of a
kind of intense ideology which is pretty far from fear or timidity. On the
opposite end of the spectrum, there may be fear involved to walk out of a fight,
but it is not much different from walking out of the way from a speeding car and
it is not a disgrace.
When you consider the actions of the US President and Co., what is the ideology?
Who is the sacrifice of American youths for? A short profile of actions:
1. Lies - Misleads
congress and American people to make justification for war.
2. Hurts Innocents - Does not
discriminate well between women/children and soldiers. Picks on smaller entities
(entire countries in this case).
3. Uses Fear, Not Logic -
Makes generalizations about a mysterious body called "terror" to
justify actions and obscure truth.
4. Fails to admit mistakes - Seems incapable of admitting a specific misstep,
which is consistent with hiding something (see number 1 above). When you make a
bold statement with serious ramifications for millions of people and it turns
out to be wrong, then you have a responsibility to either say you made a mistake
or be branded a liar.
To this day the only one sentence that nearly says it all is Hillel's, the
golden rule. By the standard set by
the golden rule, the US has been on a dead-end path since 9/11. The reality of
September 11 is that 2,752 people died in an unusual way, but it is also true that 25,000 people
(mostly children) die every day of starvation.
What made this different was the sensationalized news that made American people
aware that it could happen to them. But if our backyard today looked anything
like those of the countries we have since been attacking in a vague terror war,
there is no way we could remain so oblivious to our own action (and inaction).
We've seen plenty of heroes in the movies, and we know what it is to be brave in
our own private lives: to stand up and fight if you believe it's the all-around
best choice, and to stand up and resist fighting otherwise, to build something
meaningfully positive in your life, whether it be a garden, a child, a business,
a deep friendship, a love, a song, or even a silly little blog. And then to
stand behind what you've made.
For a suicide bomber to sacrifice his life for his family is not cowardly (and
takes massive guts), much as it is grotesque to murder innocent people. For a
president to obscure the truth and repeatedly mislead millions of people to
their faces in order to commit the murder of innocents, is not only grotesque
but it is also enormously cowardly.
It's all so annoying and hard to look at, I have found myself being a coward,
ignoring it, and hoping it will go away quickly. I bet you have too. It's just
been going on too long. I'm not saying I know what it is, but we need to stand
up and do something. Conventional wisdom would suggest that a good place
to start is just to look at it and talk about it.
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© 2006 FussyPucker.