It is Pat Tillman’s birthday November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice…. until we get out.
In my experiences overseas, I learned early on that advertising the fact that I’m an American iss not a way to increase my personal security. It’s been a long, long time since Americans were universally loved. Those of who have travelled overseas, particularly through the Middle East, understand this reality all too well. Americans are often seen (whether with justification or not) as boorish, overbearing bullies, too often ignorant of and unconcerned with local customs and beliefs. Sadly, for the past five-plus years, we’ve enabled a President who’s not only reinforced the outside world’s impressions of us, he’s steadily reinforced them. The truly sad thing is that more than 54 million of y’all voted for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader in 2004, which really only points up how ignorant, intolerant, and undemanding the majority of this country truly is. Is it any wonder the rest of the world roundly detests us?
I make no apologies for being an American. I was fortunate enough to be born a citizen of the greatest, most successful, and most powerful country in the world. What too many of us seem to have forgotten, though, is the reality that to whom much is given much is expected. Economic success and material wealth should not be used to insulate us from the rest of the world. Indeed, most Americans neither know nor care what is happening outside our borders. As a nation, we’ve become so arrogant and self-absorbed that, as long as we’re #1, nothing else matters. We’ve given up our voice. The death of Pat Tillman and thousands of other American servicemen and women are proof of that. We’ve allowed our sons and daughters to be sacrificed on the altar of…well, of what, really? From where I sit, it’s all about arrogance, self-righteousness, greed, and political power. As we idly sit by, waiting for the next episode of Deal or No Deal, we’re allowing our nation to develop into a budding theocracy.
Is this what our sons and daughters are dying for?
Former Major League Baseball player Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother, former NFL player Pat, in 2002. Like so many Americans, they wanted to help; they wanted to be there in what they saw as our nation’s hour of need. Unfortunately, Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan was the result of friendly fire. While tragic (and even though the Army covered up the truth), Pat Tillman’s death could be and was used to serve the greater good: the lie that the war against terrorism was being pursued and prsecuted in a manner that would make Americans proud. It’s a nice thought, to be sure, but it’s just so much propaganda.
Upon his return home, Kevin Tillman began to look around, to take stock of what and who he had been defending. It’s a phenomenon the Chinese call “seeing with new eyes.” What Tillman saw with those “new eyes” left him shaken and disturbed.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers who die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.
The deeper we sink into the quagmire of Iraq, the more important it becomes to Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader to “stay the course”, to “complete the mission”, to “secure victory”. Isn’t it interesting that a President who used his family’s influence to avoid service in Vietnam sees no conflict with sending an ever-growing number of brave Americans to their senseless, pointless deaths? Isn’t it disturbing how closely the war in Iraq now resembles the war in Vietnam. It’s like deja vu all over again.
And isn’t it sad how we have allowed this to happen without so much as a doubt arising in the pointly li’l heads of so many millions of Americans? OF COURSE I SUPPORT OUR TROOPS; CAN’T YOU SEE THE MAGNETIC RIBBONS ON MY MINIVAN?? DO YOU WANT THE TERRORISTS TO WIN??
It seems that we’re willing to tolerate anything- any crime, any lie, any talking point- if it’s couched in terms of protecting us from the terrorists.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.
Somehow, we have become, instead of a shining beacon of freedom and opportunity, a sad example of fear, reaction, and xenophobic intolerance. We have allowed our government and our country to be hijacked by a cabal of nationalistic, theocratic thugs whose inspiration seems to be Josef Goebbels and Hermann Goering.
So what exactly is it that Pat Tillman and so many other Americans have died for? If any of y’all have an answer to that question, I’m all ears.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.
The beautiful thing about this country is that when things do get to be seriously out of whack, there is a mechanism available to us to fix the problem. It’s called an election, and two weeks from Tuesday another one comes around. We can still say “enough”, we can still take our country back from the thugs, the criminals, and the cowards who have hijacked it. We can do this if we take a look around us and admit that we have let things slide for too long now. We can still make a difference…if we choose to. Yes, two weeks until Election Days is still a long time, and much can still happen, but when you look around, how can you not be angry with the current state of affairs?
WAKE UP SHEEPLE!! IT’S TIME TO STAND UP AND BE HEARD!!
