Ben Stein gives us the bad medicine we need

Yes, it’s horrible tasting stuff, this piece by Ben Stein in the NY Times, but it’s got to be had, if we’re ever going to be a healthy society, again.

Now, who’s fighting for us in the fight of our lives? Brave, idealistic Southerners. Hispanics from New Mexico. Rural men and women from upstate New York. Small-town boys and girls from the Midwest. Do the children of the powers on Wall Street resign to go off and fight? Fight for the system that made them rich? Fight for the way of life that made them princes? Surely, you jest.

And that’s the essence. The other side considers it a privilege to fight and die for its beliefs. Those on the other side cannot wait to line up to blow themselves up for their vision of heaven. On our side, it’s: “Let the other poor sap do it. I’ve got to make money.” How can we fight this fight with the brightest and best educated rushing off and working night and day to do private equity deals and derivatives trading? How can we fight this fight with the ruling class absent by its own sweet leave?

I keep thinking, again, that if Israel, with its back to the sea, cannot muster the will to fight in a big way, then the fat, faraway U.S.A. will never be able to do it. I keep saying this and it terrifies me.

We’re in a war with people who want to kill us all and wreck our civilization. They’re taking it very seriously. We, on the other hand, are worrying about leveraged buyouts and special dividends and how much junk debt the newly formed private entity can support before we sell it to the ultimate sucker, the public shareholder.

We’re worrying whether Hollywood will forgive Mel Gibson and what the next move is for big homes in East Hampton. We’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The terrorists are the iceberg.

Funnily enough, I was thinking about this over the weekend as I watched the Yankees sweep the Boston Red Sox. I looked at Derek Jeter and thought…I love him, but why isn’t he in the service?

Read all of Stein’s piece. My Li’l Bro Thom and I were yakking over it and he (a center-left lib who does not like Stein, btw) said Stein was “absolutely right.” We decided that there is plenty of blame to go around for the incredible disconnect that exists between the reality of what President Bush has called this “long slog” of a war against terrorism and Islamofascism, and our day-to-day lives.

Fault President Bush in both a negative and positive sense: In a positive sense, it can be said that he has “done his job too well, has made us feel too safe,” so much so that we’ve grown terribly complacent and lost sight of the enemy. Tax cuts, low unemployment, the dow is at 11,000, everyone is buying new houses, new cars…no, it sure doesn’t FEEL like a war. For all that the opposition insists that “Bush has made us less safe,” the fact is, we’re feeling pretty darn safe…probably too safe.

In a negative sense Bush might be faulted because in trying to reassure the country that terrorism could be defeated he underplayed the need for some sort of national sacrifice and told us to “go about your business.” Immediately after 9/11, one can understand why he said that: the airlines were in trouble, the economy could have faltered tremendously if panic had been allowed to set in, the situation itself was unprecedented…but in hindsight perhaps we can say, “he should have taken that opportunity to implore young people to take a few years off from college, to serve the country,” that might have spurred a few of what Stein calls the “ruling class” types to do what JFK and George H.W. Bush and so many other upper echelon folk did in World War II: find their inner hero.

But there is plenty of blame to go around as to why we seem not to understand, or have the belly for, this fight:

Fault the politicians who – as did Harry Reid when the Sky Terror story broke – too quickly move beyond the seriousness of a matter to indulge their taste for political exploitation. They’ve made the threat of Islamofascist terrorism seem like a simple game of oneupsmanship that can be won on rhetoric, and not much else.

Fault the press who have all but embargo’ed 9/11 footage and rarely use the words “terrorist attack.”

Fault the pundits and bloggers (on both sides) who – rather than really talk about the threats to us – have been content to simply play “us good, other side bad” politics.

We seem to forget that what we are dealing with has never had to be dealt with before. We just go on vacation and grumble that we wish things would go back to the way they were, but they never will, and this particular status quo cannot be maintained forever. Terrorists are going to win or we are, it’s that simple. Something’s got to give.

I don’t know the answer. Clearly Bush didn’t do everything right. But no one else did, either. Bush and Blair have been unshakeable in their convictions – they’ve told us for 5 years that this war is far from over – and for it they are hated. The children of the military-hating baby-boomers have not been raised to love “God and Country” but to love first themselves. The whole 1980’s and 1990’s were taken up with “love yourself, do for yourself, take care of YOU” thinking…that doesn’t translate into “I think I’ll join the service.”

So maybe we’re all at fault, generations upon generations of us.

I hate bad medicine. What a downer.

On a more upbeat note, Jesuit Paul McNellis is also exploring the role of the hero and who it is keeping us safe, and considering Oliver Stone’s “9/11”:
Courage as a virtue is increasingly misunderstood in our society, especially among the keyboard class. As our lives become more comfortable and protected, we forget who does the protecting. A better understanding of this might bring solace to those family members whose lost loved ones are not explicitly mentioned in this film.