Who's Job is it Anyway? by Yana Berlin

Another Cultural Crisis?

SusanHaley

Is America ever going to wake up? Are we beyond the point of all sense and reason? Is it approaching the point where madness has taken over. When I first heard of the unspeakable tragedy at Fort Hood , my first reaction was heartbreak. It seemed that over the course of these non-ending wars that can never be won, the multiple tours away from their homes and families, we had pushed our soldiers toward the precipice of mental breakdown. One had fallen over! That was my initial reaction, just horror and heartbreak.

As the magnitude of the problem continued to sink in, in addition to the heartbreak for the soldiers lost and their families, a sense of shock that this kind of tragedy could happen at a military base in our homeland began to fester into anger unlike any I’ve previously felt for all the preposterous circus sideshows so predominate in our society today. I was beginning to feel an absolute disgust and despair at what we, as a nation, have become. I forced myself to calm down and wait until all the facts were in, knowing in advance, the frenzy that would soon be all over the airwaves. The charges and counter-charges, and the onset of the blame games were so predictable. The extents of them are more absurd than I’d even guessed they would be. It’s as if every time I think it can’t get any worse, it does.

In the midst of all this Fort Hood horror, the radical right, including a good many well-lobbied and paid-for elected officials, are right in the thick of yet more ludicrous ranting and disrespectful rhetoric, replete with downright criminal signs pasted onto sticks dancing up and down over a throng of players dressed like circus clowns. They frolic on the very steps of the United States Capital building where, inside, intelligent debate is supposed to be taking place just to provide the few remaining middle-class working people with affordable healthcare. Fox News carries it all live, although they are later caught running tapes that evening of a huge crowd that was at an entirely different gathering two months before the so called spontaneous revolution on the capital steps. It seems the crowd ballooned from a thousand to over a million depending on which broadcaster you listened to. And our national disgrace, despicable lies and all, is portrayed on screens all over the Globe for the world to see!

Yet, the real kicker was to come this evening for me. Suddenly, my anger and disdain at the National psyche has erupted into full-blown fury. Without reiterating all the information since released in regard to the events at Fort Hood and the Major Hasan who supposedly perpetrated them, the recap interview I heard tonight was the precipice for me. The precipice at which to ‘blow’ any cool I had left!

When asked why the Department of the Army hadn’t done anything about Major Hasan’s status after receiving detailed CIA Intelligence Reports questioning his ever-increasing sympathies with Islamist Extremism? And these, in addition to earlier received reports of substandard performance while at Walter Reed, and pleas by the Major himself NOT to send him to Iraq where he’d be forced to witness the carnage? Again, the question was repeated, “Why didn’t the Department of the Army do something?” It seems, now, that they’ve had this information for several weeks!

Bob Baer, former CIA Intelligence Officer, now a columnist for “Time” magazine answered thusly. “He hadn’t committed a crime and they had,” are you ready for this, “FREEDOM OF SPEECH!” Freedom of Speech? Do you mean to tell me, we aren’t allowed to yell “Fire” in a crowded theatre, but we can rant about a radical Jihad and sympathize with the so called enemy while serving as a MILITARY OFFICER? No action can be taken there, BUT, you and I can be forced to nearly strip down to the flesh, be pulled out of line and interrogated, have our luggage searched and a lousy tube of toothpaste confiscated at some TSA’s random choosing just for attempting to board an aircraft to fly home and see ‘grandma’?! I’ve never heard such ridiculous bull crap in my entire life! And, Mr. Baer defended this based on Law!! Who makes laws that can pick and choose who gets Freedom of Speech and who doesn’t? Another guest, Robert Cressey, former National Security advisor even seemed somewhat lost for words!

When Freedom of Speech allows the havoc and murder of thirteen innocent people, disrespectful behavior on the steps of the capital, bare-faced lies on the airwaves, generates hate and violence, and displays of total ignorance by the populace, it’s no longer a right. It’s depravity. When the Freedom to Bear Arms allows any idiot to walk in and buy a semi-automatic handgun or an AK-47 Assault Rifle, or an uneducated boob to walk into a Presidential address displaying his guns proudly on his hip, it’s no longer a right; it’s a murder weapon. When the “Right to a Fair Trial” becomes a plea-bargaining game between trial lawyers, it’s no longer a right; it is a joke on the tax-paying citizen supporting the judicial mayhem. I’ve never seen in sixty-six years of life the utter disrespect for the Office of the President as I’ve witnessed in the last ten years. I’ve never seen such a huge degree of ignorance, self-centeredness and corruption in the halls of Congress, not that it hasn’t always been there to some degree. I’ve never seen the broadcasting media reduced to such levels of smut gathering and exploitation.

But worst of all, when I see the American citizenry allow it to go on and not demand by the millions, just for starters, fairness and decorum, honesty and credentials, demand intelligent debate, raise a cry of anger as their religious faiths are manipulated to serve politicians, and their tax dollars go to pay for continual and endless wars for oil and nation building, then I know we are lost. Considering what was done to the Native Americans and the Blacks, maybe we’ve never been ‘found’. Either way, we have, definitely, passed the point of no return. When we as a nation, are willing to settle for this kind of behavior and treatment, we deserve everything we get. You see, this government IS created by the people; even if it’s people doing absolutely nothing. It is created by the people who rally together and vote an individual into office, and then demand everything to change to suit only them overnight or withdraw their support and rant with the rest. It’s created by those who immediately put up walls determined to block any progress away from their own self interests. It’s created by those who buy into all the lies and the slander without checking and researching the information for themselves. To be blatant, it’s created by ignorance, laziness, and lack of simple manners on how to behave. It’s created by demanding rights that don’t even apply to the principle behind them.

So, at this moment, not only am I NOT proud to be an American, I’m even less proud to be a member of the human race.

Susan Haley

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