Sam Smith
One of the hazards of being a long
time journalist is that you get used to some people doing bad things but
most other people not giving much of a damn. It used to piss me off but
eventually I began to take it for granted. Now I sometimes describe my
efforts as drawing animals on the walls of a Lascaux cave of our time.
Maybe someone will find it; most likely they won't.
Yet,
like Quakers and existentialists, you can still witness, even if you've
lost faith, because it is the only chance you have. You either defend
justice and the right or you become their silent subverter. Besides,
much of what is going wrong is happening in the penumbra of power. If
you live far enough away, live a life well removed, and occupy your mind
with distant thoughts, loves and occupations, there is still much that
sadly you have lost, but you and those around you at least remain
remarkably freer than those caught in the trap at the top.
Rummaging
through the unrecycled trash heap of the First American Republic, there
are little things that still surprise me. Not great catastrophes but
trivial matters that also seem deeply revealing.
Like
the refusal to let a German author into America because of what he had
written about the NSA. Or the Seal kidnappings in countries that are
members of the United Nations but which we now treat as if we're the
Chicago cops of the world and they are just part of the global ghetto.
Or the Clintons thugging a documentary producer out of his efforts
before Hillary Clinton has even announced her campaign.
Small
but nasty stuff that most, from perps to media to public, now just take
as normal - repetitive indicators of how we have given up.
Part
of the dirty little reason for this is because the people who used to
stand up against such things are far more typically afraid. Churches
don't want to lose their members, universities their big bucks from
government and corporations, reporters their jobs, non-profits their
funding from foundations that have become co-conspirators with those
they once challenged,
I have always been fascinated
with stories about, and interviews with, major criminals. How can they
possibly justify such a life style? How do they really feel when they
kill someone? But over time I have learned from these interviews is
that all you have to do is redefine normal and evil becomes just
another routine day. The very absence of concern is what lets them act
the way they do.
This works as well in politics and
not just with Whitey Bulger. Which is why dictatorships often do not
need military force to have their way. All they have to do is to get
people to shrug their shoulders and look someplace else. As the French
say, "It exists."
The big story of America's past few
decades has been the normalization of wrong. We have lost the sort of
major leaders who might challenge it, tell us why it is wrong, and build
alternatives.
To be sure, plenty of the less powerful
are still on the case, but never in my lifetime have I seen such little
support for a better way coming from places like Capitol Hill,
churches, universities, and those folks who dub themselves "public
intellectuals."
But while I'm short on faith, I still
have a few dreams, one of which is that some black, latino, labor,
ecological, youth and women's organizations will finally discover how to
stop defending just their own back yard, and join together in a
movement that will make the Tea Party seem a minor anachronism. The
numbers are there, the will is waiting, and the soul is just slumbering
awaiting the sound of joyous rebellion and creation.
Try it.
And if you need me, you can find me in one of those caves painting animals on the wall.
