It Occurred To Me...
There are two reasons why activist efforts to halt the inertia of the Empire have failed and will continue to fail: human nature, and human nature.
Activists all over the political spectrum are flailing about in the post-9/11 world, spinning wheels, and throwing out idea after idea without a unifying principle or a clearly stated goal. As has happened so many times before with the victims of a dozen other instances of government criminality, the new victims make mistakes that have been made before, put their faith in strategies that have been tried before, and discount the wisdom and experience of those who have suffered before. Human nature says that it is wrong to criticize victims. Yet the new ones make a habit of ignoring the old ones, only to be replaced and forgotten when the next, inevitably greater, crime takes place.
Each time a new tragedy strikes, whether it be 9/11, TWA 800 (a Navy shootdown), CIA involvement in drug trafficking, Iran-Contra, Waco, The Savings and Loan Scandal, the Enron shareholders, the Gander crash, or any of a dozen other events in recent history, a new crop of people is instantly and brutally transformed from people who once trusted the system into people who have been betrayed by it. Psychologically and emotionally raped, they rage. They vow to fight. The need to make the system that failed them work as they were “taught” becomes a new imperative for their sanity and emotional stability. They must believe that they can make people listen to them, that they can “fix” it.
When, therefore, others who have been brutalized before them present themselves with valuable experience and try to explain the lay of the land, the new victims are faced with the awful responsibility of acknowledging that they themselves had not listened or responded when their predecessors cried out for help. They had been just as quick to say “I'm too busy” or “That's a bunch of b.s. It couldn't be that way.” Yet it is. The new victims had once been as deaf as the rest of the world now appears to them. Still they clutch at straws and cling to the illusion that “this time it will be different”. For their own sanity they must ignore the reality of the people who came before them, when to listen and learn might provide a unifying, if terrifying, focus that might ensure success. All it takes is courage and a good map .
