But it seems as if people expend more psychic energy avoiding issues than facing them (we're all familiar with the image of the 800-pound gorilla). Actually, I'm probably projecting, because most people aren't even aware that, between the economy, Iraq and an impending attack on Iran, we're in dire straits. It's not so much that the mass media fails to cover these issues, it's that it fails to infuse them with urgency.
A case can be made that ignoring the world's problems is a statement that one chooses to live as normal a life as possible in the face of a world gone made. But, after a while, every human activity outside of job or money-making endeavors begins to seem like an excuse to avoid the world's problems. Worse, one can't help drawing the conclusion that if those who indulge in violent entertainment paid any attention to war and terrorism in real life, their appetite for carnage would be too sated to seek out more in movies, TV or video games.
Most symbolic of the public's apathy is its indifference to bin Laden remaining at large. Who could have guessed that it would prove more prevalent than bias toward American Muslims, which materialized on a much less widespread basis than feared after 9/11?
We leave public affairs in the hands of those who supposedly know better -- as if they were specialists for diseases of the body politic. It's no different from entrusting ourselves to managed-care doctors, whose primary concern is billing their HMOs, not our general health. Worse, we not only allow the barbarism unleashed in our names in Iraq to continue, but to start anew in Iran.
Those I've drawn out on that possibility inevitably reply, "Oh, they'd never do that. They're too bogged down in Iraq." As if by simply entertaining the idea of attacking Iran the administration isn't giving them ample evidence that it stands ready and willing to surpass the irrationality it demonstrated in invading Iraq.
As K. Darbandi writes of the administration's plans for Iran on Asia Times Online: "To the amazement of many, it seems as if the political space is there for the administration of President George W Bush to keep pounding the war drums. . . the US public is hardly blinking."
It's our prerogative if we don't want to wake up until our lives are turned upside down. But there's no greater tribute we can pay to the memories of those who died on 9/11 than to ensure more lives aren't lost to American foreign policy blunders.
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