The question mark is most significant. Have we reached a tipping point? That point where a single email, letter, or phone call to our Senator or Congressperson or the White House turns the tide, for at least this once, away from our knee jerk response of letting the missiles fly? We'll know in a few days. For now, let's hope so.
I understand the impulse, believe me. Were some entrepreneur holding a raffle for the opportunity to push the button that blows Assad and his generals to Hell, I'd lay down a twenty in the blink of an eye. "Tickets please!"
Watching children writhing on the floor in obvious pain, foaming at the mouth, mothers and fathers helplessly hovering over them, powerless, filled with a sorrowful rage experienced by far too many in this already too death laden century. There are moments when outrage is the only appropriate emotional response to the madness of one man's will to power. This is one of them. So my gut tells me, go ahead, push the button; let the missiles fly.
But our response to atrocities cannot be guided by anger alone. Though anger is a positive emotion, it can become dangerous when improperly channeled. Anger can be a good servant, spurring us to action, fueling the fires even of righteous indignation, stoking the adrenaline rush that compels us to write that email, make that call, join the marches on the common, swallow our fears and get up on that stump in the public square to make our case. So far so good. Every once in a while we need something to move us to get up off the couch to go and do. Videos of gassed children will do it every time.
If it doesn't, there is something seriously askew in your moral compass. You need to take your soul to the shop. You're empathy isn't firing on all cylinders.
Yet here anger's appropriateness ends. Like a river, even the most appropriate sense of outrage becomes dangerous when it overflows its banks. Like any emotion, anger is a good servant but a terrible taskmaster. When it overflows even the most righteous rage turns destructive. We become the very thing we hate. Looking at the one we most despise, we confront our own darkness. The mirror does not lie. I am no stranger to the monster. What lurks in him, I know, lurks also within me.
Before we push the button, best to push the breaks. Let's slow things down a little, lest we cross the line. (Ever notice how leaders love lines?) Let's consider this, widen the dialogue, ask the people, consult leaders of the faiths, the people on the ground, ask for a show of hands. Maybe there's a better way. Maybe there isn't.
One thing for sure, when indulged the rush to military action most always turns out badly. Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention other graveyards, loom large in the rearview mirror. History runs off the laws of unintended consequences. Missiles are not that precise. At best, they launch with a tag that reads, "To Whom This May Concern." You cannot avenge dead children with more of the same. The Bastard is already moving his armaments into neighborhoods and school yards.
Before the rivers of rage overflow their banks, it's time to call the people to the river to fill a few sandbags, buy some time, let caution prevail. Indecision, though messy, isn't always a bad thing. Public debate, votes in Senate and House, editorials, articles, and blogs and speeches and commentaries; they may not stir the blood but may keep so much of it from being spilt.
Let's hope we've reached that tipping point. The moment when we continue a time of considered reflection before letting the missiles fly or sending in the troops. There are other options. Chief among them finding consensus among a majority of nations to isolate a rogue leader without leaving the country in rubble with even more civilians dead in the streets. There just may be a way forward without bombs and bullets and poison gas.
So make the call, send the email, get up on the stump, join the march, speak your truth to power. Every crisis is an opportunity to find a better way of getting things done. Participate in democracy. The future of the world is too important to be left to the decisions of a powerful few.
The Jawbone
