Sacrifice and the Man Behind the Curtain
It has been a measure of courage and patriotism trumpeted by Mr. Happy and so many others since the terrorist attack in September, 2001, that Americans should not change their daily lives or habits. “The terrorists will have won,” we’ve been told. “Don’t worry, Mr. and Mrs. America, we’ll take care of everything and you don’t need to pay attention to the man behind the curtain.”
He flew onto the deck of that carrier to proclaim “Mission Accomplished” after he and the neo-cons conned us into the Iraq war that has cost us so many lives and hundreds of billion of dollars. As Keith Olbermann reminds us at the end of his show Countdown on MSNBC, that was on May 1, 2003, and 1875 days have passed since that event. The carrier was the USS Abraham Lincoln.
In an earlier time, another president took a different tact when it came to sacrifice, and no one has ever questioned his courage or patriotism. On April 28, 1942, just over four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt asked just that of his fellow Americans:
“Here at home everyone will have the privilege of making whatever self-denial is necessary, not only to supply our fighting men, but to keep the economic structure of our country fortified and secure during the war and after the war. This will require, of course, the abandonment not only of luxuries but of many other creature comforts. Every loyal American is aware of his individual responsibility.”
Americans listened to him, heeded his words, and felt good about themselves and what they did to aid in our country’s battle for peace. Unfortunately, we have listened to Mr. Happy and heeded his words since the 2001 attack, and I wonder how many of us today are feeling good about what we have done in the last 7 years. The latest political opinion polls show the economy as the most important issue on American minds at the moment, even as we are at war. What does that say about us?
We’ve spent whether we had it or not. We’ve allowed unscrupulous lenders to rope unthinking borrowers into bad loans that have helped crush the housing industry. We’ve continued to buy and drive gas guzzling vehicles even as we watched the price of gasoline rise above $4 a gallon. Mr. Happy’s government has chipped away at constitutional rights while we simply went on with our lives mostly oblivious to the erosion of those basic principles. Please feel free to add your own item to this list.
Our economy has suffered as a result of “preventing the terrorists from winning,” and in the process we have allowed them to win in a sense. Recession and precipitous rate drops will now be followed by inflation and a tightening of money. Mother nature has dealt us a severe blow, too, and the destruction of corn crops will push up all food and gasoline prices (corn is used to produce ethanol, which in turn is used in the production of gasoline).
In 1942, we had a president who called upon us to make sacrifices for our country. When the current president failed to step up with that same courage and leadership, our foolishness as a nation forced sacrifice upon us. His failure, and ours, to grasp the consequences of his actions in the last seven years now requires us to accept less as an integral part of our lives today.
More than 4100 of our brothers and sisters have made the ultimate sacrifice under his watch, and ours, while we simply went on with our lives, hearing only what we wanted to hear from the man behind the curtain. Yes, it is true that more than 80% of us now believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, but where have we been for the last seven years? There’s only so much we can blame on Mr. Happy before we must take responsibility ourselves.
This little economic pickle we find ourselves in, well, all things considered, we did it to ourselves. Now we have no choice but to make sacrifices, all the while hoping it is not too late.
Political Commentary, Social Observations | Harrison | June 18, 2008
[...] Sacrifice and the Man Behind the Curtain When the current president failed to step up with that same courage and leadership, our foolishness as a nation forced sacrifice upon us. His failure, and ours, to grasp the consequences of his actions in the last seven years now … [...]