I felt some ambivalence at first.
Not about the fact that our military killed him – that clearly had to be done. Someone who thinks it’s a good idea to blow up innocent people he’s never met, just to give the finger to a country he doesn’t like, is dangerously insane. And I’m certainly not shedding any tears for the guy. He pulled the strings of an organization that destroyed many innocent people, and destroyed part of my hometown. He told people that these murders were a holy mission – a blasphemy so huge I’m amazed he wasn’t struck by lightning decades ago. (Clearly, God the merciful, the compassionate is more patient than I am). And while bin Laden sent people to kill and die for him, he didn’t have the balls to put his own life on the line – hid behind a woman in the end, to try and manipulate the SEALs into holding their fire. Certainly, this is someone who couldn’t be allowed to continue breathing, and I’m glad he’s gone.
I can hardly even think of this as the necessary killing of a fellow human. He’d already killed everything about himself that was human. Compassion, honor, love, courage, even the basic idea that human life is valuable… he’d systematically uprooted all these things from himself. What the SEALs shot was all that was left - a clever, malicious animal. It’s horrible to say this, but it’s as if his soul was already in Hell decades before his body joined it. The sooner such an existence is ended, the better.
No, it’s not the fact that our military executed bin Laden that I was ambivalent about. I was ambivalent about our response.
Certainly, we have a right to be relieved, and we have a right to feel satisfied that we did something that had to be done. But all-night parties to celebrate his death did look a little too much like the kind of thing his followers were doing 10 years ago in September.
And it’s not that I worry about how the Muslim world will see us. Certainly it’s not good that young, angry Muslims who’ve heard the guy’s rhetoric are watching us celebrate his death, and comparing it to how the terrorists celebrated the fall of the Towers. But: The sane Muslims already understand that the guy was crazy and needed to be removed, and understand why we’re glad he’s gone – many of them are probably glad too, since he’s no longer around to give decent Muslims a bad name. The ones on the fringe that want to find reasons to believe that he was right about us… they’d find reasons even if we declared a national day of prayer for his soul. The people who will treat him as a martyr would have done so even if he’d died in bed from kidney failure.
My only concern about celebrating is this: We ought to be better than what we’re fighting against. If we’re celebrating because we won and someone else lost, that’s a problem. If we’re celebrating because we are more efficient killers than our enemies, that’s a problem. If we’re celebrating revenge, that’s a problem.
But if we’re celebrating because we see this as a step closer to the day that the killing will stop – what’s not to celebrate?
Myself, the thing that makes me want to celebrate is this thought: In 1945, Germany was an enemy, bankrupt, and run by madmen. After the madmen were killed, Germany became an ally, prosperous, and run by sane people. There are still neo-Nazis, but they no longer get to speak or act on Germany’s behalf – the decent, sane people do.* I want to celebrate the hope that the same thing can happen for Iraq and Afghanistan over the next 50 years, now that their insane leaders have been destroyed and the decent, sane people will have a chance. Imagine our grandchildren going backpacking through the Middle East, and finding it a safe and welcoming place. It seems far-fetched right now. But then, our grandparents never would have expected American teenagers to be doing this in Germany.
I think we can and should express joy and relief that we’re a little bit safer now. I think we can and should celebrate that a long and costly battle, which we were unwillingly dragged into, is a tiny step closer to being over. I think we can and should treat his death the way we would treat the execution of any other sociopathic killer – as a necessary act, the sad culmination of the sad fact that there’s no other possible way to prevent this particular criminal from committing any more crimes. And perhaps Christians may even hold the hope that in the last moments of bin Ladin’s life, there was a second’s remorse, a moment when he had enough humanity to be sorry, maybe even enough time to repent. (They’d be better Christians than I am… but I hope there are Christians like that somewhere out there.)
I did start off feeling that dancing in the streets was going too far. We were horrified by this behavior when it was the other side doing it – is it okay now just because it’s us doing it? But thinking it over, I don’t think that those people were dancing for the same reason that jihadists danced when the Towers fell. The jihadists danced because they were glad that enemies died. Those college kids on the lawn of the White House danced because they were glad that a threat to their own safety, and the safety of their loved ones, has been removed. There’s a difference.
So really, I don’t think anyone needs to feel guilty about celebrating. Hatemongering, that’s something that needs to stop, no matter who does it. But celebrating a step towards ending a war – celebrating a step towards peace – that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Even so, I really love this about our country: We may be the only people on earth who would even bother to ask ourselves whether it’s okay to celebrate killing an enemy. We as a society are asking the question, because it’s more important to us to be good people than it is to win. God bless America for that.
*As decent and sane as politicians get, anyway...
Copyright John M. Munzer
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Next time they threaten a shut-down...
I think we should do to Congress what any other employers would do if their employees were striking and refusing to budge on negotiations.
We stop paying them, and we hire scabs to fill in for them.
But where to find the scabs? It may be difficult to find people willing to fill in at a job where the pay is quite decent, the benefits are huge, the interns are willing, your employers don't actually know what you do and don't really expect anything from you, and you can't get fired for at least four years unless you're actually caught on camera sacrificing children (and even then, it depends which children).
Still, in this economy, SOMEONE will be willing to take on the burden.
We stop paying them, and we hire scabs to fill in for them.
But where to find the scabs? It may be difficult to find people willing to fill in at a job where the pay is quite decent, the benefits are huge, the interns are willing, your employers don't actually know what you do and don't really expect anything from you, and you can't get fired for at least four years unless you're actually caught on camera sacrificing children (and even then, it depends which children).
Still, in this economy, SOMEONE will be willing to take on the burden.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Tell them who to be
We tell each other who to become.
I have very clear memories from early childhood of particular times that people told me I was smart, or kind, or good. And at those critical moments, I began to identify myself as smart, kind, good. Sometimes it was a parent, sometimes it was another relative or authority figure, sometimes it was a peer. But wherever the message originated, after hearing that message at that critical point, I began to tell MYSELF that I was these things… and began working to become smarter, kinder, better.
I became who I was told to be.
Who knows what might have happened if I’d heard different messages? Might I have become athletic if someone had caught the right moment to tell me I was strong, or fast? And what would have happened if, when I made a mistake, someone had told me I was bad, or stupid, at a moment when I was prepared to believe it?
I know the answer to that question, because I’ve met those kids in the course of my job, the ones who were told they were bad and stupid. And they work as hard as they can to be what someone – maybe maliciously, maybe just thoughtlessly - told them to be, so long ago they probably don’t even remember it.
We tell each other who to become.
That gives us an unbelievable, God-like power. I can literally create a human being with a word. I can speak, and command a person to be a saint, or a sociopath - and it will be so, if I speak at the right moment. That is a terrifying responsibility. Who have I told you to be? Who am I telling my wife, my child, my co-workers, my clients, to be?
We must tell our fellow beings, especially children, to become the best that it is in them to be. And we must tell them ALL THE TIME. Because we never know which is that all-important moment when we can tell them who to be.
© John M. Munzer
I have very clear memories from early childhood of particular times that people told me I was smart, or kind, or good. And at those critical moments, I began to identify myself as smart, kind, good. Sometimes it was a parent, sometimes it was another relative or authority figure, sometimes it was a peer. But wherever the message originated, after hearing that message at that critical point, I began to tell MYSELF that I was these things… and began working to become smarter, kinder, better.
I became who I was told to be.
Who knows what might have happened if I’d heard different messages? Might I have become athletic if someone had caught the right moment to tell me I was strong, or fast? And what would have happened if, when I made a mistake, someone had told me I was bad, or stupid, at a moment when I was prepared to believe it?
I know the answer to that question, because I’ve met those kids in the course of my job, the ones who were told they were bad and stupid. And they work as hard as they can to be what someone – maybe maliciously, maybe just thoughtlessly - told them to be, so long ago they probably don’t even remember it.
We tell each other who to become.
That gives us an unbelievable, God-like power. I can literally create a human being with a word. I can speak, and command a person to be a saint, or a sociopath - and it will be so, if I speak at the right moment. That is a terrifying responsibility. Who have I told you to be? Who am I telling my wife, my child, my co-workers, my clients, to be?
We must tell our fellow beings, especially children, to become the best that it is in them to be. And we must tell them ALL THE TIME. Because we never know which is that all-important moment when we can tell them who to be.
© John M. Munzer
Monday, December 6, 2010
Give a man a fish?
The old, old debate continues – how much help ought we to give people using tax money? The current variation on the debate is the unemployment benefits question. On the radio today, someone said we shouldn’t extend benefits any further because “If someone will come to your house every day and give you fish, you have no incentive to go out and catch your own fish. But if the only way for you to get fish is by getting it yourself, you’ll find a way. Even if it means learning new ways to fish – if fishhooks aren’t working, you’ll make a spear, or a net.”
That analogy is all right, as far as it goes. But, the reality is that unemployment is not enough money to make it more attractive than employment. Sure, we’re giving the man a fish, but it’s a minnow. He can’t live on minnows. The point of the minnow is to keep him alive long enough to go catch a salmon, or maybe he can use the minnow as bait for the salmon. If we have a minnow to spare, we should give the guy a damn fish so he'll eat for today.
The real problem is, we as a society are out of minnows. We don’t even have enough to sustain the people who are incapable of fishing – the people whose physical, cognitive, or mental health disabilities render them unable to go out and get a job that pays enough to support them. We haven’t got enough minnows to feed them, or to pay the people who bring them minnows. So we REALLY don’t have enough minnows for the people who could fish for themselves. Certainly not for over 10% of the population, for over two years per person.
Ordinarily, I lean hard Left on these issues. But to my own surprise, I’m thinking the Right has a point for once. I don’t agree that the people who are unemployed are lazy, or don’t want to work. Everyone with half a brain cell would rather catch salmon than wait for someone else to bring them a minnow. If they need a minnow to sustain them while they fish for salmon, I’d like to be able to offer them one - as well as a new rod, a tackle box, and some fishing lessons. But, as the Right points out, we’re out of minnows. So, I’d like us to save the few minnows we have for those people who need them most.
Mind you, if (God forbid) my own job goes away and I find the fish aren’t biting, I may feel differently about the question. But regardless of how I feel, it will still be true that we ought to give the minnows to those who can’t fish, first. The ones who can fish may need to find different streams or learn different fishing styles. But the ones who can’t fish need the minnows to live.
© John M. Munzer
That analogy is all right, as far as it goes. But, the reality is that unemployment is not enough money to make it more attractive than employment. Sure, we’re giving the man a fish, but it’s a minnow. He can’t live on minnows. The point of the minnow is to keep him alive long enough to go catch a salmon, or maybe he can use the minnow as bait for the salmon. If we have a minnow to spare, we should give the guy a damn fish so he'll eat for today.
The real problem is, we as a society are out of minnows. We don’t even have enough to sustain the people who are incapable of fishing – the people whose physical, cognitive, or mental health disabilities render them unable to go out and get a job that pays enough to support them. We haven’t got enough minnows to feed them, or to pay the people who bring them minnows. So we REALLY don’t have enough minnows for the people who could fish for themselves. Certainly not for over 10% of the population, for over two years per person.
Ordinarily, I lean hard Left on these issues. But to my own surprise, I’m thinking the Right has a point for once. I don’t agree that the people who are unemployed are lazy, or don’t want to work. Everyone with half a brain cell would rather catch salmon than wait for someone else to bring them a minnow. If they need a minnow to sustain them while they fish for salmon, I’d like to be able to offer them one - as well as a new rod, a tackle box, and some fishing lessons. But, as the Right points out, we’re out of minnows. So, I’d like us to save the few minnows we have for those people who need them most.
Mind you, if (God forbid) my own job goes away and I find the fish aren’t biting, I may feel differently about the question. But regardless of how I feel, it will still be true that we ought to give the minnows to those who can’t fish, first. The ones who can fish may need to find different streams or learn different fishing styles. But the ones who can’t fish need the minnows to live.
© John M. Munzer
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Halloween
I've got mixed feelings about this holiday. I no longer belong to the conservative church I grew up in, which taught that this holiday is evil and should not be celebrated by Christians... but I'm still a bit uneasy with the whole thing, because they do have a point. This IS a holiday about darkness, about fear, about evil and death. It DOES have its roots in pagan rituals of human sacrifice, in peasant superstitions about how to ward off goblins and witches, in people so terrified of the devil that they hoped to keep him from hurting them by offering other victims in their place.
And yet... that's the point, isn't it? Just as the pagan symbols of flaming trees and Astarte's eggs are important to Christmas and Easter, the symbols of evil and death are important to All Hallow's Eve. Before we truly understand the importance of Light, we must understand what it is to be in darkness.
What do the symbols really mean? In the days when people believed that ghosts, witches, goblins, werewolves, vampires, devils, were not only real but also walking the earth devouring people, the Church saw an opportunity to show that darkness is always overcome by Light.
Dress up once a year as all the things that you most fear, said the Church. Be an undead monster, be a demon, be Death itself, on the first day of winter, the season of death. Have your children make a game of it, and go from house to house demanding treats as the druids once went demanding victims, or as brigands went demanding money. Put out the Jack o' lanterns that used to mean the druids had taken a victim from the house. Fully experience all that is horrifying about life and death. Remember your fear of the dark, your fear of death and Hell, your fear of the things you and your fellow men are capable of doing to each other, your fear of all that is evil. Remember your fear of the worst evil that is in you, and your fear that it's stronger than the part of you that is good.
And then come to church for the feast of All Hallows. Come to where there is light, and warmth, and the company of family and friends. Come to the holy place. Come and remember those who have died, and are in Heaven, more alive now than we are. Come and remember that evil and death do not have the last word, but will disappear and be only a memory in the life everlasting.
Disney's Fantasia, of all things, captures what Halloween is really about. After "Night on Bald Mountain", in which the Reaper dances with the dead, the witches cackle, the mountain-sized Satan roars in power and revels in obscene glee - all cringe and melt away at the first touch of light, and with the dawn comes the clergy singing Ave Maria.
For darkness has no power except fear, and no power at all against Light.
Once a year, it's good to remember that.
Copyright John M. Munzer
And yet... that's the point, isn't it? Just as the pagan symbols of flaming trees and Astarte's eggs are important to Christmas and Easter, the symbols of evil and death are important to All Hallow's Eve. Before we truly understand the importance of Light, we must understand what it is to be in darkness.
What do the symbols really mean? In the days when people believed that ghosts, witches, goblins, werewolves, vampires, devils, were not only real but also walking the earth devouring people, the Church saw an opportunity to show that darkness is always overcome by Light.
Dress up once a year as all the things that you most fear, said the Church. Be an undead monster, be a demon, be Death itself, on the first day of winter, the season of death. Have your children make a game of it, and go from house to house demanding treats as the druids once went demanding victims, or as brigands went demanding money. Put out the Jack o' lanterns that used to mean the druids had taken a victim from the house. Fully experience all that is horrifying about life and death. Remember your fear of the dark, your fear of death and Hell, your fear of the things you and your fellow men are capable of doing to each other, your fear of all that is evil. Remember your fear of the worst evil that is in you, and your fear that it's stronger than the part of you that is good.
And then come to church for the feast of All Hallows. Come to where there is light, and warmth, and the company of family and friends. Come to the holy place. Come and remember those who have died, and are in Heaven, more alive now than we are. Come and remember that evil and death do not have the last word, but will disappear and be only a memory in the life everlasting.
Disney's Fantasia, of all things, captures what Halloween is really about. After "Night on Bald Mountain", in which the Reaper dances with the dead, the witches cackle, the mountain-sized Satan roars in power and revels in obscene glee - all cringe and melt away at the first touch of light, and with the dawn comes the clergy singing Ave Maria.
For darkness has no power except fear, and no power at all against Light.
Once a year, it's good to remember that.
Copyright John M. Munzer
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Reminiscing
June 1st, 1995
An old song, a familiar lost smell that brings such longing you have to reach back.
Things half-remembered, good and bad, come back from Then and are Now again – first hazy, then wonderfully or terribly clear and real, depending on what happened and on the choices you made. But either way there’s a pang of regret that you can’t bring it back – either to do the things you left undone, or to feel and do and be what you felt and did and were back then.
A sweet moment you want to catch and hold forever, an old scar exploding into fresh pain (and still bleeding); the Book that tastes like honey in the mouth but is bitter to the stomach; remembering only now all you should have done but didn’t, all you shouldn’t have done but did, and how much you miss her, and how you lost that chance to change his life for the better; and where did all the time go? Why didn’t you spend more of it on the things that mattered?
“Why didn’t I”s and “It might have been”s tumble over “I remember when”s and “Wasn’t that beautiful?” That time of perfect harmony with a friend you never talk to anymore; that bitter hatred you held Then against your best friend Now; no excuses because it’s been so long you don’t need them anymore, only the plain truth as it was and never can be again.
You close the Book, having had too much honey-and-gall; you think maybe you’ll go call that person but you really know better; you know an hour of Now will wipe away an eternity of Then, and you’ll forget all over again until the next time the Book calls to you from the shelf, to be opened and lived again as it opens you and reminds you once more that your life is short and daily growing shorter, that there’s no room for false pretences and no time for hesitating. The wheel turns on, with neither pity nor malice, but it will not wait.
© John M. Munzer
An old song, a familiar lost smell that brings such longing you have to reach back.
Things half-remembered, good and bad, come back from Then and are Now again – first hazy, then wonderfully or terribly clear and real, depending on what happened and on the choices you made. But either way there’s a pang of regret that you can’t bring it back – either to do the things you left undone, or to feel and do and be what you felt and did and were back then.
A sweet moment you want to catch and hold forever, an old scar exploding into fresh pain (and still bleeding); the Book that tastes like honey in the mouth but is bitter to the stomach; remembering only now all you should have done but didn’t, all you shouldn’t have done but did, and how much you miss her, and how you lost that chance to change his life for the better; and where did all the time go? Why didn’t you spend more of it on the things that mattered?
“Why didn’t I”s and “It might have been”s tumble over “I remember when”s and “Wasn’t that beautiful?” That time of perfect harmony with a friend you never talk to anymore; that bitter hatred you held Then against your best friend Now; no excuses because it’s been so long you don’t need them anymore, only the plain truth as it was and never can be again.
You close the Book, having had too much honey-and-gall; you think maybe you’ll go call that person but you really know better; you know an hour of Now will wipe away an eternity of Then, and you’ll forget all over again until the next time the Book calls to you from the shelf, to be opened and lived again as it opens you and reminds you once more that your life is short and daily growing shorter, that there’s no room for false pretences and no time for hesitating. The wheel turns on, with neither pity nor malice, but it will not wait.
© John M. Munzer
Friday, July 16, 2010
Oops, we did it again
(Time to find another sweet, fresh-faced kid to destroy)
A parent of an 8-year-old girl just showed me the video that turned her and her kid off from Miley Ray Cyrus. Apparently, she REALLY wants the world to know she’s 18 now. When other kids turn 18 and declare their independence from their parents and their right to be sexual beings, they aren’t doing so on national media. But Miley Ray’s entire life has been on national media, so naturally she knows no other way to take this step except by dressing like a dominatrix and writhing in a birdcage.
A parent of an 8-year-old girl just showed me the video that turned her and her kid off from Miley Ray Cyrus. Apparently, she REALLY wants the world to know she’s 18 now. When other kids turn 18 and declare their independence from their parents and their right to be sexual beings, they aren’t doing so on national media. But Miley Ray’s entire life has been on national media, so naturally she knows no other way to take this step except by dressing like a dominatrix and writhing in a birdcage.
Of course, the obvious parallels are getting drawn to Britney, Lindsay, and all the other sweet kid stars who grew up and decided to break their “wholesome” image as hard as they could. And of course, everyone says how sad that their kids’ heroine is going slutty now and is no longer a positive role model.
What we ought to realize, though, is this:
IT’S OUR DAMN FAULT.
We’ve always known that kids do not have good impulse control – that’s why they have parents. We’ve always known that money and fame can turn even responsible, fully-developed adults into irresponsible adolescents. And we’ve known for decades how particularly toxic the life of a child star is to that child. Before the teenage girls started doing it, Michael Jackson’s sad life was more than enough proof that a kid who grows up being a star, never actually gets to grow up. And we knew in advance that there was no way these kids would be capable of understanding and carrying the responsibility of being good role models, because they were too young.
BUT WE KEPT BUYING THEIR CD’S AND VIDEOS FOR OUR KIDS.
If there was no money to be made in exploiting cute kids and attractive (but immature) young adults, then Ms. Lohan might not be in court right now. Ms. Spears might not have hurt her kids. The Olsen girl might not have become anorexic. Michael might still be alive and making good music, and might not have become an addict and a pedophile. And Miley might be working to become an actual musician, instead of a soft-core porn star.
BUT WE KEPT BUYING THE DAMN CD’S.
If you don’t want your kids to have disappointing role models, and don’t want kids like Miley to grow up and become adults like Britney, then STOP BUYING THE DAMN CD’S. If you let these kids be exploited when they’re 12, they’ll start exploiting themselves when they’re 18. Point your kids in the direction of role models who are actually worth emulating – people who have talents besides cuteness. Spend time doing stuff with your kids instead of letting them watch the fucking Disney Channel. Cut off the money that feeds the problem, and the problem will end.
America:
We made them.
We destroyed them.
Shame on us.
© John M. Munzer
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