A few weeks ago, Frontline did an hour on "Tank Man," the mysterious Chinese man who, in 1989, stood up to tanks in Tiananmen Square. I've spent the subsequent weeks deeply upset with myself. Tiananmen Square, and Tank Man in particular, is my very first memory of current events. And it's never faded.
At the time, I was 7 years old. My world very happily didn't extend much beyond a four block radius of my house, and the closest I came to awareness was that I could recognize the opening chimes of the McNeil/ Lehrer News Hour. For whatever reason, I don't remember much of my childhood. I don't know if I just don't bother remembering things or if I'm blocking something or what, but my one vivid memory is sitting slack-jawed watching this man stare down a tank. I had army men, I knew about tanks. I knew that they ran over people. I couldn't remotely comprehend what was actually going on, and I'm pretty sure I remember dinner being ready, but I knew right then that something huge was happening. Something that had to, in some way, involve me. I didn't realize how long it would last, but a desperate gnawing in my gut started that night and hasn't ever gone away. Without knowing a single thing about what was happening in that man's world, I knew I needed to find my tank.
Fast forward through 17 years of alternately rabid and passive political activism. Through consistent disgust with the functional and moral clock of this country being gradually wound backwards punctuated by bursts of action and days of frustrated abandonment. Taunted by the absolute, undying conviction that we're on the verge of making liberalism a great force undermined by "almost" after "almost." I read blogs and newspapers, I write the occasional diary and sprinkle comments through the cyberworld. I try my best to sneak in a few words of the gospel to my friends, family, and people I meet on the streets. But I wonder- where is my desperation? Why is this what I do in my spare time? Is this the ultimate truth of the quest to set things right? That the very basis of things going wrong is that those of us who realize have to fight so damned hard just to keep things together that we don't have time or energy or the emotional fortitude to take it back over the top and hit them again, harder, every single time? Why is it that I so rarely am pushed past the occasional blog posting? Where is my tank?
(That gnawing starts to burn. I know it's there, I can taste the waiting explosion in the back of my throat.)
I know I'm not alone in this. In many ways. Look at the number of "I Can't Believe How Frustrated/Mad/Shocked/Disgusted I am" diaries on any given day. If the number of people that posted on blogs, much less read them, were to be vocal and active in their opposition to Bush, to Republican leadership, to Christian-led Conservatism, the battle would long since be over. Recent polls report that 55-60% of Americans disapprove of the job being done by the President. That's more than 150 million people. Where are they? Where are we? If 150 million Americans took to the streets just once- ever- no President would dare attempt the sort of things that Bush is getting away with. But we don't. For most of us, at best we write blog diaries, we vote, we swipe our debit card through ActBlue one more time. But this is passive- I am passive. When will I reach my threshold? When will you reach yours (if you haven't already)? When will we finally decide NO MORE. When will I rise in the morning and say OVER MY DEAD BODY and mean it? When will I finally be ready for my tank?
(Then what will my dead body look like? Will it be whole? Will it be available to be claimed? Will it be draped in an American flag or buried beneath scorn? A martyr or an infidel to the cause of true righteousness?)
I have no idea whether this is an original idea or one with a scientific history dating back hundreds of years (I would presume somewhere in between), but I find that emotions- particularly depression- are a luxury of the comfortable. Manic depression is not preventing people in rural Africa from getting out of bed in the morning. Young, poor, urban blacks aren't passing up the opportunity to go to college because they would prefer to take some time off and "find themselves." They act because they must. They act because they understand that action is survival. When you must act to survive, standing up to that which might oppose your survival is hardly intimidating. My survival is not threatened by Republicans, it's not threatened by Bush...not directly at least, not yet. For my own self, personally, I am reasonably secure in my body and ability to earn enough to survive. Barely perhaps, but I do not live at the precipice of life and death day to day. Is this what feeds the gnawing...constant gnawing? Do I not take this seriously enough? Do I not force myself to suffer enough? I know that I sometimes overlook the painful realities of others and retreat into my own relative security because it's all too big and it's all too much and I can't conceive of where to begin scratching my mark. Do I fail the iniquities of humanity every time I spend four dollars on a beer or play a game of Madden? Am I hiding from my tank?
(Still gnawing, still burning, still failing...)
So where am I? What am I trying to accomplish here? Am I bringing education? Clarity? Inspiration? Moral support? Or am I attempting to beguile my responsibilities as part of humanity? Am I trying to assuage the disgust of inaction, or am I doing my part to raise an army that together will throw down the walls that insulate nation from nation, man from man, soul from soul? Have I resigned myself to doing just enough to sleep at night, or am I just warming up? Am I desperately yearning to find my tank or am I desperately terrified to acknowledge that it's already rumbling down the road?
(Will my gut be calm when I stare down the muzzle?)
Why is this country so important? Why is it that I, and so many others, fight so franticly trying to save it? It can't simply be homefield advantage. It isn't that our rights by virtue of our location are any more important than those in China or anywhere else. It's that this- THIS -is humanity's one great shot. Call it cliche, but the United States, as conceived, is the great hope of the world. If this doesn't work, then what chance do any of us have? This country was created to give man's greatness the opportunity to flourish; the opportunity to reap the rewards of common respect, common purpose, common dignity. It was designed to allow civility and reason to overcome contentiousness and emotion. It was constructed to provide the better angels of man's soul every opportunity to prove their mettle against our demons. Demons that preach selfishness and shortsightedness, hatred and mistrust. Our demons. Your demons. My demons. If this great opportunity is squandered- if we descend into the furious extremes of expediency- then what hope remains?
(I can't taste it anymore. Is the fire out? The gnawing satiated? Or is it simply waiting? It's most frightening of all to wonder- are there no tanks left?)
Why aren't I in the streets? Why aren't you in the streets? Why aren't all of us in the streets? It was once said that The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (The revolution will not be podcast). You will not be able to stay home (or online), brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out (sign off). We have felt our indignation and disgust. We have typed our outrage and our mistrust. I have been small among you but I have rarely been absent. Now, when it's time to stand and say "Not one inch more, I will not concede," where do I stand? What road do I block?
One man in 1989 found his piece of road. I, like many others, have let complacency lead me down far too many roads. And now...what? Am I willing to stare down the great failings of this society, daring them to swallow me whole? I hope I am. So I extend the question to everyone else, knowing full well that I name no soul before my own: What is the absolute last straw? Where is my tank?
Updated: I know, I know. it's gnawing, not knawing.