"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate... Leads to suffering."
Yoda - Star Wars: Episode One: The Phantom Menace
I was born on December Tenth Nineteen Seventy Three. Much of my young life was shaped by two very important things. The Soviet Union, and Nuclear Armageddon. The truth is, that those two things, were really just one thing. My life, was shaped by fear.
I didn't really know anything of substance about Russia, or Russians, or as they were more commonly called back then "The Soviets". But I knew two things for certain. They were the enemy. And they had "The Bomb".
Likewise I knew very little, nothing really, about nuclear warfare. But I knew that it was bad, and I knew that if it ever happened, everyone I cared about (which included myself) would suffer and die.
Oh, and one other trivial little detail. I knew that a nuclear bomb exploding, would be announced by a mushroom cloud.
In May of nineteen eighty, I was six years, five months, and eighteen days old. I lived with my parents, and little brother in the Western half of Washington state. My paternal grandparents lived just a couple of roads away.
My parents had gone away for the weekend. The daughter of my T-Ball coach had stayed at the house babysitting me and my brother over the weekend. It was Sunday morning. My parents were supposed to be home that evening. I was excited, in that subliminal way that kids have. I didn't know I was excited, but I was. Because with them gone it meant that things weren't normal. Like most kids, I craved normal the way a drunk craves his next drink.
Television on a Sunday morning before cable, was frankly the very definition of boring. Especially compared to the thrill fest that was Saturday morning cartoons. But, I was a kid, and it was tv, so it was on. Suddenly, it got horribly staticy and I didn't know why. Everything got very, very quiet, and it started to get dark. And I didn't know why.
Then I saw it. A mushroom cloud. Suddenly I knew why. The Soviets had dropped the bomb.
Every one, and every thing, I loved was going to die. Not just die, but die horribly. Die in ways that my young intellect could not really grasp, but a more visceral part of me understood all too well. In that moment I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life. More afraid, than perhaps I have ever been since.
If, in that moment, someone came to me and said, "Son, you just say the word and we will take the might of the American Military, and we will make those Soviet sons of bitches pay for murdering you and your family." I can guarantee you, I would have said that word. I would have given my soul, my sight, and my future to make the ones who had dropped that bomb pay.
But there was no bomb. On May eighteenth, Nineteen Eighty, the formerly inactive volcano known as Mount Saint Helens erupted.
Fun fact, when a volcano erupts, especially a really big eruption it often throws up a mushroom cloud, just like a nuclear bomb does.
Time moved forward. I made it through the scariest day of my life. My parents made it home safely. A few year later we moved, and the Soviet Union Collapsed. To the best of my knowledge the two events are not directly connected in any way. Like most people, as I grew up, I forgot those childhood fears. With the Soviet Union now the "Former" Soviet Union, I forgot how terrifying they were.
Until I saw a movie called, "Charlie Wilson's War". The movie details how, thanks to the persistence of one man, the United States ended up supplying arms, and training, to tribal forces in Afghanistan, who were attempting to remove the Soviet Union from their country.
In the course of the movie was some footage, most likely stock footage, of the Soviet Army marching. It was an impressive sight. These looked like some people who truly had their shit together. Suddenly, I remembered how terrifying we all found the Soviets. Not only because they seemed so intense, not only because they were our enemy, but because they had the bomb.
We were afraid of them.
Because of that fear, there were people in our government who felt that anything that might help to bring down the Soviet Union was an avenue worth pursuing.
Including arming, and training, religious fundamentalists.
One of those fundamentalists, was a man named Osama Bin Laden.
Time goes on, the Afghans harry the Soviet Union, until it is too costly for them to stay in Afghanistan. Not long after that, the Soviet Union collapses. People in America, start to breathe easier. To forget how afraid they were.
While there were moments now and again when the fear would seem to return, it didn't take root the way it had before. It was a fleeting thing.
Then came the morning of September Eleventh Two Thousand and One.
And the fear returned.
Suddenly, out of that fear we were ready to all but turn over every last ounce of self governance, every aspect of our lives, cede control to... Who? God? The President? Santa Claus maybe? All of them, and none of them.
The who really didn't matter. What we wanted, what we really wanted was for someone to show up and say to us, "Folks, you just say the word, and we will take the might of the American Military, and we will make those terrorist sons of bitches pay for murdering all those people."
And someone did show up and in essence say that. His name was George W. Bush.
Remember that price I mentioned before? The price that I would have paid, no matter what it was? Well we did indeed pay it, and gladly. Warrantless wire tapping? No problem. Indefinite detention of "suspects", with their having no recourse of any kind? Sure. Wage war in a country that had no direct link to the 9/11 attacks, because they might, definitely, probably, maybe have weapons of mass destruction? You betcha.
And who was to blame for all of this fear? Well here's a funny twist, it was the same freedom lover who a couple of decades ago we were arming and training to help him in his fight against the Soviets.
Osama Bin Laden.
And how do I know that this is all Osama Bin Laden's fault? Why because Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News told me so...
"Osama bin Laden is dead. The man who killed thousands of innocent people, the man who launched the United States into two wars in the name of that attack, the man who changed the way we have to live in this country; the man who did all of this..."
It wasn't our fault in any way shape or form. It was all Osama's fault. His fault, that we allowed our elected officials to make choices that have left us in a state of perpetual war. His fault, that we are so afraid of ever having another day like 9/11, that we will attack anyone, anywhere, who might conceivably, some day, some how, do something that might hurt us.
Before that, it wasn't our fault either, but rather the Soviet Union's fault. Their fault, that we spent billions on nuclear weapons. Their fault, that in attempting to protect our system of Capitalism, from their system of Communism we allowed one Senator to hold hearings that, through innuendo destroyed the lives, and livelihoods of a great many people. Some, for holding the wrong views. Many, for simply not being co-operative with the destruction of others.
Everything, since roughly forever, has been someone else's fault it seems.
But, now, we come to a unique moment in time.
The Soviet Union is collapsed. Osama Bin Laden is dead.
It's time to start taking responsibility for our choices.
I know that we all just want to be safe. We just want everything to make sense. We want the bad guys punished and our loved ones either kept safe or avenged.
I completely understand that feeling. I had it once. I was six years, five months, and eighteen days old. I've grown up since then.
I've learned that sometimes, no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, bad things happen.
Sometimes, the bad guys go unpunished. Even more frustratingly, sometimes, there are no bad guys. Just people. Acting and reacting. All too often out of fear.
But we have a choice.
"A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourselves off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one."
William Melvin (Bill) Hicks
So maybe it's time to make some different choices.
We've given fear an honest try. It really doesn't seem to have worked out all that well for us.
Maybe it's time to try choosing something else. Maybe not "Love", at least not at first. That may be something to work our way up to. For a start, let's just try choosing "Not Fear" and see where things go from there.
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!
The following resources were used in the creation of this article:
From End Evil.com's Bill Hicks quotes page
Transcript of NBC Nightly News for 05/02/2011 from LexisNexis News