OUR MYTHS, THEIR LIVES

Today I drove home in my comfortable car. When I got home, I was thirsty. I unloaded the bottle of water I purchased and plopped it into the water dispenser. I grabbed a glass and draw myself a glass of clean chilled water. Pretty simple.

Here is where my mind began to wander. As happens many days in this era of Bush incompetence and corruption, my thoughts turned to the victims suffering from our collective ignorance and avoidance of the truth… our troops, the children and other civilians in the Middle East. I thought of my thirst, how I longed for the cool drink and how easy it was to quench.

We have lost power twice this year for multiple days. During such losses we cannot pump water to our faucets or to our toilets. In the winter we lose our heat, and in the summer we lose our cooling. Recently, record heat moved across the country after storms knocked out electricity resulting in many deaths.

I think about how uncomfortable we were. How desperate we were to get our everyday life back in order. We had relatives to stay with. The roads were not guarded and there was no one shooting at us as we tried to leave our home. We did not fear that soldiers would come to our home to search it or to perhaps rape or kill us. We did not have to live with the idea that our power and lifestyle was gone for months, perhaps years. We did not have a sick or small child to care for. We were not sick ourselves.

The community was still functioning. The hospital was operating. The grocery stores were still open. The traffic moved safely through intersections. We had no check points to stop for. We were not threatened by men with guns who did not speak our language.

We did not face threats from our neighbors. We did not have to rebuild a home or watch one of our children die. Neither of us had to deal with losing a spouse. Our inconvenience did not end with any disease such as dysentery. Our neighbors were not dying. There were no bodies in the streets. There were no buildings with whole families buried under them.

But, even though none of those things were happening, we soon lost patience. It was draining on our community and we felt at loose ends. Months of this mild inconvenience would have taken a great toll on us. I am certain of that. Would mental illness become an issue, violence, maybe the theft of generators, gasoline?

I think about the simplistic sayings of the pundits on the right, the Bill O’Reillys, the Ann Coulters, the Neal Boortzs, the Rush Limbaughs. It is a long list. Everyone likes to swagger. Lately it is seen as savvy and cool to kick people when they are down, and beating up on those who cannot defend themselves. Meanness is the order of the day. It is cool. The whole idea is that whoever it is who suffers, whether it be a member of our military (they joined), or whether it is family (they should have known to leave) or citizens of other countries now under threat due to US and International rhetoric (they should be lined up and killed), it matters not, they are the culprit. The dead are to blame. The innocent should have saved us the trouble by overthrowing their government. The helpless should suffer. They deserve it. They were stupid. They were evil. They were… poor. The main requirement, it seems, is that the speaker be a hypocrite, demonstrably wrong. But, sorry, your time is up… and now, a word from our sponsors.

Then, we have the religious right. They are waiting for the Lord. They are waiting for the Great Tribulation to begin, with them conveniently raptured, of course just in the nick of time to miss it all. They have been told since time immemorial that they must be saved to escape the Great Tribulation and the struggles of the Last Days. They have nightmares of the forces of the Anti-Christ seeking "Christians." They are instilled with fear of loss of their rights, their homes, their families, their lives. I remember that from my days in their shoes. I was continually afraid that the last days would come and that military goons would threaten, torture and kill my family. The fear mongering continues and is even now dramatized for us in the Left Behind series, embellished upon.

I wonder if they stop to think about why the Bush Regime is trying to amend the War Crimes Act? Do they think of the implications of Abu Ghraib, the torture of the women and children? What do they think when they follow the trial of our troops accused of raping a woman and killing her and her whole family? Do they equate their own fears with the realities of those whom they brush aside?

When they march on abortion clinics, do they carry posters of the dead Middle Eastern children who suffered or those who will live with burns or mutilations, or perhaps worse, the memories? Do they give it any more thought than it takes to figure out whose side they are on? Do they see the suffering and deaths of refugees, the thirsty, the hungry, the sick? Or is do they stop thinking when they read today’s numbers?

For thousands, the Great Tribulation is now and it continues. For thousands, today is the Last Day. They have lost all. They have cowered in their homes, and no mercy was shown to them. They have suffered and there has been no comfort. Those who died will not be brought back by treaties or agreements of men and women in high places.

George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice say history will judge them. But, dead children care nothing for history. The widow cares nothing for history. The parents who have lost their children care nothing for history, and that includes our troops. The bombed out infrastructures of cities that once bustled with hopeful people care nothing for history. The thirsty care nothing for history and neither do the homeless, the battered.

When I listen to the fast talkers these days, I hear nothing of compassion, except in passing as a sort of preface. I hear nothing in the way of deep feeling. I hear a lot of fear for themselves, their political fate, their own comforts and their insistence that security is their birthright, no matter how much they disturb the security of others.

I would think they are just uncharitable to strangers in other lands, but they treated their own the same way when Katrina hit New Orleans and Mississippi.

Here is the danger. When we dismiss the details of life, we miss the big things. When we are mere narrators who gloss over the details and coin meaningless terms, we can move in a short time from problem to solution or in most cases from problem to blame. But, real people in dire circumstances cannot move that fast. They cannot gloss over the details. They cannot resort to verbal sparing or spouting slogans. That will not help them escape the consequences of the actions of others. It does no good to ridicule a bomb. They must find water, safety, medicine. They must anticipate their needs and find, against all odds, ways to fill those. They must grieve for the loved ones. They die or they endure. Details.

It is an easy thing, I press the lever. I get water.

-Mags