Because You Never Asked

 

(5/11, Spain . This is the first in a four part series dealing with the dearth of Osama Bin Laden. The others are, in this order: “Obama-Osama”, “A New Sherriff In Town”, and “A Post Osama World”. The preferable would be to read them in order, but it is not essential.)

     It might be considered heretical, just a few days after the cinema-like assassination of one of the Earth’s mythical figures, for an American to say the death of Osama Bin Laden means almost nothing to him --- no joy, no patriotic pride, no closure, no feeling of justice or accomplishment, no satisfying feeling of revenge, that all this is a purely symbolic act void of almost any substantive matter.

     This writer is that “him”, but he is quite certain in not standing alone. Surely there are millions of Americans --- a minority, yes --- who have similar feelings, feelings that will be brushed aside by American Big Media with a different story to tell, much as they created their own narrative as they led us into glorious battle for the second Bush Oil War. It is a story more suited for the theater they’ve produced and the economic interests such theater fortifies. For this writer, Osama Bin Laden is no more then a lead actor in the same movie as Barack Obama, W. Bush, and all the other lesser role players in this “montage” we call the global economy. Who the heroes and villains are, where the wickedness emanates from, depends almost purely on your origins and the voices that shaped your formation as a human being. Is Osama Bin Laden more “wicked” than Bush-Obama & Co.? I’d say he’s more provincial, more conservative, perhaps even more mistaken in his world view than his western adversaries (in today’s world our leaders are either more or less mistaken, not more or less correct). But is he more “wicked”?

     When it comes to killing innocent people, there’s enough wickedness to dole out on all sides. When it comes to defending cultural values of dubious worth, there’s enough foolishness to dole out on all sides. At this point in history, our world is filled with bad and worse leaders. Trying to hook my outlook to any of them has become a daunting task.

     I learned of Bin Laden’s death while in transit for my annual two month trip to Spain . My flight had been cancelled and I was marooned in the Miami airport stewing in my own funk when the story broke on the infinite rows of TV monitors invading my privacy from all flanks. Although the news was stunning, from an emotional-intellectual standpoint it meant very little to me. It was as if Elvis Presley had died.

     The theatrical presentation of this story was brought to the airport audience by the CNN airport services. CNN is perhaps the largest disseminator of the western ethic in the world, and I was subjected to its version of the event for multiple go rounds of the same stories. The omnipotent presence of countless TV screens along with a sound system impossible to ignore became a tyrannical presence in the waiting room. I felt imprisoned there, as if it were my Guantanamo and the news of Bin Laden’s death was some kind of sleep depravation torture I could not escape.

     For an American nation as deeply and bitterly divided as it’s been since the Civil War, the widespread demonstrations of jubilation caught me by surprise. It didn’t take long to realize that for CNN and Big Media in general, this would be The Story. The millions like myself would go without representation. It was a feel good propaganda moment to be milked for all its worth --- which, in this case, is very little. It is a momentary orgasm of euphoria that cannot be sustained for the simple reason that is has no substance to root itself in. We’ve killed an old man who created his own legend, one we stupidly overreacted to. We exaggerated his persona as a way to motivate our populace against “them”. Basically, we fell into his trap.

     Osama Bin Laden had already won this “war”. I’d just spent 45 minutes trying to pass through a security checkpoint on a winding, twisting, curling line of hundreds of people. I’d been frisked, photographed, questioned, defrocked, un-shoed, barked and shouted at by poorly paid people in uniforms with badges. Perhaps the reader won’t believe this, but even before I knew of Bin Laden’s death, the thought of how we’d already lost this war had occurred to me in that tedious, tiring, degrading line. And that’s not even mentioning the debilitating wars we’ve so stupidly been drawn into by the likes of Osama Bin Laden.

     And yet, the huge manifestations of joy were spontaneous and genuine. I suppose the closest human emotion I could attribute to myself as I watched this whole fandango, was “embarrassment”. I felt embarrassed for myself. I felt embarrassed for my country. I felt embarrassed, embarrassed that the events of the last decade or so had rendered us such blithering fools. Embarrassed that we were so desperate for something to feel good about. Embarrassed by the unfulfilled promise of our pretentious national rhetoric. Embarrassed by the hypocrisy of our actions, the torture, the extra-judicial actions, the disrespect for our beautiful Constitution, and, who knows, maybe just for the general state of decay our country has fallen into --- its descent into Corporate Fascism, its waning democracy --- whatever, but I felt embarrassed.

     It was as if we were that high school basketball team that hadn’t won a game in 3 years, 52 losses in a row, and we finally won one. Hooray!

     As a middle class kid who went to college in the Vietnam War era, perhaps the most embarrassing and disturbing aspect of the tumultuous Bin Laden Death Festival were the manifestations of glee that broke out on our college campuses. Since the inception of the Volunteer Army (see essay, The Volunteer Army”), this segment of American culture has all but disappeared. In any healthy democracy, its universities, inhabited by the still untainted idealism of its youthful populace, should act as a kind of conscience for the rest of society. Even if these ideals turn out to be somewhat naïve later on, to voice them in public, with purpose and sincerity, can still serve as a counterweight or future reference to the excess and abuse of real political-economic power.

     For more than a generation now, our college campuses have evaporated as an intellectual force in American society. Today’s students have abdicated their role of suspicious scrutiny of the status quo. This is an important task to play in a society that hopes to evolve positively into the future, even if such “idealism” is precocious and ahead of its time. A democratic society lacking such a function from its youngest, most effervescent, most educated adults is beginning to stand still.

     America ’s universities have become little more than places where a certain social class goes to live its last 4 years of childhood while being funneled towards their well paid jobs in the global economy. They are not there to be educated, but to be inculcated. There is more intellectual activity going on in the hip-hop community, more creativity and sociological thought, than amongst the rank and file inhabitants of our institutions of higher learning. But the constituency of the hip-hop world is less powerful and easier to control for the “powers to be”. If the socio-economic clout of our middle class refuses to question things, we begin to languish. This is how a nation, a culture, call it what you may, begins to lose influence.

     If you think I’m exaggerating this, allow me to voice an incident or two from my recent experience.

     I live in a town where the hormonal exercise known as “Spring Break” spends about 2 to 3 weeks with us every year (see essay, “Spring Break”). This puts me in regular contact with today’s college “students”, primarily in my work place. Although I am always polite and helpful, I am not particularly gregarious when I work. I generally shy away from any frivolous banter, especially with regard to college kids, who, taken as an American subculture, are perhaps as homogenous and predictable as they come. But on occasion, someone will engage me and in order to not be rude, I am forced into extra commercial conversation.

     During this year’s version of the event, 2 very cutesy coeds (hey, I can still appreciate that) from the University of Georgia entered my workplace. They wanted to talk. Their southern accents were faint enough for me to ask if they actually came from Georgia . Yes, they said, and if I listened more closely I’d hear it (they were right). I then said, “well, it’s not like you talk like George Wallace or something”. As soon as I said the name, I instinctively knew, before any formal confirmation, they did not know who he was. Sure enough, their puzzled looks corroborated my instincts. They knew as much about George Wallace as they knew about quantum physics.

     Here were 2 college students at one of America ’s more well known places of higher learning who were not familiar with one of the most prominent players in some of our country’s most important historical events, events that were most relevant in their particular part of the nation.

     But wait, there’s more.

     Late one night, as I provided my work place services, I was being engaged by a student from Texas. I never found out where he went to college, but judging from the incident I’m about to tell, this is money his parents could have saved. He was slightly lit up and blubbering away about being Texan and a patriotic American --- in truth, he was kind of funny and definitely harmless. This led me into the mistake of talking to him. I suggested his Governor didn’t seem very patriotic, with his talk about seceding from the Union and such. He looked at me all squinty eyed and perplexed, as if he were just noticing I was there. “Dude, like huh?” I continued, saying Texas Governor Rick Perry is always talking about seceding from the Union. I kid you not when I say he not only knew nothing of these happenings, but did not even know who Rick Perry was! Did he know what seceding from the Union meant? Did he know what the Union was? “Like dude --- “

     I’m not saying all college students are this vapid as to intellectual curiosity, but I’ve seen enough to know this: for the prototypical participant in campus life, the university is not an intellectual experience. Since they’ve been relieved of any military obligation, they’ve sat idly by and watched the financial power of the nation squandered in idiotic military adventures that have almost become generic in nature. They’ve sat idly by and watched the corporate take over of our democracy. They’ve sat idly by and watched the assault on the most emblematic sign of a modern nation state’s success, its social safety net. They’ve sat idly by and watched our Constitution mocked, due process scorned, and military law invoked for wars that have never been declared. All this, not because they agree or disagree with what is happening, but because they have not even had the interest to inform themselves of such sobering things. For more than a generation now, all we’ve ever seen of them is their adolescent hi-jinks at football and basketball games.

     And now, finally, they’ve made an appearance to celebrate the death of an old man whose role in the world was exaggerated to begin with. When the youth and vigor of our university students are so easily appropriated by status quo drivel; when this segment of a democratic state simply accepts the pabulum spewed forth by huge corporate sources of information --- or, even worse, has little interest in any message beyond next weekend --- a fundamental element of a free and dynamic society has been lost.

     Not only that, it’s embarrassing.