Today, October 18, 2012

Today’s project: Study the past to consider my future

More Correspondence Club – which means a video in the background.  Something to keep my mind active as my hands are busy stamping and writing.

As I gathered my supplies today, I decided to forgo my usual choice of Perry Mason (especially because the interwebs were making me horribly frustrated - it kept stopping the episode right before Perry figured out who the killer was! ERG!)  I scrolled through my choices and decided on a documentary, “The Weather Underground.”

This piece is an exploration of the late 60’s, early 70’s student activist group the ‘weatherman’ (so named after a Bob Dylan tune) who were adamantly convinced that the only way to stop the violence of the war in Vietnam was with a campaign of equally horrible violence in the United States.  Now, even the participants, who are, of course, much older and wiser, admit that they were misguided in their practical applications of their theories, but still feel that the ideals they supported were justified.

As they, and others in addition to news reports and such of the time, described the feeling of at that time, in our country and other countries around the world, I was struck with a myriad of feelings and thoughts.  I couldn’t ever find myself condoning the type of violence that they contemplated and eventually followed through with, but as the piece progressed I did find myself understanding their logic, however imprudent the action based on that logic was.

Then I pondered, how would I have reacted during that time?  Wouldn’t we all like to think that given the overwhelming evidence of the atrocities of war, that we would do something about it?  But then, to most of the country, it was so far away and the reports so unbelievable, that they didn’t feel like there was anything to act upon. Would I be like them?

Let me use another example.

There is overwhelming historical evidence that many of the German people knew what Hitler’s regime had in mind for the Jewish citizens…and actively chose to be in-active.  We, as people far removed from the situation, look at them, put our nose in the air and haughtily snort, “How could they do such a thing?  How could they not stand up against it?  How could they not do something to stop such horrible stuff?”

And yet we have the same thing in our own history. Over and over again, actually.

Americans are very good at dismissing anything that they feel doesn’t affect them directly.  Earlier this week, I watched another documentary about the horrible treatment of patients at a state institution for the disabled in New York State, in the 1970s.  

Robert Kennedy, himself, inspected the place when he was Attorney General, and publicly (on camera)declared the conditions deplorable, asking for government reforms.  It wasn’t until almost ten years later when Geraldo Rivera did an expose` that any action was taken to help the people in the facility.  When I talked with a friend about the piece, she remembered the original news reports and remarked about how many reactions from the people she knew were: “Why should I care about that?  Why should I be responsible for other people’s children?”

I wish I could say I was surprised.  Surprised, no. Disgusted, yes.

So, as I watched the “The Weather Underground,” I thought about how angry, nervous, active, and involved many, many citizens were during the time of the Vietnam War.

Many elements of that terrible time affected me.  The images of protesters rioting. Images from Life Magazine graphically showing the war.  News reels of President Nixon claiming that the anti-war activists were all bums who needed to be eliminated.  Images of the bedroom where the Black Panther leader was murdered while he slept…by local policemen.  The fear that everyone must have lived in…what would happen next? 

But what struck me the most was how all of these people cared. Really CARED.  About the young soldiers being killed by the thousands, thousands of miles away.  About the people of Vietnam caught in the middle of a battle between two of the biggest armies in the world.  About the everyday US citizens, who were ignoring a problem which, if left unchecked, could lead to revolution all over the globe.  About the position of every politician, big and small, on the war and the unrest in America.

They cared about a lot of things that no one seems to care about now.

No one seems to care about their next door neighbor, let alone poor people in a country half way around the world, dying of starvation.  Or forget half-way around the world; what about the children starving right here in our own country? In our own cities? In our own neighborhoods?  “Why should I be responsible for other people’s children?”

As I explored these feelings, I discovered a very curious thing.  I was feeling jealous.  Jealous of the people in the video. Not of their actions, but of their passion.  They believed in their cause so completely that they were willing to go to jail, to be beaten, to never see their families and loved ones again, and even to die, if necessary.  “Whatever it took” to further their cause and effect a change in their surroundings.

In our current society of ‘what’s in it for me’ people, I can’t imagine an entire group feeling so strongly about anything, let alone to the point of complete self-sacrifice.  Oh sure, lots of Americans will buy rubber bracelets, or put stickers on their cars, or forward emails, or even make their Facebook status a soapbox.  But how many of those same people would actually be willing to lose their house or their job for that same cause?  I’m betting you would find the answer would be next-to-none.

I next pondered, ‘Where does this take us into the future?’

I read once that history is only valuable as a study if we use that information to prevent the same tragedies in the future.  So what did we learn as Americans, as humans, that we should apply to our future?

I was struck by one of the people in the video saying that their group vehemently believed that the only viable solution to ending the Vietnam War was a violent overthrow of the US government.  And then that oppressive government would be replaced by a government that was much more humane.  I found myself thinking, ‘Fat chance, buddy.  I guarantee you it would have been replaced by something even more tyrannical and oppressive than you thought you had.’ 

I mean, that’s what history shows us.  There are several examples in the long past up until recent times of where a government was forcibly overturned only to be replaced by a regime with more militant and strict viewpoints than what it fought to destroy.  There are, as always, some exceptions, but this pattern appears over and over again.

I would hope (and I’m guessing that the former activists would agree with me) that what we learned from that time was how to be more tolerant; of other viewpoints, other cultures and other ways of life.  I would hope that we also learned how to recognize a situation as harmful to all involved and design a peaceful, understanding solution.  I would hope that we learned that an entire group of citizens can get behind an issue in such a way that they are heard, and that shouting isn’t always that way.  I would hope that we learned that soldiers are people too, people who feel just as strongly about the cause that they are fighting for as you do about your cause.

That is my hope.  That we are capable of learning from our mistakes. But as I look around my world…I’m losing hope.

So, I embrace a bit of the past (letter writing) and I hope. I hope that my little notes and cards will remind others to look at the past, see what we have learned, and apply that to the future. 

 I buy stamps. And I send out my hope.