••can ye pass the acid test?••

ye who enter here be afraid, but do what ye must -- to defeat your fear ye must defy it.

& defeat it ye must, for only then can we begin to realize liberty & justice for all.

time bomb tick tock? nervous tic talk? war on war?

or just a blog crying in the wilderness, trying to make sense of it all, terror-fried by hate radio and FOX, the number of whose name is 666??? (coincidence?)

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

cowardly courage

man! am i getting tired of politicians pandering to militaristic patriotism.

this morning (on c-span) it was a dem, but it as easily could've been a gop. every time they talk about troops or vets, at some point in the conversation they make sure they praise the courage—which almost always makes the list—and resolve &/or dedication &/or some other supposed virtues of folk who "serve" the country.

courage, like talk, is cheap and found everywhere. kamikaze pilots had it. suicide bombers have it. window washers have it.

courage, strange as it may seem, is often the result of fear—fear of being a coward or getting thought of as one.

"coward" is likely the second greatest fighting word. (#1 has got to be "liar"—or maybe "shithead" is ahead of one or both.)

folk who itch to fight use language to provoke others to join with or against them, but "coward" versus "courage" has another dimension: it's programmed into us by the information environment starting in early childhood. the result, whether intended or accidental, is that most societies always have at least some folk—mainly male—with a longtime ambition to be cops or firefighters or war fighters or some other hi-risk career choice.

their determination to help and defend has a noble side to it, of course, but it also becomes a weakness, because it makes them vulnerable to less altruistic agendas of those who would exploit and corrupt their will to serve.

greatness doesn't lie in fighting. to be great, you must be right.

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