Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Death of Idealism I've known for a while now, not overly long, but certainly not just yesterday or last year, that idealism is for the young. And that's where it has the stongest chance of influencing our tomorrows. Today, a colleague-friend committed a stupid act. He's a he and of course, the act was perpetuated against a woman. Hard part is, I understand it. I understand the whys behind it; I understand the abhorence of it.; I see the grays. A definite sign of age. The story goes thusly: An employer, an over-achiever, very smart, very multi-tasking guy is hosting a public event on a college campus that involves a guest speaker who's offered to autograph books. Near the end of the presentation, the book sellers, who happen to be his employees, move from the presentation room to the hall. Not knowing why, and watching a line of prospective buyers queue where the booksellers were but now aren't, he jumps from the stage, finds the employee in charge, and in a hallway with only one witness (another employee), grabs her shoulders and gives her a shake. Ohmigod. I understand frustration. I understand parental desire to shake sense into someone. I understand. I also understand thefeeling of being on the receiving end - and it is not pleasant, at all. The main point is, I understand. My other colleagues, several decades younger than I, are outraged. As well they should be. Because if they remain outraged, maybe we all will - even as we approach advanced age. And maybe then, there will be no thought of ever using force to make a point... like no wars, no domestic violence, no bullies, ad infinitum. Maybe. In the meantime, some of us who have worked with idealism, who've envisioned better worlds, only to watch our dreams thwarted, can understand how idealism dies. And we choose to go on, and make a difference in the minimal ways we can. That's not enough. We need to encourage and nurture the idealism of the young. But, it's hard when faced with realities. comment []  permalink  posted by: jgh  6:35:52 PM

Is the United States Paralleling Pre-2003 Iraq? I'm reading NPR correspondent Ann Garrels' book, Naked in Baghdad. At one point, after discussing how continuing sanctions combined with a lack of news, entertainment and hope seems to have increased attendance at the mosques, she writes: "Though once emphatically secular, Saddam launched the so-called Faith Campaign in the '90s to boost his legitimacy at home and in the rest of the world... Professor Muhammed al-Sayed [president of Saddam University] says the Faith Campaign has helped Iraqis withstand difficult circumstances. He believes it has also given the once strictly secular Iraqi government greater authority... What he doesn't say is that mosques under tight state control have become another vehicle to proclaim Saddam's policies." Then I think about Bush's faith-based initiatives where the administration has eliminated more and more regulatory and policy barriers in an attempt to enable faith-based organizations to partner with the federal government. Changes have occurred in the departments of HHS, HUD, ED, DOL, DOJ, and VA. And I wonder about our own populace's increasing concern about economic conditions, failing schools, distrust, etc and have grave misgivings about where we are headed. This, combined with a quote from George H.W. Bush this morning (see below) puts my thoughts in harmony with this savagely-windy, overly-gray day. --- "Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in Ômission creep,' and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, there was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome." George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (1998), pp. 489-90 comment []  permalink  posted by: jgh  10:28:28 AM

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