Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Both responses to the threat of terrorism inside the US are ill-judged and dangerous to our national security.  They are also dangerous to the collective morale and our sense of ourselves as a community of people who---whatever our disagreements---have in common the responsibility for dealing with our nation's fears and troubles.

The fact is, the American public, by ceding to the Bush Administration the power and responsibility for dealing with the terror threat, has landed itself (lazily, credulously, tragically) in a state of what I believe psychologists call "learned helplessness."  

When warned of an impending threat, we don't have a clue what to do.  We missed our chance after 911 to take responsibility for the safety of our communities, and in doing so lost the opportunity to sustain the brief period of solidarity and sense of national community.  We allowed the government to pour our tax dollars into the Iraq war rather than require it to use its vast resources to prepare its citizens to deal in a reasoned, effective manner with the threat of an attack and---if worst comes to worst---its aftermath.

Certain representatives of the far right would have us believe that the surrender of a few unimportant liberties---such as the right to be free from government oversight---is the price we must pay to avoid dying horribly (or seeing other Americans die horribly) in a terrorist attack.  But this is only true if we make it the right and the duty of the government to ensure our safety.  After 911 we did so without ever seriously asking ourselves whether there were other options, options which would begin with a commitment to our community and to community action.

It is for the rest of us to find a better---a liberal--- way of dealing with the threat of terrorism. Those of us with a real concern for our security and the security of the larger community shouldn't have permitted, and shouldn't go on permitting, the likes of Malkin, Coulter, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, or far right bloggers of hysterical bent to dominate the issue or frame the issue for the public.  To take responsibility of national security doesn't require fear and hatred of Islam or those who follow it; it requires us simply to remember that there are bad and deluded people in every population.  You'd think the above-referenced far-right bloviators had never heard of the Oklahoma City bombings or the very-far-right groups within the US which, prior to 911, seemed to be gearing up to launch a series of terrorist attacks on their own people.

Since then we've seen the dismaying demonstration of impotence on the part of the Bush Administration in coping with the aftermath of Katrina.  Recently we saw FEMA---who seem to have learned the wrong lesson from that disaster---play-act a news conference, a stunning demonstration of the quality of response we can expect from federal agencies under this Bush administration.

It's demoralizing to feel that we have no options but to sit passively on the sidelines hoping that the government---even through means that would disgust most sane, non-cowardly Americans if they were forced to know too much about them---will take care of us. Passivity makes cowards of us all.   It is also dangerous to us and our fellow citizens, since with each threat that doesn't materialize we become more blase about the next.  

Instead of using these failures to taunt the opposition, perhaps we in the center and on the left should be urging our fellow citizens to demand solutions that emphasize preparation for an attack. Why aren't we redefining the meaning of "soft on terror"?  It is "soft on terror" to expect the government to do the work of protecting us or looking after us if--or when---the event occurs.  A truly Democratic response to the ongoing threat would challenge citizens to channel their energies and the government to challenge funding into building "groundroots" community networks for coping with an attack.