War Is My Teacher

More tragic photos of tortured Iraqis this morning as the hideous slow motion S&M horror movie of our times plays out. As Mark Morford would say, hell readies a room. I keep searching for a punchline, something to lighten the tremendous load of shame of being an American right now. Something like "hey, people pay good money for that sort of treatment here!" But it only serves to highlight the atrocity. These were not consenting adults. Many of them will probably commit suicide rather than face their communities.

Optimist that I am, it's still hard to find my bright side. I find myself using the same mind trick I used for accepting that Bush was president - believing that being shocked out of complacency gets awareness going and gets changes made like nothing else. The only way I can seem to get through this with my peace intact is to wallow in gratitude. Those prisoners gave up their dignity so that we could see what war really means. Those soldiers who tortured them gave up their youth, and probably their freedom and maybe even their lives so that we could see how blinded we become in waging war, how cut off from our vulnerability (and everyone else's) we are in seeking victory. Rumsfeld, Cheney, and the rest of them allowed themselves to be born with only black, oozing vortexes where their souls should be so that we can see the value of the human spirit. I can only be grateful to them for their roles as my teachers. A stretch? Perhaps. But in this world where these things should not have happened, but did, all I can do is find gratitude for the growth it brought me. I can't un-make it happen. I can't give anyone back what they have lost due to this travesty; not a single prisoner, not a single grieving parent. We all lie here together in the collective bed of millenia of dominance and submission.

What we can do is decide what this means to us, and how we will respond to it. We can all hunker down and watch the last episode of Friends and pretend like this isn't going on, or we can stand up and say no, this won't be my reality anymore, thank you. Because that really would be all it takes. If every last solder in Iraq stopped following orders, turned around and walked away, would there still be war? If we collectively just refused to participate in the things that suck our souls dry, things would change. They would have to. But that would take a tremendous amount of commitment.

But nothing less is appropriate to what we've done. And make no mistake, we all did this. By blindly buying mountains of crap and raising our children on Mickey Mouse and McDonalds and Manifest Destiny. We are complicit via our choices. The way out - making new choices - seems impossibly simple and eye-crossingly close, and at the same time manages to seem futile because really, what difference can one person make? But ending atrocities in my life is a huge undertaking - a lifetimes worth - and the surest route to ending atrocities worldwide.

I'm an optimist, I'm up for the challenge.