The Aerie
"So are you for war, or peace?"
This is what the fellow behind the counter at the Border's Cafe asked me when I ordered a latte.
"Um," I hesitated, wondering what he would squirt into my beverage for which answer. "Peace," I finally said, firmly. I'm already drinking decaf, no point in adding war to it and lying awake all night anyway.
"Hm," he commented, looking troubled. Fortunately, the latte-making process seemed to be proceeding without unusual adulterations.
"Why do you ask?"
"Well, I was just listening to this guy who said people who wanted peace were weak."
Gosh, I didn't say, that guy wouldn't be drug-addled gasbag Rush Limbaugh, would it? The bloviating moralizer who got caught bringing illegal Viagra back from a trip to the Western hemisphere's sex-trade capital of the Dominican Republic?
"It's not a question of strength versus weakness," I replied conversationally, "It's a question of courage versus fear."
He continued knocking together my latte for a moment. "Well, are you for the war or against it?" he finally asked.
"Which war?" I replied. "I'm FOR the war in Afghanistan," I said, overstating that support a bit, " and I'm AGAINST the war in Iraq. I wish we had stayed in Afghanistan and set that country up right, like the Marshall Plan after Germany. If we had done that, and caught Bin Laden, that would have been a big improvement in the world. Instead the Taliban are back, and Bin Laden is still free."
"My father told me that people who are against the war are cowards."
I shrugged, "What takes more courage: attacking a country too weak resist us, or sitting down to negotiate with people who don't agree with us? This government is selling fear: they scare us with stories of terrorists, but they let North Korea develop a nuclear bomb."
He handed me my drink. "So do you believe that if you just think about peace that peace will happen?"
"What? No, of course not. That's magical thinking. But if you VALUE peace, if you intend to achieve peace as your goal, then you'll make the choices necessary to achieve peace. Maybe sometimes that path will lead into war and back out again, but not too often. Most of the time it will lead to the conference table."
"But isn't that just being too afraid to fight?"
I had my drink I and I could leave, but he seemed to be sincerely pondering these questions so I stood with my hot paper cup and kept talking. "Fighting is not always a sign of courage: if you back a coward into a corner he'll fight to get out. But this administration promotes fear. It encourages fear. It tries to scare us over and over again, and then it tells us that it will keep us safe."
I thought I might point out how promoting fear, promoting terror, was in fact terror-ism, but I decided not to go that way. Instead I said,
"But you know what I want? I want leadership - and I don't care which party it is - that promotes COURAGE. I want leadership that calls us to be the best we can be, not the least. We're Americans - we're the goddamned City on the Hill. If we had a leader who called on us ot be brave, to follow the Rule of Law, to set an example for the world, we'd have no need to fear anybody. Instead we slog through the muck of corruption, we filthy ourselves by breaking our own laws, and international laws. And we make the whole world sick when we justify using torture, because we're so goddamned SCARED we pretend it's necessary.
This isn't America; this isn't American. This is cowardice and fear run amok. Weakness? Weakness is when you torture a helpless captive. Strength is when you hold your ground, even when you know the danger. That's strength."
Someone was approaching the counter, so I wrapped up.
"You want courage? Courage is when you know you're going to suffer, but you do what's right anyway, that's courage. Fear is when you're willing to abandon decency and do something you know is wrong because you want to be 'safe.' People can show courage in war, but they can also show courage in peace by sticking to their principles, and by doing what's right even if it's dangerous."
Now here's where I am supposed to play humble, and say that I didn't put all this stuff so succintly or clearly. But actually I did, and I was kind of proud of myself for having done so. For his part, he really seemed to be listening to what I said, even if it wasn't all making sense for him right there. But as he turned away to help his next customer he said, "Hey, thanks for taking the time to talk with me."
"No problem," I answered, "I think this is stuff that's on a lot of people's minds these days."
Apparently it's been on mine.
Posted by Albatross at October 12, 2006 6:01 PM | TrackBack