No End in Sight

There's a lot of talk, as there always is during political campaign seasons, about which candidate can better "bring us together." I'm not so sure, though, that that's exactly what we need right now. What we need is to come out of our denial, realizing what a moral plunge this nation has taken with the war in Iraq. If you haven't seen No End in Sight yet, do.

Whatever anger or frustration you might already feel about this war, it's nothing compared to the heartsickness you'll feel after seeing this movie. It's not just that the invasion occured ... it's the complete and total bush league (well, what did we expect?) level of post-invasion planning -- or lack of planning -- that goes so far beyond a dereliction of duty, to a level of ineptitude that borders on the criminal, if not the insane.

It shows as well, that it did not have to be like this. It's nice to know that there in fact were heroes within the government -- at the State Dept., at CIA, etc. -- who could have done it "right," who knew how to do it, whose hearts and minds were in the right place, but were given no real voice. Paul Bremer, and others in charge -- none of whom had even one iota of experience in the kind of work they were called to do in Iraq --- made every single stupid, immoral decision that would almost ensure the horror and chaos we see now.

Bush can't even be directly blamed for the worst of it, because the President's absence from major war-planning is one of the horrors of the film! He sort of farmed the war out to his friends.

The movie begs the question, is not our nation in peril with every day this administration remains in office? Having seen the movie, I think this is an even more urgent moment in history than I had thought. And I had thought.

So do we need to be "united"? I think the unity that matters most is the unity of shared truth, such as truth about the facts. See this movie to get the facts. Then summon all your hope and faith, because you'll need it to endure them.

The kind of unity we need today is a unified consciousness that this man must be stopped. Our founders made a provision for this; perhaps we should take a look. It's not relevent that he's a lame duck and doesn't have all that much more time in office. One thing this movie makes exceedingly clear is how much damage this administration can do in a relatively very short time.

A friend of mine, when we were discussing all this, said, "Marianne, you sound so negative!" But I see nothing negative about shouting "Fire!", if indeed the house is burning. What's negative, perhaps, is pretending that it's not.