Frank Rich Puts It Out There. What Are You Going To Do?

At the Obama rally two weeks ago, I ran into an old reporter friend. He was doing his thing so we didn't talk much. Once in a while, he'd look over, smile, or just give me a look. Later he came over. He teased me about my clapping during the speech. He said that now he knows that I'm for closing down GITMO.

At first I was self-conscious. I used to be a staffer, and staffers were supposed to prepare the red meat, not eat it. Still, I didn't care. Of course I should clap at the promise to close down GITMO. That was literally the least I could do.

I was reminded of this yesterday after I read Frank Rich's "The Good Germans Among Us." He asked if we as Americans are any better than the "good Germans" who claimed ignorance of the crimes committed in their names:

I have always maintained that the American public was the least culpable of the players during the run-up to Iraq. The war was sold by a brilliant and fear-fueled White House propaganda campaign designed to stampede a nation still shellshocked by 9/11. Both Congress and the press -- the powerful institutions that should have provided the checks, balances and due diligence of the administration's case -- failed to do their job. Had they done so, more Americans might have raised more objections. This perfect storm of democratic failure began at the top.

As the war has dragged on, it is hard to give Americans en masse a pass. We are too slow to notice, let alone protest, the calamities that have followed the original sin.

In our political dialogue, we tend to act like evil comes only in the form of overseas dictators. Evil is always them, not us. After Katrina, we were reminded that indifference kills just as effectively as malicious intent. That most of us have more to fear from the enemy at home than the enemy abroad.

I am grateful to Mr. Rich for having the courage to suggest that the call is coming from inside the house. That we need to start looking at ourselves, and what we're not doing to hasten the end of the regime's worst atrocities. That it's time to acknowledge how culpable we really are.

George Bush is no Hitler. But that doesn't change the fact that we're committing murderous sins at home and abroad. We have to know that 20, 40, 60 years down the line, learned folks will make their cases for and against us. Were there any "good Americans"? Is it possible to even be a "good American?" Or "is there something inherent in the American character that makes us so susceptible to indifference, so given to greed?"

I used to live in Houston, Texas. I'd joke with friends that there's no reason to live in Houston unless you have shares in Exxon-Mobil or Dow. Why? Because you should enjoy the fruits if you're going to suffer the consequences. This was a joke, but there's some truth there. The air quality remains horrible. No amount of Pacifica radio, organic produce, (and in the meantime, protest) is going to change the fact that you still breath the same air everyone else breaths--air infused daily by the surrounding refineries and chemical plants. No matter how pure our portfolios or our politics, we were still Houstonians.

Just like we're all Americans. Not just human rights, due process-loving Americans. But George Bush, Dick Cheney, waterboarding Americans. If I go overseas and stay in a hotel that's been targeted by terrorists, I doubt they'll stop to Google the guest list and see that once or twice I blogged against the use of torture and decide whoa-ho, I should be spared! Despite the choices I make as an individual, at a fundamental level, I am still an American. With all its privileges. And all its baggage (with containers of new pieces arriving every day).

Call it group karma. Call it group culpability. Call it unfair. Doesn't matter. The fact is that individuals can suffer for crimes they themselves did not commit only because they were a member of the group.

Ask a German. They know something about group culpability. They also know something about feeling blamed for crimes that happened before they were born.

Can you imagine a life where shame is permanently affixed to your sense of nationality? This can be our future. How much so depends on how much we do now, today, and tomorrow.

The current administration is expert at making us feel powerless. Our Democratic leadership only seems to reaffirm. Yet, we can't give in to despair. Every small action we can take, we must take. Even if it's just clapping at a clap line. Even if it's calling senators and letting them know you really mean it. Even if it's more. Much more.

Because as we know, there were more than "good Germans" during WWII--there were the kind that resisted, the kind that put their lives on the line to hide people, to do what they could to act with love, bravery, and fairness, and doing so under wartime stresses and deprivations.

We can resist our government without ending up on the firing line. Don't let this power go to waste.

Comments

[altohone]

Too many in Congress and the media continue to be Good Americans.

Bad Americans may now be the majority, but the enablers and collaborators are in charge.

The backlash against Good Germans was a multi-generational obligation to be over-sensitive to all issues Jewish... I see no comparable effect in America. In fact, the revisionists have scrubbed their resumes to hide their role, while pro-war majority turned anti-war majority Americans have been left without a means to make ammends.

Instead, formerly pro-war Americans remain subject to propaganda and manipulation to prevent any backlash. Rather than a groundswell of support for diplomacy, the "maybe we weren't suckers and war in Iraq was the right thing to do just poorly executed" concept has become the rationale for putting off any self-analysis that could lead to a consensus for a new approach.

Rather than recognizing that the neocon agenda is based on a flawed ideology, doubts are encouraged, seeded by pundits and politicians, and spread by the media to stem the tide against those involved.

We're left with a populace that thinks that pre-emptive war may sometimes be necessary and may be legal, loss of rights may be necessary for safety, in some cases torture may be acceptable, and wiretapping only affects the bad guys.

The enablers in the Democratic party are key to this effort. Their refusal to disavow the agenda they voted for means they can argue to continue that agenda.

No, the group culpability of the Good Germans wouldn't have set in if post-Nazi politicians had been allowed to argue that SOME anti-Semitism was acceptable, SOME concentration camps were necessary, and SOME militaristic expansionism was legal.

[mommadona]

"No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices." ~Edward R. Murrow about Joe McCarthy's "communist hunt"

And all I ask is for NORMAL citizens to keep an OPEN MIND as to the TRUE evil and damage that's been done "in our name".

The more I research, the more I find.

It is embedded deep in "the beast" of the governmental machinery.

When THIS Bush leaves that WhiteHouse, it's going to make "House Cleaning" a whole new paradigm for Americans.

I have never seen such an insidious push for power and an actual 'coup' of this country and it's riches.

[WellbornBroad]

How can we resist our government when the very political body known as the Supreme Court usurps the will of the majority of Americans in the election in 2000?
The present administration with the complicity of congress has done more to denigrate Americans than at any time in our history.

[Lemeritus]

A couple of days ago, Naomi Wolf had a piece here called "American Tears" -- it was devastating. Now we have Stacy Parker Aab's thoughts on a Frank Rich op-ed that was absolutely damning.

I always thought the American people would recognize evil and band together to fight it -- each for reasons perhaps contradictory even inimical to one another, but united by an idea of what this country stands for. I no longer believe that; in fact I've admitted to being naive on these very pages.

This is what I do know: I no longer email friends abroad because I no longer trust my government to respect my privacy (let alone my point of view). Twenty years ago I collected a misdemeanor; today I probably can't cross the Canadian border. If I were to disappear tomorrow in a protest activity -- being neither blonde nor famous -- the media would not care.

All of this sounds paranoid, even to me. But this is not the country I was brought up to love and the sooner we all realize it, the stronger our outcry will become. We must not let it slip from our grasp.

[Boyaca]

I think that the current political climate in the US is much more dangerous than it was in Germany in the 30s. The present group of world rulers in the US ( not in the White House by the way.) has had the opportunity to study the Nazi model and not make the same mistakes when taking over, and running the country. I don't think it is fair to blame all Americans for the state of the government of the US. They are up against the brightest minds that can be bribed or bought outright to sell them on all of this evil. The politicians themselves are helpless against a corporate culture that has taken over the country. To speak out is to be cast out and your entire future destroyed. The one thing they did learn from socialism is that if people have just a little they are less likely to take to the streets. So long as they have something to protect, they will not raise there heads in revolt against the system no matter how cruel the system is. The idea is to make sure they have just enough of everything to keep them behind their own doors and off the streets.

[stellanoir]

The only remedies I can possibly fathom are to mandate publically financed elections, deconsolidation of media, and voter verified paper ballots for starters. Otherwise we will continue to remain bereft of truly representative leadership and see our Constitution evermore evicerated.

The bozos in Congress feel they'd rather redeem a bunch of dead Armenians (no offense to Armenians but that issue wasn't exactly pressing), control language, and condemn tasteless though true humour (the Moveon kerfuffle) than bring ANY of those three primary issues to the table, never mind the floor.

When unearned executive privilege is a catch all excuse, it sears one's senses.

When the balance of powers have been unduly tipped to the executive branch something is totally amuck.

We are far beyond the point of a Constitutional crisis.

May truth eclipse falsehood in these times. May honour eclipse greed. May clarity eclipse deceit. May transparency eclipse obfuscation. May corruption be eclipsed by true justice.

May peace eclipse war. May faith in basic human kindness eclipse fear.

May we neutralize our dynamic with Iran.

"nam-myoho-renge-kyo"

[Durango]

I have studied Germany and WWII extensively and I have often wondered about the "Good Germans." After all nothing like a clear majority ever voted for Hitler and the Nazis. And Berlin, in particular, was very anti Nazi.

Almost no one in Germany, including the Army and Goering, wanted War in 1939. Except Hitler of course. How did the Nazis "unify" Germany behind a government, it's policies and and a War nobody was really in favor of?

Then in the lead up to the Iraqi War when it was obvious that we were being lied to and the institutions that should have stood up were worthless, especially the media. Hell, I knew there weren't any Weapons of Mass destruction and any claims of ties between Saddam and Al Qaida were ridiculous, yet the media failed to report any of that.

We turned on the news one day after massive demonstrations around the world in opposition to the war yet the media acted like they never happened.

Our television was full of nothing but retired military pumping up the conflict with false patriotism.And the one man who was most knowledgable about Iraq, Saddam and his weapons program, Scott Ritter, was almost entirely absent. I caught him, on CSpan I think, and he was singlehandedly attempting to prevent the war. Yet he was ignored in favor of propaganda.

The media was a nonstop propaganda campaign for war. (Like Lewis Black said"I knew there weren't any WMD's. And I didn't even have to leave my couch!)

And I realized for the first time the hopelessness of the "Good" German people. The people who opposed Hitler and everything he stood for yet were powerless in the face of a modern state with the media behind it.

What was done in the lead up to the war and ever since was criminal. And using the Nuremberg precedent we need to hold our leaders as responsible as the "United Nations" held the Nazis.

[Pageup]

Christopher Allbritton (freelance writer and blogger at Back-to-Iraq) made the same argument the day after the election by stating that we are all collaborators now. (I see that he took down his original post from November 2004 -- did he get nasty e-mails from those who disagreed? Probably. But his original post was spot-on.)

But I completely disagree with your last line. You can not resist Bush without being on the firing line -- this is want resistance is all about. Pretending you can resist Bush without sacrificing is like Bush stating that you should support the war on terror by going shopping: it is the lazy way out.

[itmaybetoolate]

Pageup, define being "on the firing line." Writing on this blog, signing national petitions, writing your congressional representatives and senators, joining the ACLU, etc. (all things I have done)? Tell me HOW to be on the firing line. How can we be collaborators when no one tells us what it means not to collaborate? Who has a plan to resist and what it is? I canceled my cable and told the company I did so because the media is complicit in bushie's high crimes and misdemeanors. I have suggested a nationwide push to ask all anti-bush folks to do the same. This WOULD get some attention (millions of subscribers canceling?) but no one is interested in ideas like this. Am I a collaborator?