[Peace-discuss] Learning to Lead

[Brussel Morton K.]

Dahr Jamail weighs in:

     We would like to imagine that it is our agency that drives us,  
and that our lives are under our control. The truth, however, is that  
we are the ones under control. The reason we do not notice it is that  
this control is masked as security, which we have been told is  
synonymous with freedom.

      Recently, I passed through an airport checkpoint monitored by  
the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) and witnessed the  
"system" rear its ugly head yet again.

      TSA is one of several security gifts from the Bush  
administration, or rather, from the twisted conjunction of corporate  
business and state power that oversees and safeguards our "freedom"  
and "democracy" through an elaborate system of control mechanisms.

      Immediately in front of me, an elderly gentleman in a  
wheelchair was trying to reason with the security guard who was  
asking him to take off his sandals. "What do you want me to do? I  
didn't wear socks so you could see my feet since I'm unable to bend  
over and take off my sandals."

      "Sir, you must comply with policy," the guard said in a raised  
voice, as three other TSA agents moved in behind him, arms folded  
ominously across their chests, and surrounded the elderly man in the  
wheelchair who requested their assistance, doing what he could to  
"comply." None of the guards stepped forward to take off his sandals  
for him in order to check his feet.

      In exasperation he shouted, "I'm asking for help, and you won't  
do it, so what do you want me to do? What the Hell am I supposed to  
do? What are you afraid of? I'm an old man in a wheelchair! Are you  
afraid of my sandals?"

      The guards would not allow him through the x-ray until he  
eventually lowered his voice. We must never upset the status quo,  
because that is an important pillar of a system that holds change in  
dread. Do not rock the boat, and don't you dare speak up, lest it  
indicate that something is wrong.

      It requires no crystal ball to see that we are embedded in a  
system that has no qualms about harassing old men in wheelchairs or  
making pregnant women walk through x-ray machines. It is the same  
system that is killing scores of Iraqi and Afghan civilians daily,  
and killing the planet systemically. It is a system that requires us  
to be sleepwalkers, rather than alert and sensitive humans. …

See the rest, a forceful reflection about our current state, at  
http://www.truthout.org/112608A
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20081127/aa4d1eed/attachment.htm