Other Things To Do (Or, One Voice Raised)

Wow. It seems that my last post to this forum was over a month ago. Guess I had other things to do. Some early Spring cleaning, still unfinished. Getting my financial affairs in something remotely approaching order, by hook or by crook. Fretting over certain things in my life that seem too difficult to change. And like that. Yeah, I've been pretty wrapped up in my own stuff. It's my prerogative, right?

Meanwhile, apparently, the world has continued in its paths, regardless of my inattention. And I am beginning to see just how deep that inattention has been.

This morning, one of President Barack Obama's first actions was to ask for a hold on a certain Gitmo case, which was readily granted. According to the news outlets, this particular case is that of a young Canadian man who has been held there for the last six years. Not recognizing the name, I did a little quick research on him, and was stunned at what I found. Because when I say he's a YOUNG man... I mean that HE WAS FIFTEEN YEARS OLD when he was imprisoned.

FIFTEEN, people. Fifteen. He has grown up in our prison. And not just a prison, but a facility which has been charged with unlawful and inhumane treatment, a place where lack of U. S. citizenship means that all bets are off and no holds are barred. His crime was apparently the throwing of a grenade which, according to original reports of the incident, was actually thrown by someone else. And as I read this, I am thinking: How did this happen on MY watch?

The answer, of course, is that I was not watching... or rather, that when I WAS watching, I was JUST watching. I had other things to do - much to my shame. Spring cleaning, y'know. And like that. Yeah.

What could I have done? Roused the rabble? Run interference? Probably not. But I'll tell you one thing I could have done. I could have raised my voice.

I did not. What effect would it have had? After all, I'm nobody.

I am coming to believe that it is above all this sense of helplessness, of powerlessness, that many of us have felt through the opening years of this millenium, which is the most real and present danger of all those which now threaten us. This is the rot that eats from the inside, changing the spirit and substance of this lovely ideal we call America, turning it - slowly but surely - into just one more Hollywood image, the painted cardboard backdrop of a free and just country.

It's just politics as usual, we mutter to ourselves, and flip the channel.

We pride ourselves on being informed, but the constant blast of the news media seems to act as an immunization. The diseases of our society no longer affect us. Why bother to react? It's old hat. And what can one voice do, anyway?

I do not know what that one extra voice might have accomplished. But I do know that silence accomplishes nothing. And if nothing else, every voice raised is a strike against the silence.

One of Barack Obama's favorite campaign stories suggests that "... one voice can change a room. If it can change a room, it can change a city. If it can change a city, it can change a nation. If it can change a nation, it can change the world..."

Underneath the accumulated cynicism of the Bush years is a part of me that once believed in that kind of possibility, and would really, really like to believe again. I'm not quite there yet, but in the wake of this historic election, and the opening moves of the Obama presidency, I'm open to being convinced.

No, I do not know what that one extra voice might have accomplished. I know only that I could have raised it... and that I still can.