NO GOOD GUYS OR BAD GUYS, JUST US

I don’t consider myself an expert in history, economics, or political science, nor do I consider myself intellectually superior, although my wife "accuses" me of thinking that I am! I think I have average intelligence, not mediocre, but average in this sense. I am as intelligent as the next guy, as intelligent as my friends and colleagues, as intelligent as my wife(!), as intelligent as my fellow countrymen or my fellow world citizens. I don’t know how I compare to the folks on Mars or Pluto or the planet K which we only recently discovered through television signals that were transmitted some three hundred light years ago. Just checking to see if you’re really with me!

And I just assume that those of us with average intelligence also have what is often referred to as common sense. You know, it’s probably not a particularly good idea for me to take a job as a lion tamer for the circus just because I have a whip and a chair, and yes, a Clyde Beatty outfit which I usually wear on Halloween! What? You don’t know Clyde Beatty? Hey, I’m not that old. You’re just young. Google Clyde!

So from my common sense position, I was stunned, STUNNED, when, last November, I heard that the trial for the mastermind of 911 was going to be held in Manhattan. WHAT? Where is the intelligence in that? Literally, where is the INTELLIGENCE in that? Why would we put so many people at risk? I mean they’ve bombed the World Trade Center twice, regretfully, the second time, with total success. What makes us think, even for a second, that we could prevent yet a third attack in our attempt to what? Rub their noses in our belief that we will ultimately be victorious? Just how bad do we think we are?

I am somewhat relieved that, at least for the time being, the final decision about the venue for the trial has been shelved. But even as of a couple of weeks ago, I heard someone from the Justice Department say something to the effect that Manhattan could still be a consideration. What is that kind of talk? What is that kind of posturing about? What point is the Justice Department trying to make? That the Justice Department is out of touch or that it’s arrogant and more into rattling its narcissistic sabers than common sense? Where is the consideration for those who live in Manhattan or are their lives worth sacrificing just to make a point?

Unfortunately, wherever the trial is held, the media will find a way to turn the event into a circus, speaking of Clyde Beatty. And that makes NO SENSE. There are plenty of stories to cover. Let this one go!

WHY? Well, because there is a basic rule of thumb. WHATEVER YOU GIVE ENERGY TO PERSISTS. Why would we put any amount of energy, media or otherwise, into this trial other than to carry out the legal mandates of our Constitution? If we have any common sense, the trial will be held in some very remote area and receive no media coverage. We might read about the verdict on page thirty five of section C about a week after the trial is concluded. Come on, think about it. Why give these folks the time of day beyond what our legal system requires? Why give so much publicity–ENERGY–to someone who is hell bent on destroying us?

I am not suggesting a secret trial, a railroad trial, a vigilante trial, or a mock trial, but simply one that receives zero attention, zero energy. Hold the trial in a small rural town that no one has heard of, maybe in Freezurassov, Alaska, originally a Russian settlement, now a gathering of igloos, about 3 blocks from the arctic circle. Or perhaps in Podunk, Iowa, or how about Beerhead, Minnesota?

I do believe it is extremely important for those involved in the trial to carry out the law with a fine tooth comb, to insure that the alleged perpetrator receives a completely fair trial even to the point of a jury determining he is not guilty. I can’t imagine that would happen, but the possibility must remain for the trial to be "fair." But hold this fair trial totally out of the limelight where Osama Ben Ladin will have no access to media coverage or information till weeks after the fact

WHATEVER YOU GIVE ENERGY TO PERSISTS. Take that in. Remember it. It’s also a good rule of thumb in parenting!

I’d like to think that we are a smart country, that we have smart politicians. I know, quite an assumption. And perhaps we are not smart because we don’t seem to learn from our own history and our past errors and successes. What’s with that? Is it arrogance? Or is my assumption just dead wrong. We are not smart.

Remember what we did to Germany after World War I? We wiped them out economically and in the process created a green house for the likes of Hitler and Nazi Germany.

Remember Ho Chi Mihn? He was our ally during World War II. We supported his fight against the Japanese and his desire to form a democratic independent Viet Nam. But once the war was over, we changed our tune in favor of supporting France who wanted to keep Viet Nam as a colony. Once again, we are all for Democracy unless it interferes with our agenda! And, O my God, even after the French were so profoundly defeated, for some strange reason, we thought we were big and bad enough to pick up the fight. And we all know the price of that decision.

I do not know the details of Japan’s economic growth after World War II, but I do know that our country played a part. We took a very different kind of approach with Japan than with Germany after World War I. And it paid off. So why can’t we learn something from that brilliant move? Why do we continue to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan with military force when we could be spending the same amount of money or less to infuse those countries economically?

Do you ever stop to think why the Taliban are so successful in Afghanistan? Because ultimately they offer jobs. Yes, jobs. Yes, I know, I must sound pretty naive. But that’s what swept Japan into economic prosperity after World War II. JOBS.

It is sad to me that our country’s political system still operates within a framework of good guys and bad guys, as if there really are good guys and bad guys. The fact is that part of you and me is a good guy and part of you and me is a bad guy. You and I are no better or no worse than any other human beings on the face of this earth.

Similarly, as a country, we do some really good things AND some really bad things. Like any other country, we can find justification for all the bad things we do, for example, we do these bad things in the name of God or democracy. We have these incredibly strange phrases like "necessary evil" or "friendly fire." But whether it is a U. S. citizen "flying" a drone with a video game controller thousands of miles away from the Pakistan border or a suicide bomber blowing him or herself up, the results are the same. Someone’s family member, someone’s friends, someone’s children are injured, maimed, or killed. ALL bad stuff in my book. If we say the suicide bomber is nuts, then we have to point the nut finger at ourselves as we sit behind the consol of a clean, slick, seemingly bloodless, but deadly "video game."

When I hear the spokesperson for the Justice Department saying that Manhattan is not totally off the table, it makes me think that, as a country, we are stuck in a BULLY mentality especially when it comes to foreign affairs. The Bully mentality hangs it hat on a narcissistic power rack. In so many words, "I am all powerful and whatever challenge I provoke, I can handle it because I am all powerful." But the fact is that eventually you lose to someone who is even more narcissistic and more powerful and perhaps even more evil.

Sometimes the guy in the white hat is thought to be the good guy and on the surface he is. But notice that the bad guys he attacks do not live. They do not go to the pool to wash their blindness away. They do not go inside to examine their hardened hearts and ride off into the sunset to live renewed lives. They are gunned down, shot, killed, and destroyed. And as the good guy walks away, he knows that he has to forever watch his back because the evil guy always rises from the ashes and dishes out his revenge. It is a very viscous circle. It’s also primitive and archaic. It’s definitely not smart. The good guy is no different or no better than the bad guy. Neither learn the lessons of history or life.

.In the old cowboy flicks, the all powerful narcissistic BAD GUY never thinks for a moment that he is vulnerable, never thinks he will be outgunned, never thinks he is going down, never thinks it is possible for him to meet his match.

And wouldn’t you know it, the all powerful seemingly not so narcissistic GOOD GUY never thinks for a moment that he is vulnerable, never thinks he will be outgunned, never thinks he is going down, never thinks it is possible for him to meet his match.

Did I just describe both the good guy and the bad guy the same? I think I did! Both, in their own way, are BULLIES. Both are provocative, taunting, and looking for a fight. Neither one can imagine shifting to a place where he is aware of danger and the first goal is to protect, to perhaps even avoid the fight all together, to buy time and turn on some rational thinking, to back up and say to himself, "Okay, what is going to be my best defense or my best offense against my challenger?" whether the challenger is good or evil.

In black-and-white-good-guy-and-bad-guy mentality, the challenger is always evil. In reality, the challenger is neither good or bad, but just a CHALLENGER. The challenger has a different agenda. They see life through a different set of binoculars than we do, or maybe not. Maybe both good and bad guys are actually striving for the same outcome. But unfortunately, in good-guy-bad-guy-bully mentality, there can only be one winner, and any conflict, real or perceived, has to be resolved by wiping out the challenger or the opponent TOTALLY. This bully mentality, both internationally and in our own country, becomes the breeding grounds for dictators and charismatic leaders who wield no charism.

When we will get it? There are no good guys or bad guys. There’s only US. Or if you insist there are good guys and bad guys, then, in this instance, we are the bad guys, for continuing to think, for even a second, that we could actually pull it off, having the trial in Manhattan. Sorry, people of Manhattan. Your government is willing to sacrifice you to the gods just to prove a point. And that point? "We're the government and we will do whatever we want to do just because we can and just because we think we are that powerful."  And then the bully has to add, "And who's going to stop us?"

It’s the same ol’ BS that we see around the world community including the Vatican. The Vatican sees itself as the good and the holy and everyone else is bad and evil. And, we’re all that way, still floating around in this primitive rusty old boat of good and evil, eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. You’d never know we fought a war over the inalienable rights of people. Thank God, our Constitution doesn’t distinguish between good people and bad people. We got it right there!