In many ways, we are a society of children who have not learned to articulate our fears and concerns properly. We've grown up in a system that has defined heroism as a masculine-no tears-no words-just action philosophy. This is a system that values expediency and efficiency. It's a go-go-go culture. It is a system built on fear. We are urged to climb to the top, where there is limited space, and along the way to stump on any damn toes that get in the path. We are afraid of weakness. Weakness means failure and failure is viewed by many as some sort of sin. As such we will do almost anything to overcome weakness (drinking, killing, stealing, boasting...the list is long). Is it any wonder that we have a proliferation of happy pills, depression, self-help books, self-help experts?

By the way, anyone remember the story of Icarus?

We are still that scared little kid who, thinking he saw something in the shadows, runs to his parents for comfort. We are a sheltered society. Our monsters are cardboard caricatures. Our monsters are Hollywood created Indians, Nazis and Bond villains. From pulp novels to cinema to television, U.S. culture has ingrained in our senses a very simplistic view of good and evil. Good is us. Bad is them. Good has reasons. Bad has no reasons. Good is free. Bad is jealous. We're in the 21st century and we're still living life as if it was a Disney film. Bin Laden. Indians. Dr. No. Dr. Evil. There is a difference, a big difference and yet the media does not differentiate and as such, rarely do we.

As Plato said a real long time ago, there are no evil men; there are only evil acts.

No one, in our minds, can justify the actions of September 11.

Everyone, in our minds, can justify the actions that began on October 7.

We were attacked without cause and we must defend our values or so it goes.

Oh...ok...but isn't that what the September 11 murderers say as well? They see their actions as retaliation against U.S. neglect of the Middle East and the murder of many innocent victims along the way?

"Oh...that's just propaganda. That's just hogwash."

Hey...maybe it is, but then again maybe there's something to it. Don't we owe it to ourselves to find out before retaliating? It's as if we think that Hussein and Bin Laden are extensions of Hollywood villains and that with one big swift kick to the ass, we will save the world from evil.

But...umm...correct me if I'm wrong...this isn't a Hollywood movie. Those aren't extras lying at the bottom of the World Trade Center; those are REAL bone and blood people. So if this isn't a Hollywood movie, does anyone here REALLY think that this new "war" is going to magically eradicate evil?

It is this blurring of fact and fiction that seems to me to be the root of the problem. Culture and propaganda have been so seamlessly weaved together. Too many people seem to believe the rhetoric of this thinly veiled propaganda that tells them they are the center of the world and that they are the beacons of peace, hope and freedom. But not far beyond this mask lies a face of intolerance. Why does an apparently confident nation always have to wave flags and sing songs about themselves? Why does a nation always remind us that they are the "greatest country in the world" or that their freedom is "God given?" Why would a nation that continually reminds us that they are peaceful and free bomb first and ask questions later? That doesn't seem like a logical extension of an apparent free and peaceful people, but it does seem like something a three year old would do.

Remember when you were a kid and despite having paint all over your hand, you passionately and defiantly pled innocence to the spilt paint next to you?

We spout out this rhetoric about how we are the symbols of peace and justice and yet our continent was founded through murder. Our European ancestors came here and committed genocide against the natives. (To this day, our treatment of natives is reprehensible.) Owing to our ever-increasing case of selective historical amnesia we are rarely reminded of this BIG RED stain on our hands. And this leads us to what the U.S. has done better than any other nation. They have created propaganda that has become almost indecipherable from culture. For example, U.S. mythology through pulp novels and John Wayne movies re-wrote the past by painting the Indians as just plain evil. No reason was ever given for their crazy violence except that they just hated the "white man." Not once was genocide ever mentioned, instead the Indians were defined in our collective unconscious as the "other" and therefore, bad. I need only point to George Bush's comment that you're either with us or for terrorism to show just how little things have really changed.