Here and There

A couple of posts ago, I cited a Newsweek article in which the author posed the (rhetorical) question: Where is the outrage?

I got a couple of responses on this post, namely because I agreed with the idea that no matter how bad the crime and scandals get in this country, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of an appropriate response from the general public.

Let me first say: I don’t mean to generalize. I know there are plenty of people out there who do care that their communications have been subject to surveillance over (at least) the last five years. I know that deep down, Americans don’t like being lied to. I know (all too well) that they value freedom.

I write today to admit maybe I took inventory at the wrong time. Maybe, oddly, we as a nation needed a break, and found one in Christmas weekend.

Whatever the reasons, as of yesterday and today, I’m starting to see more and more items like this one, from Miami Herald writer Robert Steinback. Though Steiback’s prose is a tad grandiose (he says he never would’ve imagined that “this nation…would cower behind anyone just for promising to ‘protect us.’”), he does a great job of breaking down the meaning of just about everything that’s transpired (that we know about):

“I evidently have a lot poorer insight regarding America’s character than I once believed, because I would have expected such actions to provoke — speaking metaphorically now — mobs with pitchforks and torches at the White House gate. I would have expected proud defiance of anyone who would suggest that a mere terrorist threat could send this country into spasms of despair and fright so profound that we’d follow a leader who considers the law a nuisance and perfidy a privilege.”

“Bush stokes our fears, implying that the only alternative to doing things his extralegal way is to sit by fitfully waiting for terrorists to harm us. We are neither weak nor helpless. A proud, confident republic can hunt down its enemies without trampling legitimate human and constitutional rights.”

I, probably like many others, am left to wonder what it would take. What is the appropriate response? Congress has scheduled hearings in January to look into the NSA surveillance program. Am I just a cynical bastard to believe that nothing of any substance will come out of those hearings? I would love nothing more than for those responsible for breaking the law to be held accountable. It would be a good way to start 2006 off right.

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