Contact
Working through our differences is the only way forward
Heath Haussamen
The real lesson of 9/11 is that we, both in this country and around the world, must unite to solve our problems and move society forward
This is one of a handful of pieces written by NMPolitics.net columnists reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The brilliance of the U.S. Constitution is in its underlying implication that compromise between people with different beliefs is the most effective way to move America forward.
In other words, the Constitution envisions that 100 senators (or 435 representatives, or 112 state lawmakers, or a handful of city councilors) honestly debating an issue can find a better solution collectively than any of them could individually. Being American citizens means we have a duty to seek to understand those with whom we disagree and find ways to work together.
I’ve been thinking a lot about that as the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks approaches.
We find so much in this world to fight about, but, as a nation, we stood united in the weeks following 9/11. We had a common wound that needed to heal.
As that wound became a scar, we drifted apart. Americans now live in one of the most polarized and divisive times in our nation’s history. The resulting gridlock has brought us to the brink of economic catastrophe.
If our actions are a measure of how we want to live, Americans would rather fight over our differences and see society stagnate than do the hard work of finding understanding and compromise. On the left many believe tea partiers are extremists. On the right many believe progressives are extremists.
Shouldn’t we have learned from 9/11? Real extremists attacked us. They killed thousands of people from all over the world. In that moment, we as a nation and a world had an opportunity to stand united against extremism and to band together to turn a tragedy into an opportunity.
Ten years later we’ve fought a necessary war on Islamic terrorism, but also a war in Iraq that fanned the flames of extremism because it so blatantly wasn’t about Islamic terrorism, no matter what America claimed.
Ten years later we’re teetering on the brink of economic collapse, opting for partisan bickering instead of finding solutions. We have so many serious problems that need immediate attention, including the deficit and debt, poverty, energy independence, immigration and border security, the rise of the Mexican drug cartels, our crumbling infrastructure, education, and health care.
Building walls instead of bridges
I believe most of us want to find solutions to these problems. In my experience tea partiers are generally honest people who are concerned about our nation’s debt and other issues and are trying to band together to make a difference. Progressives have strong beliefs that are usually different than those held by tea partiers, but, like tea partiers, progressives are genuinely good people who are working hard to build a better America.
Despite that reality – that most of us are working toward a better America and a better world – we stand divided today, calling each other extremists and refusing to work together.
There are real extremists out there – people who would knock down our buildings in the name of Allah, who would assassinate abortion doctors in the name of Jesus, who would blow up federal buildings to protest taxes and gun-control laws, who would shoot people in the Holocaust Museum because they hate Jews. Those are the people who refuse to contribute to society’s betterment and must be marginalized.
Our U.S. Constitution envisions the rest of us debating our ideas about the future of America and compromising with each other to move society forward. But across our divides, we’re now standing behind walls we’ve built, looking out with our guns drawn.
What you eventually get when you vilify those with whom you disagree, when you build walls instead of bridges, is Palestinians cheering in the streets when they learn about 19 Saudis knocking down the twin towers and killing thousands.
Those images of celebration on 9/11 have stuck with me even more than the video of the twin towers collapsing. There will always be extremists looking to inflict pain and death, and sometimes they will succeed. The joy some expressed following the attacks is what shocked me most.
The lesson we must learn
Such hatred and division isn’t what America was designed to foster. And yet, with some of our policies, we have played a role in promoting anti-American sentiment around the world, and within our own country we are divided. We aren’t succeeding in promoting understanding and compromise abroad or finding it at home.
Our society won’t survive if we don’t learn this lesson: Liberals aren’t the enemy. Conservatives aren’t the enemy. Christians aren’t the enemy. Muslims aren’t the enemy. Atheists aren’t the enemy. Gays aren’t the enemy. Undocumented immigrants aren’t the enemy. Corporations aren’t the enemy. Unions aren’t the enemy. Gun owners aren’t the enemy. Environmental groups aren’t the enemy. Texas isn’t the enemy.
We give power to the real enemies of progress by wasting our time fighting each other.
The real lesson of 9/11 is that we, both in this country and around the world, must unite to solve our problems and move society forward. If we did that, we would drive fewer people to the fringes. Terrorists in the Arab world, America and elsewhere would draw fewer recruits. More people would instead engage in the debate about how to build, not tear down, our society. And their voices would benefit us all.
We must embrace the truth that working through our differences to find understanding and compromise is the only way forward.
18 comments so far. Scroll down to submit your own comment.
Leave a response
You must be logged in to post a comment.
There are not three parts of government…There are four. In addition to the executive, legislative and judicial branch we must add the bureaucratic branch. Here is where the problem / solution lies. When the bureaucratic branch assumes the same risk as the electorate (the party does not matter) than maybe….just maybe we can get things done. We can change the folks at any of the three branches, but without reform at the bureucratic branch we’re spinning our wheels. As I watch what is going on in Europe I see how they are finding it difficult to deal with harsh economic realities because of the bureaucratic branch. . In China, the communitst party can not handle either the growth of the middle and upper class nor ethnic differences in the various areas of their country. They have issues that are very difficult to deal with
In New Mexico we have the same problem. Old habbits die hard. Especially old bureaucratic standards.
Skeptic,
The “surge” convinced the Iraqi people of nothing. What worked in eliminating al Quiada from Iraq was a previously proven method of American intervention commonly known as cash bribes.(SEE: Sons of Iraq)
Your fanciful assertion that “thinking” Iraqis believed that American-led forces were fighting “ON BEHALF” of them,is not based upon any actual facts. In September 2006, a World Public Opinion (WPO) poll conducted in Iraq, established that 70% of the Iraqi people wanted the U.S. to leave in less than one year. More importantly, approximately 61% of Iraqis “approved” of attacks on American-led forces, while 94% had an unfavorable opinion of al Quiada. So, although they may have had no love for al Quiada, it was American forces who were targeted for elimination.
Comparing the formation of the client-state that is occupied Iraq, to the founding of the United States of America enters an entirely new level of self-delusion. The Coalition Provisional Authority headed by Paul Bremer is now facing 27 criminal investigations for their behavior, which included auctioning off 200 state-owned industries to foreign corporations based in nations which supported or participated in the original invasion and billions of dollares in missing cash. I’d say that this definitely does qualify as “other interests.”
Any observation conducted from the safety of New Mexico regarding what constitutes a “necessary war,” fails miserably to hold in account the millions of lives who have suffered at the hands of our occupying forces, who have lost billions of dollars of their state-owned wealth, their entire cultural history, and who have finally been forced to privatize their oil fields for the benefit of the invaders. If you believe that all of this destruction based upon a false assumption that Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) were being stockpiled in Iraq was worthwhile, you should really try talking to Iraqis.
You are responding to something that I didn’t write.
Though some may have falsely believed it, I didn’t write that Al Qaeda was in Iraq.
What I did write is that the US liberation of Iraq led to the rejection of al Qaeda.
The problem with terrorism is that it is asymmetric ( force against civilian population )
and doesn’t involve the military ( one of the few tools available to oppose it ).
I don’t know if it was secretly a goal, but it was clearly the result that by overthrowing Sadam,
al Qaeda couldn’t resist coming in to attack the military and opposing that great Mediterranean tradition of democracy.
This was a great benefit, because it recast the conflict from al Qaeda’s terms (attacks on civilians)
to terms at which the US could actually do something: al Qaeda versus military.
Al Qaeda had intimidated Iraqis until the surge convinced them that the US would persist.
Then when they felt secure, they ‘flipped’.
No doubt this was a costly and bloody endeavor.
But was not our own nation’s beginning a costly and bloody endeavor supported by an outside party(France) that
had other interests?
Secular buffer between them?
Brutal Sunni dictator murderously suppresses the Shia majority, and that’s a good thing?
Al Qaeda’s casus belli ( in Osama’s fatwas ) was that of the US support of dictators.
You would continue with one of the stated flames of terrorism?
That’s not what it demonstrates at all because the Arab nations DID get encouragement from the example of Iraq that self determination is a right they should have and that dictators can be overthrown. And strangely enough, this was
exactly what the ‘Greater Middle East Initiative’ called for! ( read the GMEI ).
To be sure, the US had other interests in Iraq beyond liberation from tyranny.
But the evidence was that the US fought ON BEHALF of Iraqis not against them, and thinking people,
most especially Iraqis, understood this.
Al Qaeda tried to cast this as the US against Muslims.
The reality was the US fought for Muslims ( and everyone else in Iraq ) to have representation in their government.
Unfortunately democrats and the NY Times editorial board cast Iraq as sinister and cynically rooted for US defeat to gain political advantage ( go back an listen to the speeches at the time of the surge ).
Democrats are not alone with this shameful behavior, though.
Republicans and Fox News are hoping (and it shows) that the effects of the financial crisis persists long enough to regain the presidency.
To truly ‘unite’ means rising above the emotional opinions of the parties ( and their mouthpieces ).
This is difficult because people seem to like feeling righteous and indignant.
But I posit that the highest indignation is for those who would manipulate me to be indignant for their political gain.
Skeptic, IcarusPhoenix got it right:
Unfortunately, Skeptic, your entire post is proof of that; you cherry-picked all the bright moments (some of which were by no means as bright as we like to think they were) and completely ignored the far more numerous unfortunate side-effects… like the fact that the organization known as “Al Qaeda in Iraq” didn’t even exist before the 2003 invasion. Indeed, brutal dictatorship not withstanding, Iraq was in no way a terrorist state before we toppled the government. Now, because we went into a region without even a basic understanding of religious and ethnic tensions that existed centuries before Europeans even settle what is now the United States, Iraq has spent the past several years as the proxy battle-ground for an undeclared war between two disparate forms of Islam rather than what it used to be, the secular buffer between them that kept them from coming to blows. If there’s anything that the events of the past few months in Libya and Egypt have shown, it’s that we have so misunderstood the citizens of these regions that it never occurred to us that they would eventually chose to change their leadership without any encouragement from us.
Heath is right about the results of of our actions (and I note he does so while sounding at times remarkably like he’s just been reading the speeches of Bobby Kennedy); our vilification of others tends to make us look like the villains. When people who are themselves innocent civilians cheer the deaths of our innocent civilians, it is a very foolish thing not to realize that there is something in their perception of us to cause them to have such callousness towards our tragedies.
All that being said, CigarsAndIrishWhiskey is not wrong; it is a rare generation that does not look back on the past through rose-colored glasses. We do live in interesting times, but so did every one of our ancestors. The very nature of a country like ours is that it is, by definition, an evolutionary system, and there will always be another struggle just over the next hill between the proponents of an American Exceptionalism based on equal opportunities and an ever-expanding definition of what liberty really means, and intractable interests who view it merely as a position of moral superiority and a means for personal gain.
>>> “Ten years later we’ve fought a necessary war on Islamic terrorism, but also a war in Iraq that fanned the flames of extremism…”
“Fanning flames” is not strictly quantifiable, but do you have any evidence for this statement?
Did it not also “fan the flames” of democratic rule? ( the Iraqi public has, after all,
elected its own leaders and voted on its own constitution, forming its own government )
Didn’t the vision of purple fingered Iraqis help motivate the ‘Arab Spring’ with the idea that
all peoples deserved representative government? ( as the ‘Greater Middle East Initiative’ outlined)
Did you ever read the ‘Westerner’s Gift’? Some learned Iraqis are appreciative of the US effort,
which after all led to the removal of their murderous dictator and ultimately provided security,
protection, political expression and resources.
What dictator has ever stepped down voluntarily?
Wasn’t US -support- for dictators part of terrorist rationale? By that measure NOT overthrowing Sadam
would also have fanned the flames.
Wasn’t the Iraq war still a continuation of the early 90s? The US had tens of thousands of troops still in Iraq and
was flying ‘No Fly Zone’ missions every day. Was this going to go on for ever?
Didn’t the US effort in Iraq lead to Sunni, Shia, and tribal leaders to all REJECT al Qaeda in Iraq?
( thus dousing the flames of terrorism ).
The real fanning of the flames was not of terrorism but democratic leaders who fanned the flames of
Americans, cynically rooting to lose the war for political advantage.
Unfortunately, and along the theme of your essay, republicans appear just as guilty, rooting for continued
economic malaise for political advantage.
Overcoming divisions probably means for people to reject the partisan rhetoric coming from the political
parties who are all to glad to push emotional issues.
But I’m not sure most people are willing to release their dogmatic, emotional political affiliations.
Very thoughtful piece, Heath. As usual you have made a number of astute observations, but one I might expand upon is this: We give power to the real enemies of progress by wasting our time fighting each other.
Not only do we give them power when we fight each other, but we also give them power when we repeat their names, recite their deeds, perpetuate what they have done through constantly re-exposing ourselves to their acts. Doing so is perhaps the most natural thing in the world, but it also engraves in our collective consciousness a sense that what they have done IS powerful.
Clearly some things cannot be ignored, but in our efforts to move on, to be smart about our responses, to focus on the positive result, we must recognize that a long list of intuitive, instinctual, natural responses will actually weaken us and empower those who would do us harm.
So, yes, let us again demonstrate that compromise is actually a powerful tool, let us build upon where we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished, and let us truly BE better than we’ve been able to be in the past.
The only deal that has been reached:
Corporations now have the ability to spend endless sums of money to ensure that elections continue to support candidates who favor the influence of monied lobbyists perverting democracy into kleptocracy. Taking back our nation is going to require far more work than compromise.
Pretty obvious that the polarized and divisive people who read this blog present a subset of US citizens
who show we won’t listen or compromise with each other no matter what. Next rant Heath.
Good article….just a little problem with the term, “undocumented immigrants”…I honestly think the term should be “undocumented ILLEGAL immigrants”. There is a distinction that needs to be made perfectly clear in this debate concerning immigration. Othewise, you slam those who have done the process legally.
I respectfully disagree with this myth that our great Republic has somehow ‘lost its way’ with regard to civility and etc.
We live in divisive times? What’s new. The whole point of government and especially one with checks and balances, such as ours, is political conflict.
Just look at the first U.S. election for President between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Accusations of devil worship, atheism, assisting hostile European powers against American interests and etc.
You also have the duel between Hamilton and Burr.
Hemingway mentioned Henry Clay but even the great compromiser lived in times of great political conflict and national division. You had the great three in the U.S. Senate (Clay, Calhoun and Webster). They argued and fought and their allies fought and yes they always compromised but they all ultimately failed because the Civil War still happened. The great questions of regional loyalty and slavery were never solved via legislative compromise. You even had the violent clahes between pro and anti slavery forces across Kansas and Missouri before the Civil War started. It took war and civil rights bills over a hundred years later. You even had a southern senator beat a northern senator nearly to death with his cane and the southern senator was send dozens upon dozens of cains as a sign of admiration from other southerns of that time period.
Then you had the reconstruction period; scandals; squabbles over the Spanish American War; corruption and crime with prohibition; fights over the New Deal; fight over communist influence; divided American and even violence over civil rights and Vietnam War….I could go on and on.
Point is this. There NEVER was a long established politically peaceful time of national political unity. Yes, we have always come together at times of grave crisis and war as we should. But, politically, we have always had conflict and division. This is normal. We are still unified as Americans. We may disagree politically but we are, overall, polite to our fellow countrymen who disagree with our views. We still go on living without acting like some banana republic where political militias go around arresting entire segments of the population who don’t support the same policies they do. We are still united as Americans. We disagree on policy and we elect representatives who reflect our different opinions and they are paid to argue, fight, argue some more and reach deals so our government continues to roll along.
I agree, some of the hyperbole is liquid crazy. But, that’s a part of the package.
Mike Lofgren, a 30 year devotee to the Republican Party recently parted with what he calls the “cult” of extremism and “political terrorism” now defining the party. A long and interesting read if you all are so inclined. As Lofgren suggests, the Republicans, in their hatred of Obama, act only to make him fail instead of acting in the best interests of the country, going so far as to hold the US and global economies hostage to get what they wanted.
I doubt we will see reason prevail anytime soon in Washington with all the vitriol that now stinks up national politics.
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779
Hemingway,
Include a stipulation for compromise in American foreign policy decisions as well, and I would agree with you 100%.
Here are the words of Henry Clay in the Senate calling for the great Compromise of 1850:
“It has been objected against this measure that it is a compromise. It has been said that it is a compromise of principle, or of a principle. Mr. President, what is a compromise? It is a work of mutual concession – an agreement in which there are reciprocal stipulations – a work in which, for the sake of peace and concord, one party abates his extreme demands in consideration of an abatement of extreme demands by the other party: it is a measure of mutual concession – a measure of mutual sacrifice. Undoubtedly, Mr. President, in all such measures of compromise, one party would be very glad to get what he wants, and reject what he does not desire but which the other party wants. But when he comes to reflect that, from the nature of the government and its operations, and from those with whom he is dealing, it is necessary upon his part, in order to secure what he wants, to grant something to the other side, he should be reconciled to the concession which he has made in consequence of the concession which he is to receive…”
These are the words that the uncompromising and polarized Congress should live by today.
“Marginalizing the extremists …”
I suggest we start by marginalizing major media “news” outlets who are making millions (billions?) fanning the flames instead of enabling civil discourse.
The Tea party will not compromise. Just look at this petition:
http://act.theteaparty.net/4897/open-letter-to-congress/
Where is our Henry Clay today!
Heath Haussamen,
I notice that you did not include :”The government is not the enemy.” in your litany of the blameless. Any special reason?
When Americans are no longer cheering in the streets for the extrajudicial summary execution of men like Osama bin Laden, then perhaps Palestinians and others may no longer perceive our nation as a bellicose and manipulative corporate empire. The joy some expressed following that illegal execution is what shocked me most about our nation.
The whole underlying foundation behind “American exceptionalism” is based upon a concept of “moral superiority” established in the fundamental ideal that justice and equality are required for proper governance. As we have seen, this definition has been conveniently mutated into a plausible denial for war crimes and extensive violations of constitutional international law that continue even today.
Though it may not occur to the hundreds of millions of Americans who will never leave this continent during their lifetime, but when this government chooses to bring the hammer down at home, it will be with the same vigor and intensity exercised in other nations around the world. Our only hope is to realize that Emmanuel Goldstein, Manuel Noriega, and Saddam Hussein were all antagonists conveniently created by government in order to secure obedience and supplication. It is time to start thinking for ourselves and questioning authority… before we too are subject to martial law.
This is no time to be rationale, reasonable, and actually focused on solving problems…. we’re in a never ending election cycle of cheap political theater!
Seriously, Amen. If enough people start talking and acting like grown-ups, it might catch on. We do need to marginalize the extremists, rather than the other way around. Thanks Heath.