Let's be frank. It isn't personal. No way could whoever perpetrated The Tragedy of 9/11 personally hate all the people they killed. No, they hate US, hate our "Way Of Life," as opposed to their way, which to us, who are USED to our way, is NO way. Hey, who'd want to give up a three hundred million dollar existence to live in the desert? You? Me? Not this week, or any week, pal. But Osama bin Laden did. So they have a point to make, Heaven knows what it is, but we might be able to get our minds around it if we take a serious look at ourselves.
In America, we are a country of EXCESS, writ large. "Small" is now what we used to consider "Jumbo," and there is no smaller, so if you want it, whatever it is, you pay the price and throw the rest away, like a good American. And it goes into a good old American landfill, I mean what the heck, we haven't filled up the Grand Canyon yet, haven't even started, so why panic about all the trash we make. Plenty of holes in the ground still to be filled, and covered over with housing developments.
When was the last time your toothpaste tube was actually FULL of toothpaste, and not just air at the end? When did you get a pound of coffee in a can that was meant to hold a pound, or a bag of potato chips that wasn't mostly air?
The other day, I went searching for a pair of Groucho Glasses. You know, with the big nose, the eyebrows, to use in a comedy skit. Most of the variety stores I went to "only carry them around Halloween," when they try to maximize their profits by palming off anything that's spooky on those of us who are rushing around and will grab up anything that seems to fill the bill. Hurry up and get it over with so we can get back to the couch and the security of the TV remote control. "Yeah, yeah, gimme the whatever..." I looked in several places, and finally found a store - a Dollar Store yet - that had Groucho Glasses; the clerk took me back to the Halloween department (Two months early, but you never know, a little business might just materialize) and got me the bubble-wrapped card, with FOUR sets of Groucho Glasses, all cheap plastic with stamped out eyebrows which were really part of the rims of the eyeglasses, and the wrong nose (a politically correct WASPish proboscis as opposed to the semitic schnoz that's always been the rule). But FOUR Groucho Glasses! "I only want one" said I, even though the four were nothing but cheap junk. "Can't break up the set" said the clerk, who was actually the proprietor. "No thanks, then." American merchants try to make you buy more than you want, so they can charge accordingly. EXCESS.
Go to the movies. A SMALL popcorn is $3.25. Probably costs them less than a dime to make, but they try to hold you up for as much as they can get, figure you're a hostage. Most people just pay it and use their union to get more money from the job, justifying it by the "everything's going up" rationalization. In the movies the concessions use the logic that we figure we're subsidizing art by paying more. Bullshit. Movies are an industry just like mining or construction. Art schmart. I bring fruit, nuts, munchies, my own popcorn made at home. Pay my own dime for my popcorn.
Go to the Ice Cream store. A "small" is really more than you can eat, but you try, hey, get fat, you pass this way but once (maybe). You paid the "small" price which is $1.75. To be fair, you can get a "baby" size (They actually call it that, more as a deterrent to adults who don't want to be put in the infant category, than as something a baby would be able to eat), which used to be 50¢ and was just about right for a normal adult, sizewise, but now costs a buck, plus tax, and is far more than a baby could eat, in fact just about more than a reasonable, repeat reasonable, adult can consume too. "Baby" indeed! MORE EXCESS.
How do all professional people, doctors, dentists, lawyers, etc., know exactly how much to charge for a particular service? No competition, charge the standard amount. Want a crown for a tooth? $850. Call another dentist - "How much do you charge for a crown?" (if they'll even quote a price over the phone) It's $850. Call 10 dentists - $850. Is this price fixing? "Well, no, we all just seem to have arrived at the same price by some sort of telepathy, surely not from talking to one another at the dental convention." Yeah, sure. Or maybe the insurance companies set the rate - good 'n' high so they can charge plenty of premium to the employers who pay for the coverage. But what about the people who who don't have coverage, who have to pay by themselves? Tough, pal, but the rates just come out of the computer, take it or leave it. Right. The dentists, the doctors, gotcha over a barrel, they know it, and in a society where everyone seems to be getting as much as they can, they sock it to you when they've got you down sick. To pay for their boats, or second home in Florida, or Mercedes 500SL. Gougers all.
We're a nation of fat people. From all this excess consumption, we've gradually over the years become bloated, and we don't even recognize it because we're ALL that way. Go into a restaurant - bigger is better - the 20 ounce prime rib special, all you can eat buffet, whopper burgers. Try to get a small, just try. They just about ask to see your age card, to make sure you're young enough to order a child's portion, which is really about all you can comfortably eat.
But notice the terrorists: all thin. No fat terrorists allowed. Not conducive to the imposition of terror. Don't look mean enough. Hey look, Santa Claus is fat; you wouldn't think he would hijack your airliner, wouldja? Mister Niceguy who brings gifts, comes down the chimney without getting sooty - mythical in all proportions. The terrorists are stark realists, using our myths of excess against us, and we are pushovers for the finely tuned cynicism of people who have to, or have chosen to live on, the minimum. Like pricking a balloon with a needle. Boom! So why are we surprised? We're soft, and willing to go along with excess, and this is excess of a different sort. Excess of evil, a new dimension of evil that kills indiscriminately.
Our cars are representations of us - big fat SUV's that guzzle gas, and keep us safe, impenetrable, and high off the ground (i.e., away from what's "below" figuratively). OPEC knows this, so socks it to us on the oil prices, and everyone down the line adds a little bit of profit so gas sometimes goes up to three bucks a gallon, not all due to OPEC, the purveyors at home can take part of the blame. Pile on the profit. At least there's a little competition there, or we'd be paying terrorist prices at the pump.
"Shall we get regular cable, digital cable, HBO and Showtime, Hey, howzabout Satellite TV, 150 channels, all the sports, all the Discoveries, wow! We can have the whole world, with just the flick of a remote." "Look at those nomads down there, riding around on goats. aw, aren't they cute! Look, they're waving at us, oh no, it's their fists, and they're shouting something, and burning something. It's our flag, and Bush, they're burning Bush. Just like in the bible, get it? Let's change the channel, shall we?" Right, we have it ALL, and the have-nots have zilch, nada, ugatz, niet, but they do have the one thing that everyone CAN have: Kids, kids to grow up and hate The Haves. Hate us precisely because we have it all, and all they have is their kids and their religion. Their religion that can promise them a better life in the hereafter, if only they sacrifice here... perhaps the ultimate sacrifice, taking along a few thousand of the Hated Haves. Religion is a very persuasive tool, especially when its subjects crave, and don't know what they crave, beyond survival. Still, they crave.
Before World War II, we had to scrimp, just to get along during the depression, though everything in the USA was bigger, better, more fecund, just waiting to be developed. WWII proved, thank heavens, that the bigger can smash the smaller, faster, more agile, with huge mass-production war industries. Feed the battle more than THEY can, and you'll win. Certainly true, and fortunately we did win, but this same mentality carried over to our society, and has produced opulence to be sure, along with every variation on excess that about forces us to guzzle and get fat. Such excess that the rest of the world, especially the have nots, those who scrape along like moles in the desert or the hills, harbor a jealousy that in time becomes murderous, then murderous on a large excessive scale to match our excess, especially when we are so easily murdered, our fat balloon is so easily pricked. Their logic would be "They won't miss a few thousand people, a couple of skyscrapers." But we DO, even mired in our excess, miss our people and our couple of skyscrapers. And those who sink to this new dimension of evil have forced our machine back into an excess of war making. Hopefully to eliminate them.
It's understandable why the have-nots would want to JOIN us, to come here and become fat, excessive, but why would anyone want to DESTROY us? The only motive would be jealousy of course, because they can't have what we have. We've reached the point of diminishing returns in our excess, and are beginning to implode anyway, so they feel they're just helping us along. But there's not telling how far excess can go. Look inward though, right here: people here killing their families, their classmates, their employers, their colleagues, because they're fed up and just can't take it anymore. Can't take the excess, perhaps not having it all in spite of being so close to it.
Time to take a good hard look at ourselves. What do we watch on the evening news, besides the morsels of actual happenings we're allowed to witness? DRUG ADS. "Take OUR drug. This is what's wrong with you." "No, take OUR drug. THIS is what's wrong with you." "Ask your doctor" (Sure, at seventy bucks a visit). Day and night the whole medical industry, which includes drug companies, insurance companies, HMO's, hospitals, medical practitioners, pharmacists, the whole lot, hammer away at us with ads on television, then claim that most of their money is spent on research. This is nothing but spurious, egregiously spurious claptrap. We can SEE where their money is going, and why the price of medical care and drugs is skyrocketing. WE are paying for those prime-time spots, make no mistake. And the drug companies don't just cure you, they SUGGEST what ails you so they can cure it, with THEIR drug or treatment. And the insurance pays for it... But what if one doesn't have insurance? Then one PAYS through the nose, enough to give you a nosebleed.
Well, at least we have our "Way Of Life" such as it is for some of us. We have America, even if we're poor here, and that's better than anywhere else on earth. But america to the struggling here is not what it seems to the struggling over there. To them it IS what it seems, what they hate, what they're jealous of. Well guess what: There are those of us who hate it and are jealous of it too, because it's all around us but not ours. We wouldn't, most of us, however, kill people to express our rage. There are other avenues. We seek opportunity to get to the good life we see. And opportunity is there, so we join the excess instead of making war against it. Perhaps instead of making war on them, we should make opportunity on them. Is that possible? Is there any other civilized choice?
Henry Francisco, Special to
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