We anchored for the night within sight of NASA’s vehicle assembly building; impressive, imposing, and sad. The US of A is no longer in the manned space business. Americans will not be going to the stars. Within one hundred years there will be people living on the moon and maybe on Mars. They will probably be speaking Chinese but that is okay. Americans don’t have the will, the curiosity, or the courage to go. That’s the way it works.
The more I think about it the more I realize that nearly all of the failures of American society are simply symptoms of this underlying cravenness. Fear is the fundamental characteristic of American conservative culture; fear of change, fear of the new, fear of the other, pretty much fear of everything. It is the reason they love their guns, like a child clinging to his security blanket. Fear is why they so often kill by mistake, frightened by a perceived threat where there is none. (Only the true coward feels the need to prove his manhood by “standing his ground” and shooting an unarmed person.) It is why they bankrupt a nation to fund the world’s most outrageously expensive and destructive military – even though that military has done little to protect them. And fear is why they gladly hand the freedom they claim to love so much to the Department of Homeland Security without regret or complaint.
When history records the demise of the United States of American it will write that the people scared themselves to death.
Cowards are irrational when it comes to their fear. No amount of reason, no marshaling of facts, no logic, can penetrate their frightened minds. The fear is inescapable and all consuming. When hooked to their fright no claim is too outrageous or too stupid to be believed. Obama is a Muslim / terrorist / Marxist / communist / non-citizen bent on making slaves of White People. Gay people will ruin straight marriage. Muslims are all terrorist out to destroy “our freedoms”. Atheist worship Satan.
Oddly enough the most fearful are the Christian fundamentalists, the very people who think god is watching over them and controls the universe. If anyone should be unafraid it should be these. Why should they care if gays get married, people smoke pot, or women have sex without meaning to make babies? Isn’t their ticket to heaven already punched? Isn’t their god fully aware of who is doing what to whom and why? The cowardliness of American Christian fundamentalism is clear evidence that their faith is a hoax they play on themselves.
The craven delusion of America’s political leadership nearly matches that of the American Christian Fundamentalist. American’s politicians cannot even summon the courage to talk to each other, all hiding behind the walls of their own “caucus”. The very thought that their ideology might not survive the challenge of debate or the test of informed scrutiny terrorizes them into complete impotence. Watching the disintegration of the American political system is to see nothing but fearful little people trying to pretend that they have courage. (The “courage of conviction” is nothing but fear hiding behind assumption – a sad fact of both politics and religion.)
One might think that, in the land of the craven, the brave reign as kings. But fear breads hate. There is nothing the coward hates more than courage. No group of cowards will endure having their failure of character back lit by the brave. In the land of the craven the brave keep their own council and do the best they can for those they love and care for. Eventually though, their bravery and loyalty will out them. Standing by the gay son, daughter, or friend; defying the police state; walking away from a hate filled religion … in the dark land of the craven no candle of courage can long remain hidden. But by these acts of courage the brave just might save the cowards from themselves.
