Several recent, but seemingly unrelated events have once again clearly exposed one of the fatal flaws of the American psyche that I have been warning about for years. Now manifesting itself in large segments of the population, from average citizens to people of authority and even those we entrust with our lives, this dangerous, societal myopia is the end result nearly 50 years of brainwashing.
Although this blind spot exists everywhere in modern society, it is most prevalent when there's a near miss, or, tragically, something catastrophic actually happens. It is only by recognizing how narrowly we, as well as others, are focusing on issues of great consequence, that we can begin to reverse the thought processes which tell us not to be "judgmental" and set us further down the irreversible path towards our own extinction.
Early East coast elections provide the first example. Myriad polls are slicing and dicing what these early election results mean in terms of Barack Obama's political capital, the 2010 mid-term elections and the balance of power through 2012. What I find most disturbing about what these contests and the polls around them suggest, is not the end result of any or all of these early contests, but the disconnect among thousands of voters, particularly independents, between how they view Barack Obama personally and how they view his job performance and policy decisions.
Barack Obama could not have been elected, had it not been for independents. It is he who is charting the direction that the country is currently careening in. It seems that many independents say they like Obama personally, but express mixed approval of his on-the-job performance and deepening pessimism over the economic direction he's taking us. But, if you stop and think for just a moment, that's a bit nonsensical.
They're either being dishonest about personal feelings when polled, which means that polls should simply not be trusted, or they're truly incapable of making the connection between the policies Obama is enacting and the economic damage he's causing.
When Obama says health care reform as proposed by Nancy Pelosi is good for the country or that the economy grew over three percent last quarter, he ignores the heavy financial burden placed on future generations, the tyranny of expanded government and the fact that the 3.5% GDP growth reported in the last quarter was all government spending. So, why aren't more independents following Joe Wilson's example, standing up and screaming "You Lie!"?
By electing a Republican governor, their actions show that they understand on some basic level that Obama isn't fixing things, but anyone with a thorough understanding of what Obama has been up to should be horrified where he's taking us as a country and couldn't possibly "like" him personally, unless they enjoy the company of those who are at war with liberty, capitalism and the Constitution.
The wayward Northwest Airlines pilots that overshot their runway prove another stunning example of this collective tunnel vision. We shouldn't jump to conclusions and allow the investigation to conclude, but the story put forth by those two pilots is quite unbelievable. We may never actually find out what they were up to, and one can only imagine what could distract them so completely behind that locked cockpit door, but it is simply beyond belief that they were merely reviewing a scheduling system.
The FAA seems to be so very busy promoting air travel and commerce and so heavily engaged in so many other distractions, such as surfing the Internet attacking my opinions;
That they seem to be losing sight of the fact they have a duty to keep air passengers from hurtling to their deaths because their pilots may be non-responsive.
But it isn't just a problem at the FAA. You'd think that someone at the the airline's dispatch center or the responsible control center would have sounded the alarm or pushed FAA management to involve the military when a civilian aircraft carrying over 100 souls became a NORDO flight at 37,000 feet. And what about the cabin crew?
Flight attendants are intensely tuned in to the rhythms of aircraft travel and know on familiar routes when their descent should begin. There have been several allegations made public in this incident that have neither been confirmed or denied by the NTSB, for example, that the flight was nearly three hours overdue or that flight attendants only notified the cockpit after being contacted by those on the ground. Whether these other allegations are true or not remains to be seen, but this incident was a completely avoidable near miss that could have ended many lives. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but let's face it; the entire notification system failed because people were afraid to trust their judgment that something just didn't smell right. Although there was no terrorism and the aircraft landed safely, Northwest dodged a bullet.
Tragically, the mass shootings that took the lives of so many and shattered those of so many more on Fort Hood provides the final example of this infectious disease. Although too early to close the book on this investigation, it does appear that, like Columbine killers Klebold and Harris and so many others who followed their bloody footsteps, the Fort Hood killer, Nidal Hasan, did exhibit warning signs that were ignored. One of Hasan's colleagues was even on Fox News discussing numerous dots that he and others failed to connect.
If the allegations made public thus far hold true, this was a horrific act of preventable terrorism carried out on a military installation and nothing more. Unfortunately, many politicians and even Army Chief of Staff Casey have already capitulated to political pressure and view the killings on Fort Hood as a by-product of combat stress and too much death experienced by too many men during too many deployments.
Being over-stretched is a military-wide problem, but again, that explanation for this incident is patently ridiculous. Although PTSD is real and has afflicted many, from Vietnam to the present, if we were to believe those who politicize this tragedy, it has suddenly became contagious. Hasan was a doctor and never saw combat. This mass killing was the end result of one man's struggle with the inner demon of split loyalties between his country and religion and his inability to reconcile the two.
We're taught to trust the president, the police, the Army psychologist, the teacher, the priest, the pilot and even our own parents. We're told that we should trust them and that they're doing what's best for us. But, we're all human; with flaws, weaknesses, secrets, vices and baggage. And we're all capable of letting these flaws get in the way of our better judgment, to the detriment of those who depend on us.
Just because someone sits in a position of authority, doesn't mean they deserve blind trust, particularly if they are responsible for the safety and well-being of other human beings, or even an entire country. In Barack Obama's case, there seems to be this blind trust held by many that he really is trying to do what's right for the United States.
People are finally beginning to question his honesty and leadership, but it is only when the entire country begins to take the collective intellectual leap necessary to bridge the Great American Disconnect between what we know to be true based on common sense passed down through generations and what we're now being told, can we begin to reverse the damage that an entire generation of youth weaned on LSD and anti-Establishment brainwashing has done to our beloved country, now that they're all grown up.
