-Caveat Lector-
http://www.uexpress.com/johnleo/viewjl.cfm?uc_fn=1&uc_full_date=200112
23&uc_daction=X&uc_comic=jl
TERRORISM MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY
It's official. The campaign to "humanize" John Walker is under way. A
possible trial for treason is a concern, of course, but the battle
for Walker's image is way more important, according to consultants
consulted by The New York Times.
In fact, the Times nudged the humanization process along by running a
Page One photo of Walker as a winsome teen-ager, wearing an aw-shucks
smile and a New York Knicks T-shirt. The shirt was a deft touch. How
can people associate Walker with the World Trade Center terrorists
when he actually supports a New York basketball team?
Still to come are the television interviews, a form of humanization
unavailable to Judas Iscariot, Tokyo Rose and Benedict Arnold. ("Tell
us, Mr. Iscariot, was it just about those 30 pieces of silver? Wasn't
there an issue of real principle involved too?") Walker might go for
the conventional TV strategy of accusing his accusers:
Q: John, some people just don't know you. They think of you as some sort of traitor,
or even a rat. What are your feelings?
A: It saddens me, Barbara, that some people have to put me down in order to feel good
about themselves. Name-calling like this says more about them than it does about me.
Anger comes from within. It isn't caused by other
people's actions, certainly not my actions. We have to ask: Why are they attacking my
lifestyle instead of dealing with their own negativity?
A variation of this strategy would be the who's-to-judge, who's-to-say defense. If 10
percent to 20 percent of college students are unwilling to criticize Adolf Hitler, as
one professor famously claimed, then surely a hef
ty percentage of Americans can be induced to avoid judgment of Walker:
Q: John, treason is a very serious charge. Your reaction?
A: Montel, the only treason is refusing to follow your own heart. We all have to pick
our own spiritual paths. Nobody can do it for us. It's not for me to judge your path,
and I hope you don't want to judge mine. Choosing
your own spirituality isn't a betrayal. It's the deepest act of personal creation.
What could be more beautiful?
Or Walker's handlers could just let him bury the interviewer in Marin County
psychobabble. A risky strategy, but one known to work, particularly on daytime shows:
Q: John, I think we all know about your search, the spiritual hunger that drives you.
But what would you say to those who believe the Taliban is unworthy of you? I mean,
aren't they a bit authoritarian? Do they really tre
at women all that well?
A: Ricki, in an American context, the Taliban might look a bit authoritarian. But
remember, in a group where control is shared by all, you have a facilitative climate
that empowers every person. An organic flow is created
with individuals living together in an ecologically related fashion. The locus of
choice still resides in each person, yet as awareness expands, intuitively the
community choice becomes a shifting consensus expressing ea
ch individual choice, just like the sap rising and falling in a tree when conditions
make one direction or the other appropriate. I believe the women of the Taliban
understand this even more clearly than the men.
Q: I see ...
Strategy has been complicated by the revelation that Walker isn't just a confused
adolescent who drifted into the Taliban army. He is a graduate of a terrorist training
camp. This may be hard to handle:
Q: John, many of us respect your personal quest, but what about the terrorist
training? Help us with that.
A: It was a shock to me too, Geraldo. Imagine my surprise when I learned that my
training wasn't just civil defense. It was a proactive course in blowing up buildings
and people! Thank heaven our troops intervened before
I was pushed into that sort of stuff. I think your viewers know that I stand for
spiritual fulfillment and personal growth, not explosions.
The probable strategy is to portray Walker as a gentle, not-too-bright soul who really
isn't responsible since he may have been brainwashed. This calls for the "mistakes
were made" admission. Since Phil Donahue retired, t
he best place for the 20-minute redemption and absolution is Oprah's show:
Q: John, you have outlined for us the honest errors you made along the path you chose.
Admitting this must have been painful.
A: It was, Oprah, but my pain isn't the issue. The important thing, as you say, is
honesty. If we level with ourselves, we keep growing as persons. This is what I stand
for, and if I'm punished for that, so be it.
Q: Audience, what about that?
(Wild applause. Fade to commercial.)
COPYRIGHT 2001 JOHN LEO
Originally Published on December-23-2001
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
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"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
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