Kakki, I wonder if you've ever heard of an old British movie called
Thunder Rock? I haven't seen it for years - it's a black and white
1940s propaganda film against isolationism, but very good, starring
Michael Redgrave as a war correspondent. He gets fed up with war in
the same way you're describing and goes off to become a lighthouse
keeper, and withdraws physically and psychologically, to the point of
not even going into the office to pick up his paychecks -- he just
stays in his lighthouse, away from the world. One night he's visited
by a number of ghosts. They are people who died in a shipwreck in
that area one hundred years previously, and who don't realize they
are dead. They start telling him about their lives - they were all
travelling from England to America, and each had their own personal
reason, but it all boiled down to escape, a desire to get away from
life. One of them is a suffragette, an upper class woman from
London, who's left unable to find anyone to marry her (a disaster in
those days) because of her political activities, being sent to jail
etc, have made her unacceptable in the kind of society she was born
into. So she decides, against all her political judgement, to go to
Utah and become the second wife of a Mormon. She has no other means
of income, no skills to find work, restricted legal rights as a woman
at that time. The lighthouse keeper argues with her that she
mustn't do this, mustn't turn her face away from life, and he does
the same one by one with all the passengers. I can't remember how it
ends, except that he ends up persuading himself that he has to leave
his lighthouse and go write about the war again, because it's
reality. This was British government propaganda that Britain had to
keep on fighting, though it would have been easy to give up and let
Hitler be other people's problem.
I agree it must be dispiriting to have the world ranged against you
for doing something that everyone will benefit from, if George Bush
is right i.e. if the invasion leads to disarmament with minimal loss
of life (a big if in many people's minds, granted). And also
dispiriting that many of the allies are asking for a lot of
money/deals. I read that Turkey has been promised 25 billion dollars.
I don't think Americans want to be kings of the world as such, but
they want to have influence, and that means having to "interfere",
and then when you're the biggest, most powerful entity involved in a
problem, you end up getting the blame for it. And you also represent
capitalism, corporate power, individual liberty, big ideas - all
things bin Laden was hitting out at when he attacked the WTC.
Imagine a guy moves into a street and he's got the biggest car, the
biggest house, the best educated kids etc etc - he can either keep
himself to himself and then everyone will be suspicious and think
he's stuck up, or he can throw lots of parties, hand the largesse
around, in which case some people will like him, others (not invited)
will try to disrupt things, but everyone will resent him because he's
in a position to buy their friendship. Damned if you do, damned if
you don't.
Sarah
At 11:54 PM -0800 02/20/2003, kakki wrote:
I think it's more of just weariness of having to be on the front end
of these conflicts so often and taking all the backlash for it.
Everyone I talk to is so fed up with it all. No one has the wish
for the US to be the great leader or be the most powerful. If world
opinion or consensus is so much against the US, why should it
continue to put itself out on the line? Look at so many of the
countries that say they will help the US with Iraq. Yet they all
want huge pay-offs or deals first to assist us.
