There is a light shining on us from August 1945, and it's shadow is trembling beneath our feet.
America’s Collective Shadow delivered Little Boy and Fat Man and instantly sent 110,000 to their death, and the lingering deaths accumulated into the 100,000's. These were not military targets but civilians - old men, women and children. That year, America won the war and simultaneously marked herself as the most vengeful, frightening group of people to ever live on this planet. Truman rendered the final solution to Roosevelt’s, “This day will go down in infamy.”

Hiroshima and Nagasaki received our wrath with the first and only atomic bombs ever used in warfare. Pray it be the last. Thank God that Timothy McVeigh chose fertilizer. Otherwise Oklahoma City would exist solely as a flattened clutter of rubble, and the earth for hundreds of miles would be contaminated for more years than we can count. The details of our atomic attack are widely available, but most poignant is John Hersey’s Hiroshima, published in 1946. If this book were required reading in high schools, all would know the horror we unleashed and never forget the details of this American holocaust.

America proved to herself that she and she alone dictates the course of world events. Our history over the last 50 years is a long string of military conflict. Internally we also adopted a military attitude towards our problems. The 1960s produced the War on Poverty, and the subsequent internal wars led us to the 1980’s War on Drugs. Today, as taxpayers, we are burdened with the enormous costs of arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating many of our citizens for drug crimes. Our government has proven a terror to other nations and to its own citizens. Our legacy is to identify enemies and attack and then prepare for the next fight. This thinking is embedded into our culture so deeply that we can’t even see it.

Our government has succeeded in isolating most of us from the political process. Nowhere in the world is voter turnout so low. The only plausible reason is a disinterest that comes from feeling that our votes don’t really matter. The political culture that our society continually spawns gives us no sense of participation. Our government is run and handled by others. Polls support this verity and we all know it’s true.

How this relates to Waynesville and Western North Carolina in 2001 is a cluttered conclusion. But don’t be deceived by the time and distance. Right now we see one clear result: our embattled commissioners are attempting to push through a public works issue by force. They reflect the belief that they know best and are attempting to force their decision on the rest of us, regardless of the consequences. They envision the role of government to be ever-increasing, to be ever more expensive.
We may be unable to influence federal and state politics, but local politics is something we can all reach. Our little town can be strongly influenced by those who care. We can walk away, literally or figuratively, but we can also stay involved and make choices that benefit all of us. We can plot a new course behind third-party, independent candidates to achieve a meaningful and responsive direction. Following the course dictated by the traditional parties only leads to dissension and disservice. We deserve better and we can claim it for ourselves.

We can let the light shine from us, not on us.

John Buckley
Waynesville

 

Back to Top
The Smoky Mountain News