Doomed to Repeat

I would never have thought I would have seen a time like this in my lifetime personally. This is the stuff that filled the pages of my history books while in school. I wonder what the next generation will read about this day and time. What will our present day reflect in tomorrows history and history books? What will the legacy of our generation as a people be to the future generations? I wish I could guarantee that no matter the events of the day, I hope that there will be a positive outcome and at the very least, the generation will abide by always doing the right thing in dealing with the trials and tribulations of the day. Though if what I am being a witness to is any indication, I must honestly admit that I am not certain if that is a realistic promise or guarantee.

The event of the day that is concerning to me is the Ft. Hood tragedy and the conflict of Islam versus the tradition of America in this current social climate. It is a tragedy that speaks for itself. I am concerned about the fact that it happened. I am concerned for the families of the victims and the victims themselves. I am concerned that the potential red flags that might have prevented the tragedy seemed to fall through the cracks of red tape. This is not an uncompassionate approach about the event. The reaction to the event is what I find to be the most concerning after the dust has appeared to settle. In fact, I feel much of the response itself is as much of a tragedy as the tragedy itself. I sense the proverbial slippery slope starting to rear its ugly head.

My generation has had life pretty easy. We are harvesting the fruit of the previous generations labor. Socially, economically and other wise. The events that define our day aren't the same as eras past. Our generation hasn't had too many watershed moments to define us. Maybe that is to our detriment as much as it could be considered to be to our benefit. There hasn't really been a moment for this generation that could bring a nation together outside of 9/11. Eight years later, even that togetherness seems to have been temporary. Until now with this tragedy hitting so close to home again. You find the conjuring up of an old wound. In generations past, there was war and opposition of war, the civil rights movement, the hippie movement, Watergate, JFK, MLK. History as we know it was forged within the lives of the people that defined these events. Within these events, there was a bonding of a nation that maybe the world had never seen the likes of before and since. There was a healing of a nation. Even the building of a new nation that lasted what seemed to be for whole generations.

So what about my concern? I am concerned that we are not equipped as a generation to handle adversity as a nation. At least not the way of generations past. We have had it way too easy to be simply put. What does this have to do with Ft. Hood? I am just concerned and simply hope that we get past this event the best way possible. I hope we get past this event rationally and not so much emotionally. In speaking about the events of past generations, and blending them in with the events of this generation, my concern is that we must realize that what happens today helps to define tomorrow. We don't really look at our daily existence and current events as tomorrow's history. We just try your best to get through the time as quickly as we can and move on in trying to change and fix what is broken socially or politically in most instances. I don't think we really grasp it past our own experience though. We don't anticipate the future generations experience in how we recover from the current experiences. At least for the most part anyway. Only the civil rights movement seems to stand out to me as something that specifically had the future generations in mind as well as what was the current social climate of the generation of the time. Then what is my concern? I am concerned that as a society we don't know how to differentiate between our feelings and emotions and the facts between a cause or a purpose, the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of a cause or purpose, and the people that carry out the cause or the misunderstanding of the cause that can misrepresent the essence of the cause or purpose.

The Ft. Hood tragedy seems to be a tragedy based on faith more than anything else. Or rather, the misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the faith by the individual that carried out the tragedy. What is concerning is that rather than focus on the individual person and HIS purpose, many are lashing out against the faith itself. Personally I feel he failed his faith rather than he be given credit for carrying out the faith's purpose. The problem is anyone who shares the same faith is subject to be ridiculed as being capable of the same thing based on the way the information is being delivered to us as a society. It is just playing right into the hand of the times. Even creating a new time and new era and a new day that I feel might not be in our best interest if we don't learn to separate the social facts from a social agenda. The individual person is irrelevant as long as you can define the individual by his faith in this case. To me that is the slippery slope. Not about faith so much, but as to how you can apply that same principle to so many different aspects within our current society. You see it with the illegal immigrant issue, you can still see it within issues pertaining to minority stereotypes. It is a mentality that is just not isolated to the Ft. Hood tragedy or the person that carried the tragedy out.

The problem I feel we have is partially in the information that we receive and partially in the way the information is delivered. I think most if not all information that is out there socially comes in the form of an agenda of some sort. I don't know if our society is smart enough to really know an agenda when they see one. Or even further more, I don't know if our society cares either way. The society will believe whatever it wants to see and believe. For that I am fearful. I do wonder how many of us within the society even have an opinion that is really our own. An opinion that hasn't been subliminally planted within us to shape our psyche and understanding and mold us in what we believe in, what to believe in or just believe period. In all honesty, I don't trust our current society to be able to do the right thing all of the time. I don't feel people can see outside of what they feel. What we feel is the only thing we believe in much of the time. I am discouraged because I don't know if we can ever separate the facts from the agenda and see clearly through waters that are muddy and murky. Which those who have an agenda prey on and hope for from our society. I get the sense that falling in line with an agenda is what conditions us to fail each other as a society. An agenda brings about an every man for himself mentality based on the way we choose to believe whatever the subject might be.

It brings to mind what I learned in school many years ago. I see a road being paved for history to repeat itself. This social climate reminds me of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism and even to a certain extent, the relationship with the Japanese during the second world war. These eras in the American historical landscape are classic cases of judging a book by its cover and rushing to judgement for things that were impossible to understand or see clearly. Shoot first ask questions later if you will was the order of the day. If you didn't fall in line with the order of the day, you were subject to suspicion just for being different or just appearing to be different. I feel we are not so far away as a society today from what these particular eras of yesterday seemed to be capable of. I am not saying that I don't understand being concerned about what are society and culture have to endure in this present day. I just feel that we need to be smart in what we are really concerned about. We can't let ourselves be controlled by fear and not be able to take the time to see things clearly because we are consumed by and living in an era of fear. I sense that we have the potential to have an Islamic phobia because of the fear. We are starting to fear it because of the way that it is presented to us within our culture. Still we can't be guided or misguided with that fear. We can't rush to judgment against someone of Islamic faith just because we see what a terrorist can do and then ridicule or persecute someone or an entire group based on what might happen or could happen within the trappings of our fear. That is a bad precedent so set. We have seen through our own history that that is a strategy that cannot work.

My plea is that in order to keep peace within the times, we can't lose the ability to be fair. We have to learn to weed through the social mess. We have to look for the bright side even when all that we see is dark. We have to learn from our fathers and their fathers and their fathers and make sure we give our sons and daughters the best chance to succeed not based on what we feel, but what is right. Regardless of what we feel. It is not easy and this is the first portion of my life that I really see our present day having the chance to really influence tomorrow. It is a funny feeling when you realize that we are in the midst of writing and living history. My plea is simply, not to doom our day or time and the time of tomorrow, with the repeat of history. Should that happen, I don't know that as a people we could ever recover.