Soapbox

Puzzle Pieces

    "It's not right when the police tell you to run- just run away. Run where? You don't really know- where is 'safe'?"

   This is the real terror of an act of terrorism like the Boston Marathon bombings. Is it over? Am I running away from danger, or toward another bomb? Maybe people with guns are lying in wait!  This is the kind of fear that can scar the psyche. It's not only the terror of what just happened, but the helplessness of not knowing what the proper course of action is right now.
   I can tell you what the proper course is not. It is not to turn this tragedy into  a suit of clothes for your favorite political or religious paper doll.
    The day of an attack, the day after, is not the day to make statements about who you think is probably responsible, based not on facts from the scene, but on the way x, y and z fit in your world view. It is natural to try to fit the puzzle pieces together immediately, even when they've just been dumped out of the box and 90% of them are still upside down. Aha, this piece must go here! See how it has that little knob part sticking out?
   Yeah… all the pieces have a little knob sticking out, Ace. Just take a breath. I know you feel safer when you have some answers we all do! We all grasp desperately for answers to provide us solid ground when the sand shifts. But try to remember that fake answers offer only fake security.
 
   Let me just say that if, when you hear that there has been a bombing- or a shooting, or some other attack, and there are terrible injuries, if your first thoughts aren't oh dear god  I hope everyone is alright! and Was anyone I know there? or  Is there any way I can help? then you need to seek therapy. If your first thought is Oh, I bet it was those _____'s (fill in favorite group you hate and assume are out to get you) then you have a serious compassion deficiency, and, ex post facto, you are actually contributing to the climate of terror.
    And if your first thought is "How can I use this event to further my career/ political agenda? then you are probably (but no, not exclusively) a commentator, or frequent interview subject for FOX News.

   When the New York Post began trumpeting shortly after the Boston bombing that police had a Saudi suspect in custody, most of the people who took up this refrain were people eager to blame at least an outsider, ideally a Muslim, for anything evil that happens. For example, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who passed on this stupid rumor, probably because he wanted it to be true and didn't so much care if it wasn't. Well, it's much easier to slam the closet door than to look under our own beds for the monsters. After the Oklahoma city bombing, a lot of people who claimed to know what they were talking about were SURE that it was Arab terrorists who were responsible, and had all sorts of 'proof' based on upside down puzzle-pieces that had little knobby ends on them… you know, the way Arabs/communists/fundamentalists/etc. always do.
    A guy actually asked the governor of Massachusetts in his terse and somber press conference if this  whole thing was a 'false flag' operation of the government, designed to terrorize the people and provide an opportunity to take way our civil liberties.  I can only imagie how he felt when asked this. Casualty counts were still coming in, the police and ATF were still trying to determine if there were other unexploded bombs lurking in the city. And then some yahoo asks him if the government (which includes him) killed these people on purpose.
    When you do not allow your world view to become clouded by facts,  then everything, Every Thing that happens is a puzzle piece that fits perfectly into that world view. Well, it fits if you  jam it in really hard and bend up a few corners and never even try to turn it over to see the picture on the other side. Just ignore the fact that there were no loudspeakers telling people to be calm right before the bombs went off as you claim there were, and that simple human decency dictates that while a few people might be evil and go crazy, no government is going get it  together to fake the murder of 20 school children and hire actors to portray grieving parents and traumatized police officers , or set off a bomb in a crown of spectators and kill an 8 year old child just as a pretext to take away your guns. Ignore all that- and it all fits perfectly!!
    Bill O'Reilly,  firm in his dedication to making this attack somehow the fault of the people and groups he is paid to hate, complained that President Obama, in his brief statement 3 hours after the bombing, " called the attack a tragedy. It was not."  
     Without getting into how tragic this all must seem to the people who lost their legs yesterday, it is depressing to find him still so single-minded in his pursuit of the "Obama as the root of all bad things' agenda that he could not think of anything more informative, more helpful, more comforting or hopeful to contribute to America in her time of insecurity and fear than to attack the word 'tragedy'.

    Look. There are people whose job it is to sift through information, to listen to tips and rumors and speculation in order to try to  discover who did this. But that is not what we need to do today.
  Think of all the people who turned and ran into the smoke and flames and blood. They didn't do it to stand over the  injured and shout "Oh my God, I bet Muslims/ white supremicists/ the CIA  did this to you!!" They actually offered assistance, or supported others who did. When America is injured, we need to offer asssistance, not speculation. And for 99% of us, our job today is to take a deep breath, to offer support where we can, to unite as a people and to move forward- cautious, perhaps, but not fearful and not blaming out of fear.
    Yes, there are monsters under the bed. They have always been there. They thrive in darkness. And so it is our task to keep the light of truth and basic human kindness shining when we are faced with monsters. Because when it's hard to know which way is safe, all we can do is stay strong, patient, reasoned and hopeful.