which means, that practically speaking, someone must ‘not belong’ - we need to exclude the ‘others’ to help define ourselves. That is,until we create the space within ourselves for the realization that we are the others.

Viewed in terms of human relationships, fear and power are always in play. Parents to children, bosses to workers, men to women, spouses to spouses, elders to youth, sophisticated to provincial, rich to poor, and the local bi-polar distinctions of left to right, and the global dis-parity between ‘democracy’ and ‘not democracy’. So many words. We have the skills to know when we are being lied to, but sometimes we don’t have the courage to look at why. We humans have lived for eons in Fear, and we don’t even consider it an abnormal state anymore.

Empathy, as a tool for survival, has been an effective tool for me, in surviving, opposing and transforming conflict and fear in my own life. It is entirely possible to stand up for yourself without beating someone else down, but the bullies have taken the low road, and few are providing examples of anything else, for use in the current political arena.

Fear disconnects us from our imagination. Fear drives us into emotional dead-ends. The use of fear to control others is an ancient and primitive tool, and among folks who can examine their own lives honestly, it is clearly recognized as the tool of the coward. Fear creates a vacuum which is filled with anger at that which has caused our fear. Without processing, this anger feeds itself…we take the easy way out - we can say, with rightous indignation, ‘he hit me first!’ and justify the retaliation, not with justice, which requires reason and compassion, but with vengence, which feeds on emotion.

There’s always a duality…I am myself, but I have the human capacity, using raw imagination, to relate to what is not myself. If I am being attacked by someone, instinct provides me the action to defend myself, but imagination asks ‘why is this person doing this…to me?’ which can, if the thought is allowed to mature, lead us to interesting, but not always comfortable, self awareness.

In the 60’s, we had this phrase -’consciousness raising.’ As a side effect of the political turmoil in this country at that time, many, many people fueled the normal individuation instincts of youth with mind-expanding drugs and collective shredding of traditions - sex, marriage, civil rights, world peace, activism, the draft, the military-industrial-complex - all these ‘big’ ideas were collectively being thought about and acted on in a short amount of time, by a huge number of people, creating a critical mass, with great force and substantial results.

If we are no longer willing, as we did in the 60’s, to endure minor personal discomfort in the interests of collective (not just american, but human) benefits, some would say we are doomed, but we have some help.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The re-evolution is on. Out with the King. Thanks for listening.

I’d add also that terrorism is something that we city dwellers (New Yorkers in particular, but places like Oklahoma City, too, or any city that’s had to deal with riots or other sorts of calamity… Detroit, LA, New Orleans, and so on) have seen terrorism with our own eyes, so we know what it is and what horror it can wreak, but we also know that (collective) we can survive and get through it and cope and move on. People who live in rural areas don’t have those same experiences, so it becomes more intangible. The president gets on TV and tells you to be afraid, like it’s possible or even likely that a man in a turban will drive a 757 into your grain silo, and so you’re afraid because you have no alternate frame of reference.

Fear of the unknown is also a factor; it’s the reason for people like Annie Jacobson. She wrote a series of columns and then a whole book on the time she saw a couple of brown men act strangely (to her sensibilities) on a plane and suddenly it’s the most frightening thing that’s ever happened to her, even though it turned out that air marshals were aboard the flight and that the men were Syrian musicians and, in point of fact, nothing happened and the plane landed safely.

I’m wondering if terrorism is also an easier thing to be afraid of than, say, losing your job or having to pay for your father’s medical treatment when the insurance runs out. The latter are problems far more likely to be faced by the average American, so they’re real and tangible. Maybe it’s easier to be worried about the ingtangible. (I don’t know, I’m just postulating. I live in Manhattan, but personally, I’m more concerned with being able to pay my rent next month than I am with terrorism. Besides, the Bush administration has made it pretty clear to New Yorkers that it cares far less about actually fighting terrorism than it does with getting reelected.)