Dissenting Toward Deep Impact

Prologue

Deep Impact occurred over the weekend, and I wonder whether anyone really cares. For is it really great news that a terrestrial projectile slammed into a comet 83 million miles from earth? Perhaps it is. But have you ever asked yourself what voice you have in the matter? Have you ever wondered who it is that grants permission to launch space probes and satellites into orbit? What if you didn't want things launched into space? What if you claimed ownership of the heavens, and that space travel was so much trespassing in, and so much littering of, your precious and rather large front yard? Really, what say do you have in these ventures?

Perhaps you think me silly. But please realize something: A probe smashed at incredible speed into a comet without your knowledge. Those of us with a smattering of physics-sense know that the comet's orbit, no matter how slightly, was affected. In short, it was changed. Now, what if it had been inadvertently changed, even disasterously changed, by anomalies not predicted by the computer models? What then? Deep Impact?

(You know, there are companies and space administrations that have seriously discussed the idea of launching corporate logos into orbit around the earth, extraterrestrial billboards, if you will. You DO know that, right?)

I am not one for standing in the way of science. I am, in fact, enthralled by the Deep Impact story. My point in raising some concerns is to highlight how amazingly indifferent people are to what occurs in various space programs. Really, what would our civilizations be like, right now, if the space probe touched off a weird reaction that ultimately leads to the comet colliding with our planet, or the moon?

Another Deep Impact

But all this is prologue for another deep impact that we also had little to say about it, at least prior to its being so deftly created by the forces of physics. I am talking about Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan. I'm talking about the deep hole there, surrounded by rugged steel fencing and a cross of steel I-beams still standing in the wasteland. What say did we have regarding that collision, that exploration into the previously unexplored?

Clearly, many of us have a lot to say now.

During my recent visit to Manhattan, I noticed in the top windows of a building (is that above Burger King?) to the south of Ground Zero, rising above Liberty Street, that there was an artful banner hanging in some windows: "Dissent is not unpatriotic." And, of course, the banner is undoubtedly true. But it smacks, I am sorry to say, of tremendous ignorance: The sign makes a loud sound, but its impact is not profound.

Why?

Because of all that it neglects, and all that it presumes. It is unarguable that the banner was placed behind expensive glass by anti-war activists. There is no doubt that it was placed there, and paid for, by a person or persons intent on protecting their view of reality: That they have a better vista from which to launch their attacks and criticisms on all things Bush, all things Rumsfeld.

To any critical thinker, those behind the banner presume that the dissenters who raised it are right about the razing of the Twin Towers. They presume to have a better Gestalt, a better gnosis, about the attacks on America; the underlying causes and the proper remedial strategies. And they also presume that their action is intrinsically American: To dissent is to be an American, or so it goes.

But what the critics of the war neglect in their ignorant little banner is that they are the ones calling people "unpatriotic." It is they who shame the alleged non-dissenters for being the blind following the blind. It is they who think that Bush and the Republicans are anti-American, anti-democratic imperialists; that Bush and Co. comprise gross demagoguery and treason. It is the dissenters who shout out that "Bush knew!" It is the dissenters who believe that war and defense and the Patriot Act are thoroughly anti-patriotic acts.

The ignorance, unfortunately, is even deeper than that. For the dissenters do not recognize that the more hawkish among them are themselves dissenters. Conservatives and mainstream thinkers DO dissent. They dissent against the harms of passivity and indifference; of complacency and posturing; of failed diplomacy and failed consensus-building. War itself is the supreme act of dissent, and the War on Terror is a supreme dissent against tyranny and religious fanaticism. And it is a dissent against the tyranny of the left, and its self-righteous claims to being true Americans; to being true humans in a global society.

Dissent is NOT unpatriotic, and neither are war or patriotism. Or is that too paradoxical for the Manhattan leftists finger-wagging around Ground Zero? Is being a patriot unpatriotic? To my leftist friends, I fear it is.

Unlike Deep Impact, we DO have a say about war, about defense and troop withdrawal. We can write and call senators and congressmen (or stop a representative on the sidewalk, like I do); we can vote presidents out of office; we can stage angry or peaceful demonstrations. But there is no dissenting the laws of physics; and there is no consortium or town-meeting you can attend to discuss the pros and cons of flirting with extra-terrestrial disaster.

And we can resist, or at least point out, the folly of those who dissent for the sake of dissent; those who NEED to dissent in order to distance themselves from the common herd, and then define themselves by that distance. "I am not one of THEM!" might be each of their mantras as they smugly meditate on their self-identities. It's like defining oneself by indulging in contrary acts to one's parents' wishes: "I will NEVER be like them!" It is all show, it is all so much identity via externals. Latch on to the idea that "To dissent is to be an American"; and all you'll do is contradict, merely to maintain an identity. It's like a rip in one's blue jeans, a tattoo on one's forehead, a corporate logo on one's shoe.

And besides resisting, we can go to Ground Zero and fall down and weep in humble sorrow. For there is no greater dissent than to grieve for one's neighbors; and to seek real justice, and a very real peace.

But perhaps dissent should be reserved for those who first descend to their knees in tears, humbled in the presence of so much reverberating horror; who let reality make a deep impact. Perhaps humility comes before clarity, and even before lofty dissent, especially when those who fall prostrate at Ground Zero can so clearly see the banners of blood and bone and flesh in the dust of that now-vacant lot.

To descend is not unpatriotic either.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes