Friday In America

I was walking home, west off of Seventh Avenue, on Thirty-eighth Street from the subway. I was just approaching the corner when I noticed a man that looked like he was so drunk he was stumbling to the floor. I though, I see drunk people on many nights, but it's a guarantee that on Friday night the corner deli will be filled with people buying beer, and into the early morning there will still be men buying beers for each other. All these workingmen work all week so that on Friday they can drink their pay check.Here was a great example of where that hard workingman ended up. I got closer and noticed that there was a police officer standing above him. I got closer and the first thing to jump to my attention was the position this man was in. When I saw him from a slight distance he appeared to be stumbling down and trying to get back up. Once closer it was clear that this man was down and trying to get up. His thighs were touching and both his thighs and calves were pressed down against the pavement, in the shape of a “w.” In my experience, it is only the young, flexible children that are able to sit comfortably in this position. Seeing this older man, who looked like he could be a skinnier version of what my father will look like in 20 years, I thought that this was not right, he shouldn't be sitting like this. This man appeared to have no control over his legs, reminding me of a cat's death, caused by blood clots paralyzing his leg. I heard the police officer say as he looked down at the man, "You shouldn't have drunk so much you can't even stand up. No, don't get up, if you get up you will just fall back down and crack your head open. Get back down and wait for the paramedics." Then he looked up again towards the street, never expressing one wrinkle of thought or emotion, it was more like watching a robot raise his head than a human being. I looked at the man and then up, I tried to stare into the eyes of the police officer and possibly communicate that he should have some compassion for this man. I wanted him to understand that it was not this man's fault, but rather the fact that he is the victim of a society that drives men to find themselves drunk on street corners. The police officer didn't get it; he continued to stare forward into the street. This was Friday night in New York City, which meant for this older, unhappy man that he got to drink to the point of not being able to feel, and for the police officer, that he had to spend his Friday night patrolling the streets as a myrmidon, emotionless.

Activism, Terrorism or War?

Last week on the primer of Law and Order SVU the detectives were lead to an investigation of environmental activists through an unrelated rape. In this episode one of the characters from a previous episode came back, an FBI agent names Star. Her relation to the rape was that the rape victim was an activist in an environmental and animal rights group that was giving inside information to the FBI. Through a string of events, what ended up happening was that detective Olivia Benson went undercover with the victim to a building that housed some big corporation that was harming the environment. After everyone had left the building, the activist planned to bomb the building. They were unsuccessful because the FBI and police were involved and were able to intervene before anything was blown up. What ended up happening was the victim, who was the environmentalist leak to the FBI decided she was really going to go through with the bombing of the building. As her and Olivia were upstairs alone, Star came in. When the environmentalist with the bomb tried to set it off she was killed by Star. In the end of the episode Olivia was able to infiltrate into the organization and follow one of the leaders out into the Midwest. Throughout the episode Star begins to educate the members of SVU on the goings on of the environmental terrorist, how they burned down house and ski resorts, set animals loose and bombed animal testing centers. Star made it clear that these environmental terrorists were a priority to the FBI.

A few days later I was telling Andy about this episode and he was encouraging of these environmentalist that were doing things considered to be terrorism. He questioned me about the perspective of the TV show, assuming that the creators had made the environmentalists seem more like heroic activist rather than terrorists but that wasn't the case. The perspective was not encouraging to the activist/terrorist, and as can be expected from the creators of Law and Order, was encouraging and in favor to the law and the FBI. As an avid watcher and lover of Law and Order, I often consider the matters deeply but often find myself agreeing with many of the arguments that the police and DAs make. For some reason, after my conversation I felt the need to place myself on a side: for or against the "eco-terrorists"/"environmentalists." And for the first time, I felt like I didn't know what the line was between activists and terrorists.

I felt that again when I was watching the documentary Why We Fight, there was a clip that quoted Bush said something after 9/11 pertaining to the acts of al Qaeda against the World Trade Center. It was something along the lines of, "this is more than an act of terror, it's an act of war." I think this is an even harder thing to decide, whether or not something is an act of terrorism or an act of war. When we did nothing to Afghanistan, they attacked us, but when Iraq did nothing to us, we attack Iraq. What we are fighting against in Afghanistan and in Iraq is terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and we are using terrorism as our means of fighting. They are terrorist but so are we.

When I was thinking about defining the line between terrorism and war the words "war on terrorism" popped into my head. We may be fighting for freedom and democracy and oil but we are also, without a doubt, in the eye of the public, fighting a war on terrorism. It is, after all, the US response to 9/11. And after I thoughts the words, "war on terror," the words, "war on drugs" popped into my head. In the movie Traffic, Michael Douglass' character is an Ohio Supreme Court Judge and the newly appointed US Drug Czar, he is addressing the public on what he is going to do to cut down drugs after he has given some statistics on drug production, distribution and use. He uses the term "war on drugs" and for some reason those words stuck with me. Same as when I head the characters on Law and Order refer to their jobs as fighting the "war on crime". I think what is so significant to these phrases, "war on terror," "war on drugs," "war on crime," is that who ever is calling these wars is using the term in what I believe is an inappropriate manner.

And I think that has something to do with why our country is so quick to jump up to the plate and start a war. It seems to be our solution to all problems. Police are the soldiers on our streets, there to defend the civilians, paid by the government, these protectors of the people are sent out to fight a war on crime, which essentially is a war against the people. They appoint many officials to regulate schools, investigate trafficking of drug, to figure ways to abolish drugs, and to rid people's fear of them not doing anything to actually reduce the harmful aspects of drugs in society. Unfortunately, the drugs are still infiltrating into our cities and there still seems to be a "war on drugs" to fight. And lastly, the "war on terror," pinpoints and example of how terrorism is used to fight terrorist; war is a terrifying as it gets.

So then what defines the line between activism, terrorism and war? First, I think it is important to understand what defines activism, terrorism and war before a line can be defined between each of them. By definition, activism is the doctrine or practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc. Terrorism is the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. And war is a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air. Activism is the doctrine or practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc. If you look simply at the definitions, I think it is easier to pull out activism form terrorism and war because it does not implicate that violence is used in activism. The only thing that separates activism and terrorism is performance. Then, the only difference between war and terrorism is that the definition of war states that it is an act carried out between two parties. In their acts of war, each side if performing the same act of a terrorist.

In conclusion, there really is no line between activism and terrorism and there is no line between terrorism and war. The only way to separate one from the other is to determine the weight each holds in moral settings. If I were to weight activism, terrorism and war against one and other to see which one I though had higher moral standards I would have to say that I think activists hold the most values that originate from morals, then terrorism, because terrorism is activism taken to the next level. I would rank war last as possessing the least morals. I think war is a last resort and because I think wars never accomplish enough good to justify the damage done.