Where the Revolution Begins

We are told that it takes tremendous courage, true heroism in fact, to put on a uniform and body armor and, with legions likewise attired and equipped with virtually unlimited material resources and the most powerful weaponry ever devised by the black arts of man, descend upon a foreign country and make war upon its civilian population.

But, in our heart of hearts, and in the loneliest depths and quiet of the night, we know better.

We know better and yet we do nothing. Occasionally, someone does step forward--a Nat Turner figure--who can no longer stand the contradictions inherent in our collective state of denial and takes "justice" into his own hands.

We turn on him with fury: for in the face of our impotence, he had the temerity to act. And with his act our own complicity with the murderous affair we call "war" and "occupation" and even "liberation" is permitted to surface and shatter our lives.

We vow that he shall pay for our sins with every last measure of his own life--and then some. We vilify his name, his memory, his family, his community. Our rage is insatiable; but that is because our own guilt mocks us beyond redemption and at every turn.

The President himself may attend the memorial and rise to speak stirring words of valor, of sacrifice, of honor that accrues to unflinching resolve. But, in our heart of hearts, we know that when we essay murder most foul we risk being answered in kind.

And it is there, in our heart of hearts, where appears the faint hint of our true helplessness in the face of the mayhem we ourselves have wrought--in the form of a slight fissure, a fraying of the smooth fabric, something approximating a tear--that the revolution begins.

For it is there, and only there, that we say, "Enough."

Enough. No more. We can no longer hold the wolf by its ears. We had no business taking hold of it that way in the first place, and if it chooses to bite us upon release, so be it. We are done with this. We are done.

Talk about courage, about "true heroism" all you like; but find it there.

Find it there.