A Time for Radical Trust

by Teddy Carney

It is a dark time and yet a time filled with challenge and promise, a time for radical trust.

Concern for the fate of our nation lingers on like the worry for a very sick friend. Daily life tumbles along, intersected with moments of anxiety. An anthropologist friend told us his niece's family has left the country to sail the seas, home-schooling the kids till the Bush administration is gone. (We know two other couples who have left the country for the same reason.) My friend described how depressing it is to watch a civilization unravel, especially when it is your own. We know many people who feel the same way.

What is astonishing is how many good Americans are not concerned about the direction of our country, how many think Bush is doing a good job. Howard Zinn, a noted historian, commented that if the American people actually knew the negative effect of some of our policies, they would reject administrations that pursue them.

During the Nazi rise to power, the Frankfurt School, a group of German intellectuals, fled to Columbia University. They had witnessed the startling manipulation of the German citizenry by Hitler's Propaganda Ministry, whose agents had been sent to Madison Avenue to learn our techniques of persuasion. This group gives us a grim warning. They describe (prior to TV) how film and radio created a mass culture which increasingly replaced the family influence that had shaped character and attitudes in the past. Jurgen Habermas, a later disciple of the group, explained how democracy declines when we lose what he calls "the public sphere"—participation in town meetings, access to independent newspapers and radio stations, interest in divergent ideas, and the public questioning of programs and policy.

Direct involvement of informed citizens, which is an essential part of democracy, has almost vanished in our spectator, consumer, celebrity-adulating, media-managed society.

The ownership of our mainstream media is now reduced to about six mega-corporations. Seventy-six percent of all news sources are now present or prior government officials. Most of the generals who were asked to comment on the build-up of the Iraq war are part owners of defense companies; they make money on war. People in the Bush administration, a long list of them starting with Wolfowitz, Woolsey, and Perle, have large investments in defense companies. We have become a nation led by arms merchants, heavily invested in war. Obviously the mainstream media don’t spend much time asking why we are hated, or why we need the largest military presence in the world.

Hatred of the US occupation forces in Iraq came as a surprise to many. Yet Von Sponek and Halliday, both high UN officials, resigned over the immorality of the Iraq sanctions, which targeted a civilian population and violated the Geneva Conventions. According to UN figures, over 500,000 children died from lack of medicine because of the sanctions. (A photographer friend recently in Iraq said the two hospitals he visited had virtually no medicine, not even a stethoscope or a blood pressure gauge.) A journalist friend reports the intense anger many Iraqis still feel about the sanctions. They resent the duplicity of our government in sending Saddam arms and chemicals for anthrax when his atrocities were at their peak and then later feigning righteous indignation at what we helped him do.

We don't hear about the suicides among our troops, their growing fear and disgust over being in a no-win situation. There is no mention of the thousands of wounded; those who die of wounds are not counted on the “lost in action” list. Why the hatred and violence escalate is rarely questioned. Our thrust for domination is not part of mainstream discussion, nor is the part transnational corporations play in our foreign policy.

Nevertheless, out of the darkness of despair and fear, a positive energy is arising. As the English poet David Whyte said, we may one day thank the Bush administration for catapulting us into a higher level of consciousness as a result of its rush to military approaches. Certainly it was the Internet response to Bush's aggression that made the peace movement coalesce—fifteen million people around the globe pleading for peace, for "another way."

What is immensely hopeful is to feel connected to the groundswell that is occurring. There are increasing numbers of groups using the Internet, building the peace loop—moveon.org, truthout.org, voice4change.org, oriononline.org, commoncause.org, dozens of them, working without salary, inspired and sustained by the desire to serve the truth. I have a good friend who started a radio program, Making Contact, which has grown to 168 stations (including, now, one in Japan). According to one of the show’s interviews, a group of young people originating among the 400,000 street children in New Delhi has taken up old tape recorders and microphones to create Butterflies Broadcasting Station, proclaiming the children’s plight. The group has started the first labor union for child workers in the world. It’s one more example of the voice of the people becoming the next superpower.

New Dimensions, the radio show that interviews leaders like the Dalai Lama and prominent, innovative people from all fields, is expanding. The Institute of Noetic Sciences has 30,000 members, many of whom are scientists and intellectuals concerned with the marriage of technology and the spirit. The Institute’s quarterly journal lists a remarkable number of websites promoting peace, conflict management, and forgiveness, all grounded in the idea that we belong to one human family.

Physicists, teachers, scientific groups, world leaders like Nelson Mandela, environmentalists, students, activists—all are presenting "another way," a way that requires our imagination and trust and energy. Concerned people everywhere seek a glimpse of a larger vision, the 2,000-year point of view. Ideas are criss-crossing our country and reaching other seeking, longing people around the world. And out of this emerging energy and hope will come new approaches, new ways of living on this planet together.

I believe it is the most exciting time in all of history to be alive. I pray that I am around long enough to see the fruition of what must come. I'm not talking about a utopia, the reversal of human avarice and aggression. I’m anticipating a new understanding of our individual and communal needs, a new focus on the common good for all beings, a new perception of our interconnectedness.

In spite of the immense power of governing elites, all dynasties that enrich the few at the expense of the many must eventually implode. As Yahweh said in the Old Testament, "All I need is a remnant." Margaret Mead said the same thing sixty years ago. The imagination of a few will ignite us and make the great leaps in consciousness possible.

May each of us hear the call, seek the truth, and become a small part of the inevitable awakening. q

Teddy Carney is a rancher and essayist in New Mexico.This reflection originally appeared in Radical Grace, published by the Center for Action and Contemplation (May-June 2003). Used with permission. www.cacradicalgrace.org.

©2004 Fellowship of Reconciliation