North Star Writers Group

Two 14-year-old girls – minors – were kicked off a public transit bus in Portland, Ore., after a passenger complained about them and the driver reportedly called them “sickos.”

Their heinous offense? They kissed each other. They weren’t armed, or robbing or attacking anyone. They were simply displaying affection for each other.

In Austin, Texas, a crowd beat to death a man riding in a car that struck a two-year-old after he tried to rescue the driver, who had gotten out of the vehicle to check on the child and was attacked by the mob.

The little boy was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, but a man who had only tangential responsibility (if any) for the child’s wounds is dead.

A security guard outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center fired at least 19 gunshots at a colleague after an argument. Although no one was injured, the pistol-wielding man was arrested and charged with assault with intent to murder.

An Arkansas man reportedly shot a 9-year-old in the neck, killing the boy, saying he was fed up with the child’s throwing rocks at him on numerous occasions.

It’s nasty time in the United States. We all seem to be mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore. Our national funk prompts hair-trigger tempers and little tolerance for anyone who says or does something we don’t like. We’re blaming people (like the Iraqis or that hapless car passenger) for actions over which they have little to no control while not holding to the fire the feet of those with both responsibility and authority.

And the origins of our foul mood? On all sides of the political spectrum, we’re feeling betrayed. Conservatives are furious with Bush and the Republicans for pushing “amnesty” immigration reform, for exploding deficits, for not going all-out in Iraq and for merely commuting I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby’s prison sentence instead of pardoning him outright.

Liberals likewise are furious about the lack of immigration reform, for runaway, no-oversight defense spending, for invading Iraq in the first place with no signs of leaving and for commuting Scooter’s prison sentence.

Who’s really betrayed whom here? There is, after all, more than one side to betrayal. There’s the betrayer and the one(s) betrayed.

If the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed anything in this country, they left us, well, terrorized. Back in late 2001 through 2003 at least, precious few of us were willing to step back and question the government. We desperately wanted a strong president and military to protect us, so we ignored all signs to the contrary and any indication that the Bush administration was lying to us about how best to counteract Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

We thus ended up being partners in our own betrayal. We allowed our fears of additional attacks to prevent us from ripping off the denial filters, snapping out of our panic and smelling the coffee.

If the Bush administration ever demonstrated one area of competence, it was in stirring the terror pot, falsely linking Saddam Hussein (even now) to the terrorists who actually struck this country and issuing color-coded alerts somehow timed just when any news broke that might be counter to its fear-laden talking points. (Note that the color-coded alerts faded away in 2005 after the presidential election, only to reappear during the next year’s mid-term campaigns.)

Now comes news leaked to the Associated Press that the government’s latest classified counter-terrorism assessments show that Al Qaeda has regained its pre-9/11 capability to strike at the United States. That begs some questions: If the Bush administration’s counter-terrorism approach is right, why has Al Qaeda regrouped? Why hasn’t the Iraq invasion put it on the ropes? What about all those areas of domestic vulnerability ignored because of our grand Middle East fiasco?

Boiling it all down, a stark choice confronts us. Either we let our fears continue to dictate to us, and pay an ever higher price in blood and treasure, or we choose to defy our fears and chart a different, smarter course. If we don’t get a grip and soon, we will betray ourselves all over again, and the consequences are unthinkable and unbearable.

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This is Column #CT045. Request permission to publish here.