It now looks like it was an American Tomahawk missile striking the Iranian school, killing over 100 schoolchildren.
If it had been from an Israeli plane or friendly fire from Iran, I'm not sure how much less of a burden it would be on the consciences of Americans, given our role in the conflict. But now that it's an American who pressed the button, what do we do with this reality?
• Dismiss responsibility, since we, individually, have no control over what the military does?
• Chalk it up to collateral damage that happens in war?
• Blame Iran for their role in the conflict?
• Or, might we recognize how misaligned our political systems are from the kinds of societies we wish to have and the kind of people we want to be?
I know this is far from the first time children have been killed by American military. But this one is present; it's right here. The building is still collapsed. Perhaps they’re still having memorial services. And photos of the bodies are still freshly being shared online. This is an ongoing conflict whose outcome is yet to be determined, influenced by those in power, exposed to our observations and judgements.
Making this even more immediate are the proxies in our lives.
I attended my nephew's basketball game this past weekend. Ten boys running up and down the court making layups, airballing 3-pointers. They’re the same age as those girls tore apart by this bomb made in Tucson, Arizona by the company Raytheon, whose stock has more than doubled the past two years.
Perhaps it’s the profiting, the normalcy of American military atrocity, or the difficulty stomaching such a tragedy that motivates distancing ourselves from it. But then this feeds the inhumanity toward the Persian people.
That political graphic comes to mind, the one I shared in a previous post and video—only this time for the opposite reason.
This heat-map over concentric circles is a striking visualization of how differently conservatives and liberals delegate their allegiance. Inner rings represent people closer to us (family, friends, people in our community) and outer rings represent all humans, then all animals, and then even the inanimate. Conservatives decidedly emphasize the inner circles while liberals broaden their obligation to land on the outer ones.
In the video, I point out the complementary nature of the two political sides—like having all our bases covered if working together—but then also the potential for the opposite: harmful negligence if one side dominates.
Then, I focused more on the dysfunction created when liberal political dominance neglects the inner rings, e.g. inviting in unmanageable numbers of refugees to the detriment of one’s own voters. But now regarding Iran, we see the toxicity of people who lean right denying the humanity of those in the outer rings. Trump expressed an egregious example of this—a cognitive dissonance one might need to exercise to justify the innocent bloodshed.
When asked about America bombing a water treatment plant, the President replied that Iranians are “among the most evil people ever on earth. They cut babies’ heads off.”
The U.S. is suffering a leadership crisis top to bottom, with the top featuring Republicans disregarding humanity internationally, and in cities (as well as some entire states) Democrats in control overlook the well-being of their own citizens.
Until we have a new structure and political home for the growing numbers of disaffected Americans dismayed by the systems and powers that be, I guess there is some peace at least in throwing our hands in the air and not pretending things in government are okay—or even hope to be under the systems as they are now.
No longer in denial, we can then work more usefully on the things that matter, such as family, community, and building new systems under which we can operate societies.