21-and-a-day: Guilt-trippin'

T.A. Barnhart

I feel like I'm a man now. It just takes a long time to get here. Recovery is part of it. Death is part of it. Love that goes bad is part of it. Failing to be a parent is part of it. You have to fail and over and over in order to become a man.

James Taylor

Yesterday, my older son turned twenty-one, but he was not at home with his family when he did. Nor was he at college, or at a job. Instead, he is at Fort Benning, Georgia, going through basic training as a member of the Oregon National Guard. He's learning the skills the Army thinks he's likely to need in the next seven years: Shooting a rifle at other human beings to kill them. Lobbing mortars at other human beings to kill them. Sticking a bayonet into their guts to kill them. Becoming stronger and smarter to have the advantage in killing them before they can kill him.

Did I mention I'm not very happy about his choice to join the Guard? The days when being in the Guard meant helping fight forest fires and rescuing people from floods are long past; in the tattered remains of Bush and Rumsfeld's Army, it's the Guard's duty to go to war to replace the bodies no longer available in the regular military.

I didn't raise my kid to be a soldier, but that, for now, is what he's decided he's going to be. So now I'm doing what any good parent does when their kid picks the "wrong" path in life: I'm guilt-tripping.

I have gone over all the ways I failed my kids: the divorce, the distance, the lack of money, growling in anger at them when they were babies and refusing to sleep in the middle of the damn night. My list of the ways I caused my child to pick the one option in life most like to cause me this kind of anguish is very long. It's also pointless and stupid.

My children have absolutely no doubt about how much I love them. In time, Alex will have the maturity to talk to me about what hurt him, what angered him, what he missed because I wasn't there. When he does talk to me, he'll be able to do so because underneath all the pain and disappointment is the unshakable, undeniable fact of my love. But the kid is just twenty-one — and a day. Right now he's only concerned with living his life the way he wants to (although I am convinced he's a long way from doing that, but since I was over 45 before I began to get a clue about the right way to live my life, I'm not the one to say he should be doing better). He'll get around to the maturity thing in time. I just need to be patient and wait for him.

But my failures as a parent are not all that I'm guilt-tripping on. There is so much more available to me. And I hope I do not sound blithe about this, but as I think about the possibility, the very real possibility, that Alex could be sent to Iraq in June and shipped back in a box, covertly and with no acknowledgement from the man who killed him; I feel guilty that I have done so little to stop the deaths of the 3,400 Americans who have actually died in Iraq.

I look at how I've lived my life since it became clear Bush was going to use September 11th as an excuse to attack Iraq and start his jihad against the infidels holding the oil Jesus meant for His Chosen People to use here in the Holy Land. Yes, I marched for peace several times, including on the first Mother's Day following the loss of my mom; that was a difficult day. I once bothered to phone Gordon Smith's office in DC; I think, however, it was about ANWR. I've written in BlueOregon; I've helped elect pro-peace candidates here in Oregon and worked even harder in failing to elect John Kerry. I've done a lot, but have I done enough?

That's the toughest question of all: Have I done enough? I love the James Taylor quote because as humans we learn much more from our failures than our successes. Success simply confirms the lessons learned in failing. I know I've done a lot of good work over the years. I've volunteered in my sons' schools since pre-school. I've phone banked against Measure 9 and 13 and for a woman's right to choose. I've lit-dropped and canvassed. I started an organization to support the Corvallis High School Band, giving hundreds of hours to make up for what the state has taken away from our kids. In short, I've done my fair share. And perhaps a bit more.

But enough? I think of Cindy Sheehan, who has paid the price I fear so much. She's working as hard as she can to save the lives of other parents' children; am I doing my part? I think this is a fear, a doubt, I share with many other progressives. We see the world falling apart around us, we know we are doing something, but we believe we must do more. But what? And how much more? And worst of all, can we do enough — can we do anything? — to make a real difference? If Bush has the power to continue the war and Congress won't stop him; if the oil companies can continue to gut the planet for ever-increasing profit; if the seeds of violence are spread further and further by circumstances far beyond my reach; what the hell can I do that makes any difference?

As a progressive, writing in a progressive blog, I'm not going to repeat the usual platitudes. We all know them; we all believe them to some extent. The thought that I have this morning, the day after my child's twenty-first birthday, is that the progressive movement is insufficient if it's simply a political movement.

The neocons have had their success by being both a political and a social movement. The conservatives and right-wingers have overwhelmed those of us in the center and on the left because they have the whole enchilada: politics, social activism, religion, family, workplace, everything. Their goal is not merely political; their goal is to conquer the entirety of American society.

We progressives must make this our goal as well. But where they are exclusive, dogmatic, judgmental and self-righteous; we must be inclusive, open-minded, tolerant, forgiving. Yes, we have to win elections, and we need to elect the right people. We need to defeat the crappy ballot measures and pass a few of our own. But we need a lot more.

We need to win the war of ideas: that war fixes nothing, that poverty hurts everyone, that no one is free when injustice is tolerated. But of all the ideas that I believe we must "sell" to America is the idea that we're all in this together: We are, each of us, fully responsible to one another. We are responsible not just to our family, our friends, our neighbors, but to every other person on the planet. I think the core of progressivism must become a realization that to care for those we know the least about, perhaps the ones we fear or hate, is the only way we'll stop the many ways humankind is working to annihilate itself. If progressives can show the way to a kind of universal responsibility (and please don't ask me to define that because, frankly, I am still thinking this through), then we can start to undermine a lot of the barriers that cause fear, division and hatred.

I imagine I will carry my parental guilt to my grave (or whatever container I get placed into before I'm cremated). I can live with that. But I refuse to live with this other guilt, the idea I've not done enough and I'll never be able to do enough. I am going to accept the hard truth that there is only so much I can do. I can't change the world — alone. So I won't try. Instead, I'll keep pushing ahead with what I've been learning the past few years: Hand-in-hand with fellow progressives, I can change this country. Working with neighbors and other citizens, I can help take back our country. With others, I can end war and injustice. At the very least, I can try.

I began with one singer; I'll end with another, John McCutcheon, a traditional song I know from his version:

Step by step the longest march can be won, can be won Many stones can form an arch, singly none, singly none And by union what we will can be accomplished still Drops of water turn a mill, singly none singly none

Singly, none. Singly, none.

By T.A. Barnhart March 28, 2007