Choosing Sides

When I was a kid growing up in New Virginia, Iowa summers were special. It was a time when us kids could take over the town. Our parents were at work, we were out of school, and time was on our side. If you added up all of the kids between the ages of 8 and 12 in the town you could just about play short handed baseball, That’s a game call “workup”. The premise being that you had enough for the field but not for a second team on the bench. This was a great game because everybody played, in fact if someone was missing you sent out hunting parties for them so you had enough to play. Life was good.

When I turned 14 we moved to St. Charles, Iowa. Not much bigger, still just a small farm town, but there seemed to be more kids. The park was an actual park and not the empty lot behind the old bank like New Virginia. And the game was different, it was now pick-up football with six and sometimes even seven per side. The big difference was that in this game you chose sides. By the end of the summer we didn’t even bother to choose sides because people always chose the same. By the end of the summer the town was split by the two football sides and even though life was good, you would find yourself thinking about the other team as “them” on and off the park.

Funny thing about the us and them mentality, the them always end up being the bad guys. We begin to not think of THEM as worthy opponents or people with a differing view, but evil parasites that should be eliminated. Too strong? Think again. When competition escalates to hatred or violence who is it directed against? It’s always “Them”. And now we are choosing up sides again.

Have you seen it or have you been too distracted by Obama telling us the world as we know it will end if we don’t do what he says. While many Americans have been consumed by the hype surrounding the financial “crisis” they have missed the world starting to choose sides. In Britain worker went out on strike to protest foreigners taking their jobs. The same thing occurred in Germany and France. The Chinese and Japanese are warning the West of the dangers of protectionism while blocking certain imports and foreign ownership. At least the Israelis and Palestinians don’t try to disguise the facts. They just shoot at each other. And here at home, we don’t just worry about exporting jobs, we legislate protectionism into that bloated pork laden spending bill being passed off as a rescue package.

We should all be paying very close attention. Nationalism, when pressed to the limits, is a very destabilizing force. Would you die for a thought, probably not, an idea, perhaps. Would you die for your kids, likely so. After all, that is patterned in our DNA. Nationalism in a fanatical sense is herd mentality. Protecting the herd’s offspring from the wolves is the function of the herd. The spectre of impending doom used by politicians to galvanize support suggests that our offspring are at risk fro “THEM”. You might be inclined to start drawing analogies to Nationalism the 30′s. What drove the world to the brink back then, and what pushed it over the edge? Pay attention and be aware when you start seeing people and nations start choosing sides. When teams get picked there is a competition about to start. We not be able to avoid the competition. What we have to avoid is allowing the stakes to grow to the point that competition turns to conflict.