IN DEFENSE OF COMMON SENSE
By Hetty Gray
# 213
May 17, 2015
“Listen…”
It is highly unusual for me to write on a Sunday and I do apologize for a three-week lapse in columns. However, in the wake of recent events, even this news “junkie” finds her usual enthusiasm for headlines and major stories diminished to the point of near exhaustion. Like many of you, I fear the apparent collapse of foreign policy and recognize the looming terrorist threat for what it is but feel helpless to remedy the situation.
Years ago, when cellular phones were just beginning to take over as everyday items for us as Americans; a television ad ran touting the performance of one cellular provider over another. You probably remember it.
The ad featured a person holding a cell phone and constantly asking if the person on the other end could hear him. Jocular as it was, it merits examination as the bell weather for what we face now.
For as much as my generation has trusted in our government’s ability to protect us as a people, attitudes are changing in response to a growing sense of insecurity. Our enemies are, unquestionably, among us. Absent uniforms or other visible identification, they threaten invisibly. This, above all other considerations, distinguishes them from any other enemy we have faced in the past.
Oh, there were Germans who pretended to be Yanks dispersed among our troops in Europe during World War II; but even they were tripped up by our vernacular. Army issue uniforms did them no good. You see, with no exposure to American slang, the Nazi impostors fell victim to their training. Even good American accents could not disguise their lack of knowledge.
To a great degree, our leaders suffer from the same malady and we are at risk for their blatant ignorance of how serious a threat we really face. Every day, we awake to messages reminiscent of those espoused by Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich in the 1930s and 1940s. World domination was his dream then and it is the Muslim terrorists’ dream today.
Clearly, we should take the speeches of Tehran as truth, word for word. When Iran’s Supreme Leader asks for followers to launch worldwide jihad, perhaps he takes a page from the Madison Avenue playbook of the cellular provider.
After all, he is asking the same question. “Can you hear me now?” Can we? Think about it.