Who Is Your Tribe?

At the risk of alienating his multiplicity of readers at the office who have already exhausted every other time-wasting method at their disposal, The Great Plotnik would like to have a short discussion about the Middle East.

Oh, all right, forget it. How about Survivor? The 'Jints? No?

Think about this: in Egypt and Tunisia there are basically no ethnic differences. Most of the people are Arabs and think of themselves as Tunisians or Egyptians. In those countries, the despot preferred not to incinerate his own people just to stay in power.

In Bahrain it is a sectarian struggle between Sunni, who have all the power but are few in number, and Shia, who have no power but are the majority. The Sunni king has no problem calling in the army to defeat the 'enemy,' who he considers to be a different tribe than his own.

In Libya there are more than a dozen ethnic groups. Khaddafi's family owns a great deal of property and he feels his tribe is far more important than the country. So he is more than willing to bring in the air force to strafe unarmed demonstrators. It's an easy decision, when protecting your tribe's power is all that matters.

In Iran the police seem to hold off any demonstrations the people might want to make. It sounds brutal, but you have to wonder how many people are really behind these supposed insurgencies? If the government can squelch all dissent that easily, perhaps there really aren't that many people who oppose them?

So the question is: what about America? Who is our tribe? Who do we defend at all costs?

It seems to Plotnik that we are more like Iran. We would like our country to be smarter and stop defending the world's dictators, but we're not all that adamant about it. We'd like not to be fighting wars we can't win in places we don't care about, but if we're told it's important it must be so.

We'd like to provide aid to our poor and needy, but we're running out of money right now.

We'd love to put Americans back to work but if our largest corporations can make more money putting their factories in Mexico or China, hey. It must be good for America or they wouldn't do it, would they?

We are not racists. If we believe our President was born in Africa it has nothing to do with what he looks like.

Above all, we are not stupid. But we are not uncomfortable either. So we go along with the program. It's not that insurrection can't happen here, but it will all come down to who is your tribe? Who will you fight for? Who will make you get off your ass and head down to the street to protect them?

We know the answer, so far, don't we?