History without a script

It's been many years since the feeling of adrenaline has flowed in my veins, many years. Like most American Boomers I grew up on the periphery of wars, there was never a time without war. As an East Coast person who spent time among evolved-intellectual-liberal-minded folk, I did not know a family who had lost a son who fought in any wars, but did know some who's sons went to Canada until the draft was optional. When we took to the streets of Washington under the cover of protesting the Vietnam war, it was a cry against moral vacuity-our own, though we didnt recognize it then and the government. Some would call it Imperialism, Colonialism...the Ism's evolved into Feminism, Sexism, Post Modernism, Multiculturalism until finally the Age of Adulthood came to take us into college, work, marriage, Life. Our elders chuckled knowingly, comfortably watching most of us go through the spasms of mini-revolts from our families, religion, communities and conventions by growing hair where ever possible, smoking anything we could roll or tuck into a pipe and making denim the uniform of the Boomer outlaw. Every generation bucks against the previous one, needs to reinvent the traditions it rails against, the script always seemed cyclical, expected...eventually it all settles into place, calms down, this is a given, a known fact.
We have been seeing in recent weeks that while the United States and alot of Europe went through decades of upheaval that whatever grief we claimed as unbearable for our bourgeoise lives could not begin to compare to that being endured day by day, year after year in Africa and the Middle East.
Although Mr. Obama is being skewered for belated reactions as history moves faster than America can respond to it, there are no scripts now to follow. The old paradigms of fanaticism rushing into a political vacuum are proving false. As each Mid East regime falls, the US government continues holding its collective breath, unable to know whether its time to publically condemn or tentatively offer support or remain silent. We continue to worry that taking a public stance will infuriate or insult the Saudis or the Chinese, oil may be turned off (it's already at $100 a barrel and the earth hasn't stood still), in short the American government is at an intellectual stand still. They are trying to respond to the revolutions in the Middle East using a Cold War script.
Even sadder is watching the old guard Sixties Socialists who thought they finally made it to the White House and would show Americans a New World Economic Order. In the midst of their 'revolutionizing' American healthcare and other social mores, they're suddenly caught unprepared for a global upheaval that is demanding rights that are not of a socialist nature, but the very Capitalism that was condemned by Sixties liberals.
I said early on this isn't about religion. What we see on posters carried by young Libyans is not antisemitism but rather a result of ignorance, lives censored, words spoken without knowledge of any 'others' than the propaganda fed to them since infancy. And this goes for Egyptians and everyone across the region. Despite tourism, there is very little actual contact between the 'street' and Americans and much of that involved illicit activities.
Anticipating a rush to power by al Qaeda, the Brotherhood, tribes is no longer a viable excuse by the American government to remain silent.
America should not be looking at Ronald Reagan as its model in creating a new dialogue as history unfolds. We have already lost the moment when we might have said we are one with the citizens fighting for their lives in Cairo, Benghazi, Tunisia and Saana. We sacrificed the opportunity to stand up and speak the truth early on with pathetic finger wagging. We can look to leaders in our own history who led us back to a moral high road (Abe Lincoln), and from there offer our wealth and guidance to people who are extending their own hands asking for our help. We have a moral strength unlike any other nation and by sheer will can offer the means to educate peoples in work, food and shelter. Americans were taught that 'Third World Countries' contained unwashed masses who are so passive and illiterate they couldnt find their way out of a paper bag, not to consider organizing a revolution. Libyans haven't even waited for the Tent Dweller to leave, they've selected an interim leader and are organizing their future. Tunisians set up stations with food and water as fleeing Libyans came in droves across the border. We do not have to teach people how to be human, this is the obnoxious paternalism that America is hated for. People know how to care for one another. What we ARE needed for is helping people living under dictatorships to free themselves and begin their lives, as they wish, be it capitalism, democracy in whatever form suits their tradition and culture.
The billions we spend on stolen and fake contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan could well be redirected for good purposes inside the US and for other countries-but that's a different script, one meant for a global community not based on hegemony.
It takes adrenaline to recognize what is happening, what needs to be done, adrenaline to see the truth, adrenaline to feel the passion of genuine liberation...one can only pray that the American government can find enough adrenaline in time to do the right things before history passes us by and we're left discussing what we could have done on the evening news.