Time to recall, renew, rededicate

KENNETT, Mo. -- One of the most interesting, and heartening, responses to the September attacks in New York and Washington has been the sublimation of politics-as-usual in America which only a year ago experienced cone of the most controversial elections in our nation's history.

Overnight, the forces of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida have accomplished what the combined forces of Republicans, Democrats and the U.S. Supreme Court were unable to achieve.

Indeed, it has been more than half a century since the country enjoyed such unanimity, even if our newly found harmony has been accompanied by unprecedented domestic terrorist fears and threats. I hope America's next generations will remember these moments and adopt their best qualities in future environments.

Those of us who were around at the end of World War II are still able to recall the mood then:

We had just completed the most dangerous struggle since the Civil War, and we had accomplished it with a unity of spirit that previous to Dec. 7, 1941, had been barely discernible. The nation's mood after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had been one of desperation, perhaps best illustrated by our willingness to re-elect a president to an unprecedented third term in office.

The rise of totalitarianism in Europe and Asia in the late 1930s was unprecedented, and our national leaders had done everything possible to keep us separated from the military might of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. By 1945 we had emerged victorious, after amassing the world's most powerful fighting force, and by 1946 we were relishing not only the victory over Axis powers but the unity of spirit that prevailed throughout the country. Although we were unaware of it, it was to be the last such moment of unity we were to experience during the subsequent military encounters in Korea and Vietnam.

Today's national mood, created in large measure by the horrendous scenes witnessed at the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, closely resembles the unity of spirit America experienced as we launched our military forces in Europe and throughout wide areas in Asia. We knew what our assignment had to be, and we were more than willing to carry it out in the best tradition of a great democracy that was unwilling to accept slavery as a substitute for freedom.

It seems to be the nature of imperfect humans to forget over a period of time the grander moments of their existence, so it is hardly surprising that the best qualities of one generation cannot always be transplanted to the following ones, if only because time, while a great healer, is seldom perfect in the minds of mere men. Nor is it unusual for the national memory to lose track of moments created from crisis, for these are all too often sublimated in the hope they will never again occur to haunt us.

Politics-as-usual has such riposte appeal that we embrace it as a cure for whatever is disturbing society at the moment, be it economic or social or racial or religious. We offer up our solutions because it seems to be our nature to advance the causes we have adopted out of sheer pride of ownership. We sometimes choose one side or the other because one seems close to the beliefs of those around us -- or we change sides for the very same reason. At this point, winning becomes everything, the Elysian moment when the spoils of victory are ours, if only for a moment or two.

The unprecedented moment on Sept. 11 on American soil created an immediate need for response, but it accomplished far more. It gave us an excuse for abandoning self-serving agendas, substituting them with a spirit the vast majority of Americans had never experienced.

George W. Bush was now our president, not the Republicans'. Our senators and representatives were now our senators and representatives and not the talking heads for the two parties. The Supreme Court was now the protector of all Americans, not the final jurist for either the majority or the minority.

Amid this collective unity should come the public's realization of the tasks ahead:

We have programs to finance and carry out, we have children to educate, we have poverty that must be ameliorated, we have rights to protect, and we have a responsibility for maintaining the basic freedoms we have willingly inherited from our ancestors.

These are not easy tasks to accomplish but their difficulty must not deter us from pursuing them with all the strength at our command.

The work of democratic societies is far too important to be sidetracked by mad terrorists whose vision of the future is so unlike ours and whose intentions are difficult to understand because they are so radical as to be nonsensical. This agenda need not cause us to return to the ideas so prevalent prior to the terrorists attacks, when the political air was so polluted that both major parties gave top priority to raising money for campaigns and when winning was the only objective of our national leadership. We must insist that our political leadership focus on matters that involve our general society, not the hired hands who are willing to engage in any manipulation to advance their party causes.

Just as America needed dedicated leadership to win the battles of World War II, so too does America now have a pressing need to carry out its national agenda without regard to partisan excesses. As citizens, we have the responsibility to make this single demand upon all who now lead our nation and our states. To carry out this task, we can find strength from previous generations who faced similar challenges and overcame them.

Let this be our resolve in meeting this moment's troubling time.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News and Editorial Service.