The American people are now on news overload. With 24-hour television stations dedicated to the news, journalists seem to create events as often as they report them. It is very difficult to know who or what to believe. In the absence of a sense of genuine clarity, most Americans at some point stop trying, saying nothing much more important at the end of the day than, "Someone pass the butter, please."

The quagmires of domestic and international politics reflect the emotional and psychological quagmires that are part and parcel of daily life. There is something about the modern world that, while technologically advanced, is lacking in life force.

Speed is not life force; adrenaline is not life force; money is not life force. Only the presence and articulation of truth is life force. And today there is an overriding sense that not everyone who is supposed to be telling us the truth is doing anything even close. Once again, shades of Vietnam.

Psychologists and psychiatrists deal daily with adults whose childhoods were spent growing up in family systems dominated by lies. The truth-teller in such a system is not rewarded, but often punished for having the audacity to express the truths that the system is designed to hide. Today, in terms of the society, there is a sense that radical truth telling would somehow go against the grain. Do not bring up the more obvious questions. Do not defy the presumed authorities. Suppress your doubts and go along. Rocking the boat is a bad, bad thing.

I recently received e-mail from a friend that included the following quote: "Well-behaved women rarely make history." I laughed, and somewhere deep down I cried. For that indeed is the way of history, evidenced today as much as ever before: To be nice means to go along. As soon as you start asking questions, you're a troublemaker for sure.

But among the stupor and the complacency that have settled over much of America, there is a new spirit of moral outrage emerging as well.

I see it everywhere, in people who say, "Pass the butter" and then say, "What the hell am I just talking about the butter for?" I see it in people who are becoming involved in creating new political and social alternatives. I see it in the young who are not willing to accept that a raped and plundered and violent planet is the best they should hope to inherit from us. I see it in those who are questioning why we went to Iraq, what we're doing in Iraq and where all those weapons of mass destruction are.

This is not the time to over-stress politeness, if to be polite is to merely go along with a status quo that is headed in a direction of increased militarism, ersatz patriotism and ever-diminished respect for truth. Where there is no truth, there is no energy. Where there is no energy, there is no spirit. Where there is no spirit, there is no life.

America has gone through times like this before. Generations before us have stumbled into ages such as the McCarthy era, where bullies made it clear to everyone that freedom is just a word we love; the reality can be so messy.

Yet, the greatness and glory of these United States is not that we have never made mistakes, but that almost each and every time, we ultimately come to our senses and do our best to correct it. There is a group conscience in America, and an instinctive knowing that this country is called to a very high standard by virtue of our extraordinary blessings and power. We can be bamboozled, but never for too long. We always wake up. We always get it right, if even seemingly just in time.

So next time someone says to you, "Four more years, they say we're going to be in Iraq," say -- just in case you're not quite sure -- "And tell me why we went there again?"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------