Self-Restraint akin to Silence

War Made Easy: From Vietnam to Iraq

"When a country -- particularly a democracy -- goes to war, the consent of the governed lubricates the machinery of killing. Silence is a key form of co-operation, but the war-making system does not insist on quietude or agreement. Mere self-restraint will suffice.
...
There remains a kind of spectator relationship to military actions being implemented in our names. We're apt to crave the insulation that news outlets offer. We tell ourselves that our personal lives are difficult enough without getting too upset about world events. And the conventional war wisdom of American political life has made it predictable that most journalists and politicians cannot resist accommodating themselves to expediency by the time the first missiles are fired. Conformist behavior -- in sharp contrast to authentic conscience -- is notably plastic.
...
When the huge news outlets swing behind warfare, the dissent propelled by conscience is not deemed to be very newsworthy. The mass media are filled with bright lights and sizzle, with high production values and lower human values, boosting the war effort. And for many Americans, the gap between what they believe and what's on their TV sets is the distance between their truer selves and their fearful passivity.

Conscience is not on the military's radar screen, and it's not on our television screen. But government officials and media messages do not define the limits and possibilities of conscience. We do."

Taken from an article that excerpts Norman Solomon's new book War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com
(emphasis mine)

This article hits a few important points for me:
1) It is always easier to be ignorant.
2) Ignorance is at best an excuse, and at worse a lie, to protect and insulate ourselves.
3) I live in a representative democracy. That means that actions taken and decisions made by my elected leaders are done on my behalf, even if I didn't vote for this person.
4) Silence on any decision is an implicit endorsement of it.
Silence on any action is complicit participation in it.
5) I am sick of being silent. I am tired of being, to paraphrase Solomon, 'fearfully passive.'