Something came up this week that reminded me of an experience I had in college in the late 1960s. Trust me, I’m not making this stuff up. There were many rallies on the library mall in those days, but one stands out in my memory because at this particular event we were graced with the presence of a famous celebrity radical. Because of that, there was an even larger crowd than usual. This fellow arrived and quickly got everyone charged up with fiery rhetoric along with calls for revolution. But here’s the great part of the story: After our celebrity speaker got the crowd reasonably riled up, he left to the cheers and clenched fists of those gathered. I happened to be watching it all just to the right of the speaker’s podium, and after he finished, I also left in the same direction to get to a class. We happened to be walking the same way – I was about a quarter of a block behind him – and as I watched him turn the corner, I witnessed one of those little ironies that life seems to dole out to keep us all smiling.

He turned the corner and got into a huge limousine that was waiting for him. We didn’t see many limousines in those days, especially on that Midwest campus. My first reaction was: “Whaaaa???” I looked around to see if I was the only witness to this glaring dichotomy. Here is a guy who no less than three minutes earlier was riling up a huge crowd against the empire, the pig, the entire capitalist system, who then seemed more than happy to partake in some of the pleasures of that system.

I mentioned the story to my roommates later that night and that seemed to be end of it – except, perhaps, for offering me a better lesson in life than I got from my class that night. I thought about that encounter again this week as I listened to the news and heard two stories almost back-to-back, which, on the surface, appeared quite disconnected. The first story told me that the bombers in London, who successfully put fear back in all of us, were homegrown. They were not disaffected young men from impoverished regions of the Middle East (odd how oil-rich countries produce suicide bombers, while the continent of Africa, with all of its misery, hasn’t). These terrorists were born in Britain, at least one was a college graduate, played cricket, and partook in all the pluses that an open society offers. They also seem to have been inspired to kill themselves and anyone around them by, perhaps, coming under the influence of fire-breathing clerics who seem to abound in places like the United Kingdom, all of Europe, as well as here in America. (Remember that blind sheik in Brooklyn?)

Just after that report, the next story told us about a protest against the Patriot Act in front of the New York Public Library on that same day. One of the speakers, the head of the local chapter of People for the American Way, shouted to the crowd: “Do you want the government looking at the kind of books you are taking out at the library?” “Noooo,” cried the crowd. “Do you want them looking at our credit cards?” “Noooo!” cried back the crowd again. And as I listened to this woman (working for an organization started and funded by Norman Lear, who made many millions of dollars selling Archie Bunker and “The Jeffersons” first to CBS and then syndication), I found myself back on the library mall, 35 years ago, saying “Whaaaa?” Once again, I’m thinking: Am I the only person seeing this? Am I the only person in my neighborhood who realizes the Patriot Act may be one of the most important ways to untie the hands of law enforcement to find these terrorists who have already killed 3,000 of us after living right here among us? Am I the only person on the Upper West Side who has no problem with the government looking at my library record (or Internet queries) as long as they may also be finding someone taking out books on nuclear technology or crop dusting? Why am I not upset with the FBI looking at my charges at Home Depot and Fairway as long as they might also find someone else who is purchasing large amounts of fertilizer in an urban area, along with chemicals that could ignite it (as was used in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993)?

But “Noooo !” cries the crowd in front of the public library. It is not radical Islam that says exactly what it intends to do – namely kill us and destroy our society. The real villains, according to these folks, are – in no particular order – the Bush administration, the Republicans, Christian evangelicals, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Fox News, etc., etc. We had dinner recently with old friends whom I am having a harder and harder time seeing. There was the usual Bush basing, which I find as constant as it is thoughtless. But when I actually questioned them – when I asked them just what parts of the Patriot Act they were against and why, the conversation kind of stopped. And when I asked if they had a better way to find the terrorists who continue to plague us, there was one of those uncomfortable silences. My guess is that I was simply dismissed as a guy who’s gone over to the other side. I can’t really take any satisfaction in what I did because I honestly don’t think my response made them question themselves or their denunciations that seem void of any strategic thought.

I seem to have fallen into a world of disconnects that have only accelerated since September 11, 2001. Islamic radicals have been surprisingly open in their intentions. That shouldn’t surprise us. Hitler was no different. He made it abundantly clear what he intended to do in his book “Mein Kampf,” written 10 years before he came to power in Germany. He stated it over and over in speeches to mass rallies and on the radio. It was the rest of the world that chose not to believe him until it was almost too late, and at a cost of about 50 million lives. Our present-day fascists are equally transparent. They don’t hide the fact that they want the entire world to follow their strict brand of Islam – they are proud of it. They tell us that in their version of the Koran, they believe they have not just the right, but the obligation to kill us because we won’t accept their religion. And it’s my friends and neighbors who seem equally unwilling or unable to see this, to steel themselves to the reality of our present situation and to place the blame in the correct box – namely the terrorists who have committed the murders in London, New York, Baghdad, Madrid, Jerusalem, Bali, and on and on.

It’s disheartening but it’s not new, either. We’ve certainly been here before. I just pray that we’ll come to our senses sooner than we did 65 years ago, and at a lower cost in human life. I pray we’ll continue to have leaders who understand the menace we face. And in the meantime, I’ll keep going to dinner parties on the West Side, and I’ll probably continue to be mystified by what I encounter. Be sure of one more thing – I’ll keep writing as well.