Our Turning Point?

Chip Franklin provides commentary for your weekend thought.

The presence of a camera, broadcasting live images back to the American public, changes not only the way we perceive death, but also the way we fight. CNN’s reporting in the first Gulf war was so up to the minute that Saddam actually changed the firing of his Scuds based on TV reports of where they landed. In the latest Iraq war, the U.S. military invited reporters with varying results. American troops were given the ability to e-mail their friends and families back home. Does anyone believe that Abu Ghraib would have survived as a narrative-only report? The imbedded reporter proved the quantum theory that one cannot observe without affecting that which it observes.

Now for the first time, the rest of the world may be seeing the light, but America's turning point was not our recent generous outpouring of aid to the victims of natural catastrophes or wartime conflicts. Our turning point occurred long ago. It was a realization that a single individual can make a tremendous differnce. And that these individuals, working together, can do great things.