Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. –Mark TwainEvery country has the government it deserves. –Joseph de Maistre
Dirty. –Dee Snider, front man for the rock band Twisted Sister, describing how he felt after testifying before Congress during the PMRC hearings.
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong it's reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. –Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States
This is not the piece I originally planned to do. Nope. I started out with a concept by which I would use this whole debacle surrounding health care reform as a foil to shed light on a few things I saw through the entire sordid affair, things that went well beyond one legislative bill, and use them as an indictment of the dysfunctionality of our system as a whole.
I was going to start off giving a quick synopsis of my own Aristotelian sociopolitical worldview and how, in short, the more left OR right someone swings, the more full-of-shit I think they are, blah, blah, blah. Then I was going to detail how no one, left or right, Democrat or Republican, socialist or Tea Partier, or anyone else in between for that matter, is coming out of this mess with clean hands or an unstained soul.
Was I going to present some grand, epiphanic revelation on how this nightmare can be righted, and how everyone will go back to giving each other all sort of hugs and kisses and treating each other with the respect and good will that we Americans should express?
Uh, no.
Although my day job is in healthcare, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, in contrast to the talking heads out there who say they have all the answers, I don’t. I have not the expertise, education nor experience. Besides, one of the down sides of working in healthcare’s trenches is that if I were to pop my head over the edge and take a look at no-man’s land, I’m liable to get it shot off.
I have had experience working in what, ironically enough, could be described as socialized medicine, that is, military medicine. I wasn’t impressed. On the other hand, military medicine isn’t the only industry model in the world, and philosophically I do believe in the right of everyone to have affordable, comprehensive healthcare. But will healthcare reform as it stands be the most effective for the American people? I have not a freaking clue.
In fact, I’m going to go out on another limb here and confess that my only resources for what current healthcare reform entails originated from clearly bent, hyperbolic and pretentious diatribes vomited out by fanatical, demagogic and self-righteous lawmakers (on both sides of the isle) so far down the back pockets of corporate and other special interest groups they can use the lint as comforters, as well as the blatant, yellow journalism crapped out by the squawk boxes on the radio and so-called cable “news” channels. So as you can imagine I’m taking both resources with a very large grain of salt.
(Author’s note: Yes, I know. You’re thinking that perhaps then I should not be speaking at all on this subject. But hey, I’m writing a novel, read The Golden Bough, working full time and trying to be some kind of good husband and father to my family, so something’s got to give. That being said, it’s not healthcare reform itself, philosophically speaking, that’s pissing me off. Rather, it’s the maladjusted culture surrounding it and the rest of the country that’s getting under my hide. I do hope to get to it eventually, in whatever form it takes.)
But then, as I reflected on what I would say and the chasm-like depth of this issue’s severity, I thought, why bother?
A new age has come to our country, one that has seen the final death-rattle of what I believe Woodrow Wilson described as a “community of power” and the rise of fascistic factionalism. From the conceited gloating of the Democrats to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promising no more non-partisan agreements to Tea Partiers spitting racial epithets to the vandalism of both Democrat and Republican congressional offices, why should I add my voice to this orgiastic cacophony of squabbling hate and ill will?
Those that agree with me may laud me, but fiery licks of insults and threats will surely come from those who don’t. And those who don’t care will just—not care. They’ll do nothing, even when the house is burning down around them. No one, NO ONE possesses mutual respect and consideration anymore. No one is willing to listen to the other guy and say, “Hey, you’ve got a point there. Maybe we can work things out. What do you think of my idea…?”
That’s right. I’m talking about you. So get up, go into your bathroom, take a good long look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Where do I stand?” And I blame myself. Even as I vent my spleen on this computer, I accept my share of the blame that the country I love has drifted so far from its ideals, that somehow, somewhere along the line, both political sides decided that their side knew what was best for the country, and the other camp was at best wrong and at worst treasonous. I don’t get that, and I fear for the Republic.
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Took me a while to get around to reading this, David, but I'd like to say that I am generally in agreement with what you say here.
ReplyDeleteI do not despise politicians and bureaucrats wholesale. I suspect that most of these people enter into these professions as idealists. I think nowadays other powers have become so supremely superior in the techniques of manipulating money and political power that "the federal government" is simply lumbering along far behind. These other powers include the international corporate world and high finance, and something that I think is unprecedented in the political arena, a media/propaganda machine working independently of the old political machines. As you've done here, I wouldn't really single out one party over another, but Fox News/Rush Limbaugh/etc. represents a new political behemoth in American politics whose power and impact I can't really distinguish from that of Al Jezeera in the Arab world.
As for so-called healthcare, that began to vanish rapidly beginning in the early 1990s, as far as this insider-witness is concerned, once decisions by HMOs began to trump decisions made by doctors. The current generation of doctors, and of all so-called healthcare workers, has now grown up with only this model and is unaware of the degree to which compassion and care has been destroyed by a laser-tight focus on the bottom line. If you think back to natural disasters in this country during the last few decades it may begin to occur to you that the approach of so-called insurance companies is not to reimburse your destroyed property, but to resist reimbursing your destroyed property, and to exclude from coverage anyone most likely to be in need of reimbursement, of care, of human compassion. Of course it's the exact same story in so-called healthcare now. "Insurance." Hospitals have been transformed into voracious maws sucking in cash for insurance companies, and while in earlier years in the workplace I knew I was helping improve human lives, now I mostly feel like a bag man for the mob.
I agree with your suggestion, David, that the solution is not in becoming more polarized right or left along the political spectrum, but in favoring human compassion over corporate profits. I just made a 5,000 mile drive across this country, and I'll tell you, regardless of our present economic woes, if the cars on the highways and the homes along the highways are any indication (and they are), we live in an awesomely wealthy country. The dream of endless corporate expansion and municipal growth built this country for centuries, but we reached the Pacific Ocean in our Westward advance long ago, and continuing this unsustainable fantasy now is tantamount to blindly promoting a social cancer. We require economic sustainability at home and compassion for our fellow man, not blind ambitions to make corporate executives richer and richer, not the never-ending updates of procedure manuals written by administrators in corporate offices a few thousand miles away. This is as true in so-called healthcare as in any other market sector, and everyone knows it. But what will turn things around?
Unlike you, David, I do not accept personal responsibility for this disaster that continues to unfold in so-called healthcare and beyond. Raising, or changing, consciousness is all fine and dandy, David, but these powers are vast and deep. Sometimes dramatic events are the only possible triggers. Sometimes only blood can initiate a political earthquake. The inflamed political rhetoric one hears in this country every day seems to me not so very different from what was heard around 1860, and the only thing that may be preventing a new civil war from erupting is the fact that the political polarization is not regionally-segregated now.
As you say, the political landscape has shifted radically. Are the politicians capable of evolving rapidly enough to adapt? I doubt it.
It may take an earthquake.