If We Stick Together

I got thinking about this scene from It's A Wonderful Life not because of the relevance of the economic collapse. Rather, it is George Bailey's response to the panic that I find important. In light of the insanity of recent events, it seems even more important to consider some facts in light of a context that might just make us embarrassed by our behavior.

It was quite evident before the first eruption at a town hall meeting that we were in for some rough times this month. Right-wing leaders had made it very clear they would co-ordinate with various local individuals to organize protests to disrupt town hall meetings members of Congress would hold on health care reform. The scenes have become so typical as to pass from event to myth in less than a month. Groups holding signs denouncing the President as, variously, a socialist and a Nazi. Groups shouting down any attempt to communicate. Accusations that became more and more divorced from any serious reading of the various bills before Congress.

Then there are the various bits that show the ignorance and irony of our situation. Senior citizens insisting that "government" not mess with Medicare, which is government-provided health insurance. A young man who is part of a right-wing group insisting he was injured by "union goons", then setting up a drive to collect money because he has no health insurance. For two weeks now we have actually had to repeatedly hear talk of "death panels" and "government pulling the plug on grandma". The media has tried as best it can - and I really will give our national media credit - to take all of this in and make sense of it, including taking apart various accusations that have no semblance of reality to them, even as some pundits and journalists continue to traffic in easily disproved nonsense.

The President's poll numbers have slipped; the poll numbers of Congressional Democrats have slipped. The only bright side to this slip is there has not been a boost in the numbers for Republicans of any sort, which while heartening, also makes the case that Democratic reluctance to be more forceful and stand up to the rhetorical onslaughts of the right has weakened the party. The President and some senior members of Congress (especially of the Senate) insist they want Republican support for health care reform even as it has become abundantly clear that the Republicans have no intention of supporting any bill whatsoever. Compromise and cooperation with a group as intellectually dishonest as this is impossible; the American people seem to understand that even if members of both houses of Congress still seem to think that collegiality demands compromise.

One would think all this hubbub concerned a near-revolutionary change in the social contract, or perhaps a debate on whether or not to go to war. The question that has spawned this spectacle of outrage is this: Will we, the wealthiest industrialized nation on the planet, provide access to quality health care to all its citizens? The loudest voices, even if still a very distinct minority, is quite clearly, "No!"

Can we take a look at ourselves for just a moment? Can any of us, good, solid Americans of right, center, and left, take a look at what we have become for just a moment or two and see and hear and, perhaps, wonder at what we have become? We have allowed the forces of the status quo to divide us! We are allowing individuals and groups who lie outside the general consensus to drive the debate on the question of reforming health care. It takes nothing more than a whispered rumor by someone most Americans know has no grasp of serious national policy to take the debate in to territory that has relationship to reality whatsoever. We hear people advocating bringing weapons to meetings. We hear intimations of violence. We see people screaming in rage and fear at the prospect of some bogeyman called "socialism", which has no relationship to what is actually being discussed. We waste precious time and resources attempting to steer the discussion back toward the question at hand, only to have the debate go off the tracks over this or that or some other accusation that is in no way relevant.

What kind of a nation are we? Where are our religious leaders, our civic leaders, our citizens demanding an end to the panic and fear? Where are the voices of sanity and comity insisting that the debate over health reform is about all of us? Divide and conquer has always been the best strategy for victory, whether in war or politics. We are being divided even as the question before us is one of coming together not only to provide assistance to those most in need, but also to provide for sound fiscal and financial health for a sector of our economy that is bloated, out of control, and capricious in its relationship with the public.

The snarls of hatred, the glare from a polished weapon, the denunciations of politicians as enemies of the state do nothing but weaken us. The gradual erosion of support for our elected leaders to do the one thing they were put in office to do - to lead - should be a wake-up call that it is time to remember that all of us, regardless of political ideology have a stake in the outcome of this debate. All of us will benefit. We will be a better country should we no longer make the ability to pay the gate-keeper for access to health care. We will be a more compassionate, more unified country if we no longer recognize some arbitrary standard such as income, social class, or wealth as the magic formula that open the doors to better health.

This is not a request for comity, or an attempt to silence opposition. It is nothing more and nothing less than an attempt to get people to see what we have become. We are, right now, so far away from addressing the simple question before us, and seeing the possibilities for general national betterment inherent in this question that we resemble nothing more than that crowd at the Bailey Building and Loan. We are all scrambling in panic and fear, not realizing that the forces that have far too much control over our lives already see an opportunity for gaining even more. If all of us, Democrats and Republicans, left, right, and center, can return to the question at hand and consider it on the merits, we might be surprised that we can, indeed beat "this thing" if we all stick together. Panic in the streets is an opportunity for the powerful to increase their power; a mob is nothing more than the expression of whatever status quo exists exerting its unchecked desire for power against whatever forces might be trying to alter that status quo. The irony, of course, is that the subsumed ego within the mob mentality is quite literally atomized, cut off from real social intercourse with others. This walled-up ego, separated from others, serves only the interests of power, a power that even now can break us as a people.

I don't know if this attempt to get people to look at the situation we are in will find fertile ground. I'm not sure I really care. I recognize there are many individuals and groups that are not only vested in the status quo, but also vested in the ongoing insanity. Yet, not to do so would be a surrender not only to those vested interests, but a supreme act of cowardice. At some point, some lone figure needs to stand before the panicked mob and insist, "Will you take a look at yourselves?"