LETTER FROM THE EDITOR 8/19/08
CAN WE REALLY DO NOTHING?
I was in a checkout line at Walmart, and the checker, as at so many of these stores, was new and slow, so those of us waiting had time to peruse the pens and candy bars so conveniently placed within reach, or turn to our neighbor in line and converse.
Which is what I did. Conversations with strangers in lines can take strangely intimate turns, and the woman behind me began speaking of the more secret damage being done to our country and its middle class. We both had read the infuriating news, completely missed by television stations, that 75 percent of the corporations in America pay no federal income taxes, which means that the loopholes which allow the wealthy to escape paying their taxes is a nifty boon to highly profitable companies as well. The burden of supporting the government and its services, the drain of paying for America, thus falls on the backs of we, the middle class.
We talked about this topic and also about our national parks, which are national treasures, which are being chipped away thousands of acres at a time by the current administration; taken from protected status and given over bit by bit to mining and oil companies. It's being done so quietly that few Americans are aware of it. We spoke, with tired outrage, about the new laws being even more quietly passed between the current administration and congress that take away consumer's rights to sue corporations or any businesses that make products that damage or hurt us.
She slowly shook her head in a resigned way. "There's nothing we can do. Nothing we can do," she said, her shoulders slumping.
I thought about that as I drove home with my groceries, which actually cost a little more at Walmart than they do at the smaller local grocery store where I usually shop, which in fact has cheaper prices, but it's Walmart that can spend the money to convince us all that their prices are the lowest, and of course we believe what we're told.
As I thought about this and the conversation with the woman in line, the only thing that came to mind was, where is the outrage? Why are we all accepting what's been going on both quietly and openly in America? It's not been quite behind our backs, but it hasn't been up front, either, and it's as if Americans don't have the energy to care. Or worse, as if we deliberately turn away and allow ourselves to be distracted by other topics.
What is a more important and more immediate issue: that our government is torturing people or that women are having abortions? Why can Americans be so easily distracted from immediate issues by the generic topics of gay rights or gun control?
Back in the '80's, I was a part timer at a large talk radio station. I was often called to fill in for the host of a conservative talk show. Whenever incoming calls got slow, I would mention gun control. The phone lines would suddenly light up. A quarter century later, the mention any of the three buzzwords to conservatives---gun control, abortion or gay rights---still fires up their emotions more than any injustice going on in the world. I don't know if liberals rise to their own buzzword issues. I do know that those who can't be roused by the reliable three words can themselves be distracted by gossip about Brittney Spears or some other celebrity.
So is the now-perfected Rove-ian techniques of distracting us from what is going on the factor that makes us unable to do anything? Or is it that we are waiting for some leader to organize us, to get us fired up behind a symbol or person we can unite behind?
There are so many who have expressed outrage about the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the vast and growing national debt, the new laws allowing the wiretapping of our phone conversations and the reading of our computer hard drives and emails. But like our patriotism, it's become a matter of what is being said rather than what is being done. It's so much easier to slap a yellow magnetic ribbon saying "Support Our Troops" on the car than to make sure the troops have enough body armor to protect them in Iraq, and to march in demonstrations against the government officials who are not supplying that armor. We hear about the shabby treatment of both active troops and veterans, and each incident passes after a suitable amount of lip flap, while organized groups spend their cash and energy fighting against gay marriage. We let the damage to New Orleans fade in our memory, and the government's failure to protect those Americans with it, while we pat ourselves on the back because something called the "Surge" in Iraq is supposedly working, though we have absolutely no way of knowing if that or anything else we are told is true.
So was that lady in line right? Is there truly nothing we can do about what our government is doing to us? There are six months left until there is, perhaps (and only perhaps), a change in the way our country is administered. A look behind the scenes at what is currently being raped and pillaged as those months go by is frightening.
There must be something we can do. Something. But I have absolutely no idea what it can be. Do you?
Wina Sturgeon, Editor