Ann Davidow

Have we lost the capacity to dream and the ability to distinguish between matters of substance and what Jon Stewart refers to as “our obsession with the trivial?” Have our leaders let us down or have we failed to demand enough of them and provide vigorous support for them? Between the vitriolic outbursts of teabaggers and the political realities of trying to accomplish something in an excessively partisan environment a wall of resistance has grown up that has slowed movement to a crawl. For some that is the goal, for others it is the ultimate defeat.

On a recent Bill Moyers Journal scenes from actress Anna Deavere Smith’s one-woman show “Let Me Down Easy” dramatized events in the lives of people she had met and interviewed across the nation. There was a particularly compelling vignette of the way things are for people who lack power and means. At a medical facility in New Orleans following the collapse of facilities in the wake of Katrina, a health-care professional is stunned by the forbearance of patients who lack electricity and most other amenities.

We are quite possibly the most confused nation in the universe. Many people, urged on by a raft of imbecilic politicians, have absolutely no idea what the terms they use mean. Socialism, Fascism it’s all the same to them - - Hitler, Mao, Lenin, Marx they’re interchangeable depending on what motivates the political angst of the moment. Is it the deplorable state of our educational system that keeps so many of us in a state of arrested development? Or does jingoism work so well it has replaced meaningful dialogue in a triumph of mindless political jargon over thoughtful, fact-based discourse?

The philosophical distance among parties is far less obvious these days than the seeming need to take down the current administration by whatever means and to enlist or at the very least sanction the efforts of irresponsible masters of the tirade and their rabble-rousing hyperbole.

As if the conduct of our daily affairs weren’t bewildering enough, the issue of abortion is thrust into the health-care debate, Sarah Palin appears on Oprah and Michele Bachmann conducts an interview on C-Span’s “After Words.” Are there no cooler heads left to prevail in this country or have we accepted the odd notion that our social construct demands a willingness to suffer fools gladly in the name of free speech, that every opinion deserves respectful scrutiny no matter how narrow or illogical the vision.

How did the Conference of Catholic Bishops come to exert influence over matters of state? I can’t think of an event that held less interest for me, but then I am not Catholic and that’s the point. Health-care legislation should be judged on its merits not religious belief; the Stupak amendment is an affront to people who are serious about health-care reform. Congressman Stupak, a Roman Catholic, who rents a room at the religious enclave on C-Street, seemed to feel it was appropriate to reference the Bishops’ conference in his attempt to launch a back-door assault on abortion rights.

Despite the enthusiasm that ushered in a new president, the hoped-for change has been slow to develop, frustrating supporters; and detractors have gleefully unleashed a torrent of invective that has come to define not just ‘the other side’ but ‘the dark side’ of our national ethos . Political opportunists have seized the moment to stake out positions that invoke the passions of voters who parrot the low-tax, small-government mantra of media pundits and congressional surrogates.

At the gates of hell in Dante’s Inferno, a sign warned “abandon hope all ye who enter here.” As debates wear on in Congress over health care and any vaguely progressive issue, such a notice should hang over the door of the Capitol building to alert any optimists who venture in that their hopes are about to be dashed.

The mainstream media has a tendency to talk about news sources as if they were just expressing opposing views of a given issue, even though it should be apparent by now that nothing of the sort is true. There are even those in the general population who acquiesce in some tortured sense of fairness to the notion that Sean Hannity on Fox is stating an opinion on the right just as Keith Olbermann on MSNBC does on the left.

The difference is, however, that on Fox opinion is propped up by opinion whereas on programs that maintain some sense of integrity opinion is informed by factual material.

Rationales for the way our economy operates are in constant conflict. Lower taxes are a conservative rallying cry, but tax cuts tended to put money in the pockets of the rich without benefiting most Americans. The transfer of wealth to the affluent did not create jobs but, resulted, rather, in massive layoffs, pay cuts and benefit reductions or “increased productivity” for those seeking euphemisms to describe the process.

Some analysts agree that our tax system needs re-working in order to create a revenue stream for needed social programs, close loopholes and produce something resembling a level playing field. Of course free-marketeers decry any effort to redistribute wealth as tantamount to creating a socialist form of government.

The witless chatter that consumes so much media and congressional air time is never-ending. No matter how often health-care reform is defined, for example, Republicans keep repeating the same talking points about a government takeover that will destroy the doctor-patient relationship and ration health care, ignoring of course that insurance companies are the interlopers, the deniers and the greedy consumers of health-care $$.

The party insists that free enterprise is the glue that holds the country together and that market forces will return it to prosperity. Never mind that free-wheeling money handlers bundled unsound mortgages into precarious investment properties that brought the country close to financial ruin. It’s easier to blame Fannie and Freddie and ACORN.

It has become increasingly clear that great swaths of the public are deliberately misled rather than informed. Led by political deluders and poseurs calling themselves journalists they cling to long-held, preconceived ‘facts’ and resist anything that intrudes on their certitude about everything from health care to national security.

Sometimes it seems that callers to programs encouraging listener participation are reading from hastily scrawled notes that parrot a Beck or Limbaugh screed. If the subject is the economy, President Obama is accused of turning the country into a socialist training ground.

Every once in a while I force myself to watch at least a portion of a right-wing, self-congratulatory event just to see what goes on in that rarified atmosphere. It isn’t really so much an educational endeavor as it is a reminder that a lot of scary people continue to market the same old rhetorical wares. And no matter how ill-conceived their efforts have proven to be, many in their camp still regard them as heroes and support the premise that America is safer due to their efforts despite the mess left in their wake.

The wonder is that the neo-con triumph over common sense and intellectual integrity is so thoroughly ingrained in the psyche of supporters that appeals to rational debate literally fall on deaf ears. There wasn’t a single mea culpa for obvious missteps among the who’s who of conservative bigwigs at a recent “Keeper of the Flame” awards dinner held under the auspices of the Center for Security Policy. Former Vice President Cheney, at his unpatriotic best, asserted that President Obama has placed the country at risk by not following in the muddy footprints of his predecessors and for “dithering” and “waffling” about Afghanistan.

When it comes to the issues, no-one is better informed or more willing to find common ground than the president. But there’s a yawning chasm between government’s duty to deal with the country’s macro-economic condition and its obligation to address the plight of ordinary Americans at a time of financial peril.

It is hard to sell bailouts for banks and industries to voters struggling with foreclosure, inadequate health care and limited job opportunities. Especially infuriating, large salaries and bonuses are still shamelessly the order of the day at financial institutions that continue to operate at the limits of responsible business procedures.