Musical Chairs2011-01-24

 

Pardon me for being underwhelmed that Congress’ response to the Tucson massacre is to have Republican John McCain sit next to Democrat Tom Udall at the State of the Union speech tomorrow night.

 

When our national soul is supposedly salved by two wealthy white guys who’ve known each other for the better part of two decades stretch their leadership skills by publicly announcing they’re willing to be in each others proximity--and it’s lauded by the people who chronicle their actions--it might be time for us to reasses how we define greatness.

 

Since the shootings, I’ve watched with arched eyebrow as the left tried to blame the semantically-challenged Sarah Palin for Jared Lee Loughner’s evil deeds while the right transparently pinned guilt on Karl Marx (who died 127 years ago) to try to prevent another mass defection of public support ala Oklahoma City. And on the sidelines, the punditocracy cried out for civility because, of course, all mass murderers started off getting dirt kicked in their faces on the playground in fourth grade.

 

Is this the kind of empty call to arms we’ve come to settle for when 19 of our fellow citizens get shot for having the audacity to go to a supermarket to meet their Congresswoman on a Saturday morning?

 

The right and the left are always going to be the right and the left--and have been since Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson and their supporters threw accusations at each other over 200 years ago. There are fundamental disagreements between them about the principles around how our democracy should be organized, and we have a right and and obligation to air those differences. 

 

No one likes to be called names or have their ideas ridiculed, but trying to distill the root causes of this tragedy into a single element like civility does the victims a disservice--as does papering over the problems that led to it.

 

It’s become very clear over the past week or so that Jared Lee Loughner’s politics wouldn’t fit neatly into anyone’s definition of the Democratic or Republican parties. It’s also become very clear that he slipped through the holes of our swiss cheese mental health system and should never have been allowed anywhere near a firearm.

 

I’m not sure when guns became a partisan issue between right and left because it’s really an issue about the ability to know right from wrong. I know plenty of people who own guns across the political spectrum; all of them have the capacity to know it’s wrong to randomly shoot innocent human beings. Loughner doesn’t have that capacity, and blaming Palin or Marx is the equivalent of blaming trench coats for the Columbine horrors.

 

Commentators will laud McCain, Udall and others who sit with members of the other party tomorrow night as ‘statesmen who understand the importance of civil discourse.’ Want to bet how many of these members of Congress will be given such lofty names if they dare say people like Loughner shouldn’t be allowed to own a gun, or if they argue to shrink our debt by cutting military spending to help fund treatment programs to prevent the next Loughner? Or will they be dismissed as partisan, divisive and (pardon the pun) bomb throwers?

 

Going against the grain and making people uncomfortable are the costs of change. For all of Martin Luther King Jr.’s soaring rhetoric, he needed his Rosa Parks and scores of others who were willing to put a face and an action to that injustice, with an unlikely assist from a white Southerner in the White House. “Agitators and uppity” they were called--and far worse. Even though civil rights protesters behaved civilly in their disobedience, the powers that be never complemented them for their quiet righteousness. Meanwhile, Senator Dick Russell of Georgia was the darling of the New York Times and Washington Post for his courtly Southern manners (and his name adorns the US Senate office building) even though he was personally responsible for killing every anti-lynching bill that came before Congress in the 40’s and 50’s.  

 

This week, there’ve been plenty of richly deserved triumphal stories about the heroics of those outside the Tucson Safeway. Exposes about the not-so-triumphant mental health system or legislation introduced to keep guns away from the likes of Loughner? Not so many.

 

We love our heroes and need our villians, but this tendency towards simplicity misses the internal and external complexities of a polyglot society of 300 million in a world approaching seven billion. On a more micro level, am I the only one who cringes when someone defines their personal philosophy by using the words ‘positive’ or ‘upbeat’ as if adversity was just a kryptonite beam that can be warded off by encasing oneself in lead?

 

Fifty years ago this week, two of the greatest Presidential speeches in the history of this nation were delivered. Most Americans can cite Kennedy’s appeal to “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country;” fewer remember Eisenhower’s ominous warning about the growing threat of a bipartisan military-industrial complex, and almost no one would say our nation has been successful in answering the clarion calls of either of these speeches. 

 

When faced with such compelling evidence that we have our own crucibles staring us in the face, will we be content to only remember the seating chart?