Exorcism Part A

I lost all faith in the democratic process watching CSPAN last Thursday. The Senate was voting on legislation that would determine the fate of the "prisoners" being held without charge or hope of due process in overseas prisons. This legislation does not forbid torture. Rather, it allows the president to interpret the Geneva Convention guidelines and retroactively pardons anyone, even at the administrative level for any torture-related charges. It allows no recourse in our judicial system for the innocent who may be held indefinitely without charge. Because of the election upcoming in a month, nobody wanted to seem "soft" on terror. The few senators who had the balls to stand up for a sense of justice were drowned out by the "terrorists want to kill your families" line we're so tired of hearing. USA Today reporting this used prejudicial language referring to these prisoners as "terrorists" as though it was a foregone conclusion, and there's no way anyone we're holding is innocent. Some senators (mostly Democrats, though with noteworthy exceptions) gave moving speeches full of lofty ideals regarding human rights, the preservation of the Constitution and deference to history and the fact that we've weathered worse storms with our rights intact. One of the most moving was delivered by a Republican who talked about the enormous impact studying the Nuremburg trials had on him. How, when faced with mind-bogglingly bad people, the decision was made as an international community to try them fairly. I thought, "Yay!" Finally one of them gets it and they're not just lining up for the campaign dollars, perks and brownie points that come from toeing the line. I hooted and hollered out loud. Then, he drops the bombshell. He says that he's voting for the legislation without amendment but hopes the right thing will be done when the time comes.

I was crushed. Self-interest won out over the values closest to this man's core. I realized the government is not representative of the people. It's representative of the agenda of the party in power. All dissenting voices were ignored. Fear over reason. I'd heard about this but hadn't actually seen it in action until that day. I figured if someone could just say the right words, everyone would be overcome with the realization of what the right thing to do is. My sister-in-law said that she doesn't follow politics because she doesn't want to get worked up like I do. So I went off about being good Germans.

I ranted all day to anyone who would listen ("anyone" ended up meaning my poor trapped daughter). I told her about how we all have a responsibility to what this government does. If more people really paid attention and held their government responsible, no one could get away with this sort of thing. Government will not just take care of itself (or more precisely, if left alone it will only take care of itself, not its constituents). But likelihood of the masses watching CSPAN instead of American Idol is equivalent to snowballs surviving hell. I tried to give my daughter a crash course in American History. I tried to tell her why she should care. I tried to impart a sense of patriotism and why we should be proud of this American experiment because while it's far from perfect, it's much less bad than many other systems of government. The people may be flawed but the ideas are good ones. I don't think it worked.

So why care about politics at all? Because policy is what determines everything, for good or ill, at least on the larger scale. The way the economy is managed and trading practices are carried out determines whether people all over the globe starve or can feed themselves. Only a powerful, moral government can end wars (or choose not to wage them) and organize massive resources for those in need. Imagine, (to borrow a thought from a friend) if you had the ability to determine where your tax dollars went. I guarantee there would be much more spent on education and healthcare. Those who hold military spending to be their greatest concern would represent a much smaller figure than the current slice of the pie. Instead though, we have this broken proxy system that has gone out of control because all the proxies care about is money and power.

It's very broken. And there are many reasons for it. Media is a biggie. Mass media, by definition, is in business to stay in business. The primary goal is to sell us something, be it a product or an idea. It's not just Fox News, and none of those purporting to be news agencies are excused by the free market. Case in point: why else would Newsweek put a different cover on their US publication than the one overseas proclaiming bad news about the Iraq War? We will never get the truth from television. And if people are tenacious in pursuit of the truth, wading through alternative media, talk radio and international news they get so fucking depressed that they need Jon Stewart and Stephanie Miller just to keep them from jumping off a cliff. You don't need to laugh at it if you're totally oblivious to it. Most people would rather ignore it because it's far more comfortable that way. How can you look at pictures of bleeding children from Iraq and not see that those small rounded bodies are exactly like your kids'? And if you had the choice to live your life without being immersed in that, wouldn't you be happier? It's like choosing to hit your hand with a hammer. It's counter-intuitive. We'd go insane without filters to screen out too much truth.