Who ARE We?

By Will Shonbrun

This most fundamental question, inflected with utter frustration and plaintive inquiry by Michael Moore in his movie “Sicko,” hits like a blow to the solar plexus. It emerges from Moore in a brutal, desperate moment as he explores the pay-to-play condition of health care in the U.S. today. It begs a further question: Why does a nation, a culture that prides itself on family values and moral rectitude not care about one-sixth of its population without health insurance and therefore almost bereft of health care? Eight and a half million of those approximately 50 million without health insurance are children, presumably members of families. Add to that an estimated 50 million more that are underinsured and subject to bankruptcy if a costly medical condition arises, and that’s fully one-third of our population. Consider as well that there are hundreds of thousands more who are covered only insofar as their employment has picked it up, a tenuous condition to be sure, and it’s easy to understand why nobody likes this state of affairs except insurance companies and all those ancillary businesses that feed off them like so many parasites. And of course Congress isn’t really bothered by this because those folks have about the best health insurance coverage and benefits, as it’s possible to receive.

So when Moore encounters the desperate plights of his subjects in the film, at the mercy of an uncaring health care system, keeping in mind that these are representative of tens of millions of our countrymen/women, it’s little wonder that the question, the challenge, the wail that emerges is “who are we?” It stayed with me when I left the theater.

Critics of the film say that Moore has set up the scenes in order to make his points. Yes, well of course the sequences showing the viewer the hopeless frustration, anger and fear these chosen subjects experience trying to get medical help for themselves or loved ones are contrived, staged to a certain degree. It’s a film – it’s not shot in real time! But that doesn’t mean it’s not real, that their pain and suffering isn’t genuine. The people are real, their medical problems are real and their inability to get the health care they need because the strictly for profit system doesn’t really give a damn about them is all too real. Moore’s film chronicles these realities.

The other main avenue of criticism was that the film is way one-sided, and its targets weren’t given a chance to tell their side of the story. Please. To complain that health insurance companies and big pharma have been underrepresented in the public arena is foolish beyond words. Such misguided criticism dissolves when confronted by the relentless bombardment of advertising and PR done by the companies who are the system, and want to keep it that way. Their worst nightmare is a universal, single-payer, government administrated health care system, like those in England, France, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada et al. The voices of the health care industry are heard every day on TV, radio and in print. One peep from the other side through the voice of Mr. Moore and the industry screams “foul, unfair, unbalanced.” What a load of crap.

So the question “who are we?” and its unspoken implication, “what kind of people are we?” hangs in the air, unanswered. And it goes even further and deeper than our broken down, exclusive and dehumanized health care system.

Who we are: Conned by the neo-cons, or we did get fooled again
We’re a nation that waged a pre-emptive war of aggression against a country that did not attack us, and as the information has come to light had neither the means nor the inclination to do so. Our elected representatives in government, ostensibly chosen because they have leadership ability, let themselves be manipulated and fooled, lied to and propagandized by a president and his administration bent on this disastrous escapade. They did not explore and examine the truth of the claims that were made – they followed blindly like a spooked herd and displayed neither reason, skepticism or the use of considered judgment for which they were voted into office. They were fed outright lies and half-truths; they were conned by a slick coterie of propagandists who wanted to invade Iraq, and knew how to play upon the hysteria and politics of terrorism; they failed miserably to show a scintilla of sagacity and question the fantasy of a mad adventure. There were a few exceptions, but the Congress almost overwhelmingly bought the concocted story of mushroom clouds, an Iraqi connection to 9/11 and al Qaeda, and all the rest of the unmitigated crap dished up by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell, and cheer led by George W. Bush, a man of almost no sound judgment whatsoever. A man blind to actions and consequences, and somehow unaffected by the monumental misery and suffering he has wrought. A man so disconnected from reality he can barely ad lib an intelligent sentence.

The war and occupation was brought to us by neo-conservative politicians, cabinet and staff appointees, and pundits and media acolytes insisting on U.S. hegemony employing pre-emptive wars, and selling bogus scenarios as reasons for doing so. As if that alone wasn’t bad enough, when it came to carrying out their plans for world dominance – see “Project for a New American Century” – they fucked up so mightily and so completely in every possible way it makes one wonder why anything that comes out of their mouths should be believed for one second. Yet their pronouncements are still considered and even given some credence by the media and the public.

Governments lie. Let me repeat that, GOVERNMENTS LIE; they always have, and most probably always will. Governments are people, and people lie for an abundance of reasons. That doesn’t mean government is evil or unnecessary; it means government (our fellow countrymen/women) must be watched for truthfulness and consistency in words and actions. That’s the job of the citizen in a democracy, and if we don’t stay on top of it we’re going to be manipulated and screwed upside down and backward. Whether it’s human nature or not I don’t know, but it’s reality. Follow the self-interest and you’ll get to the motive. We should know this. The U.S. citizen’s political reality handbook should be part of every school curricula. But alas, the education system has no interest in this kind of learning; it’s more concerned with testing, and tenure and retiring young enough to enjoy it. Who can blame them? Self-interest drives us all. Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.” I say don’t trust anything or anyone until you’ve found out for yourself what the truth is. I thought we’d learned this lesson long ago, but I was wrong.

We will be fooled again
We have become easy prey; primed and pumped by biased media pundits and partisan newspapers, TV news shows, and radio loudmouths selling fear, hate and their own twisted ideologies. We have let the public airwaves become the private property of mega corporations because we did not stand up and say, “No, this communication highway is publicly owned, and you can only rent its use.” Broadcast contracts are hardly if ever rescinded; they have become like corporations – immortal. And now it’s too late to reclaim our public rights because those we put in charge to protect the public’s interest sold out to the media corporations, which employ armies of lawyers to protect their interests. News has fused with entertainment, and become propaganda espousing political points of view, not credible and balanced reporting.

Administrations lead us into wars, and there is no longer a viable Fourth Estate to probe, and question, and doubt, and work to find out what is true and what isn’t. The press and their TV counterparts have become the lackeys of the corporations, which in unity with government and the military dictate the politics and social structures almost all are subject to. We no longer have a free and independent press to act as a firewall between those who sell us some bill of goods. By and large we have become a nation of dupes, dramatically evident by a Congress that so easily succumbed to the lies and false information propagated by a war mongering president and his minions. If these elected representatives are supposed to be the best and the brightest among us, what does that say about us?

Because we have let ourselves, through disinterest, or distraction, or confusion or some other reason become dupes, marks, easily manipulated by those with self-serving agendas, and because we relinquished the charge to be ever vigilant if we were to maintain our democracy, we the people are no longer a force in controlling the overreaching and intrusion of government. ‘Overreaching’ in terms of foreign policy and insinuating U.S. interests into foreign affairs, and ‘intrusion’ into the private, personal activities of its citizens. What Ike once called the “military-industrial complex” is now more akin to a military-industrial-political-corporate complex that has embedded itself in just about every facet of public life. Even the Judiciary, one of the legs of the check-and-balance triad, has become hopelessly political and partisan, and therefore ideological rather than impartial.

“Nothing to fear, but fear itself” ain’t nothing
We have become so easily manipulated by fear that we have willingly sacrificed the very Constitutional rights and liberties revolutionary Americans gave their lives for. We have stood by while our government abandoned the centuries old foundational legal principle – habeas corpus – which protects all human beings accused of crimes to know the charge, and have access to courts and trials. We have succumbed to fear to such a degree that we accept the use of torture in interrogations. Torture! Anathema to almost every nation on earth. We have even accepted the kidnapping of suspects for the express purpose of torture in secret prisons in undisclosed foreign nations.

I say ‘we accepted’ because it is we who elect our governments, and these representatives in turn control the direction and interests of the country. Where have these elected representatives been while Constitutional rights have been systematically eroded? More so, aren’t most of those in that illustrious group called Congress the very ones who brought us to where we are as a country; a nation disdained by most of the world? Maybe we can say we didn’t know the truth about the lead-up to war, or what really goes on in Washington because our news and information sources aren’t reliable, or even straight with us. I don’t think it’s a valid excuse, but I can see some merit in the argument. But when the truth about some of these things we’ve been told comes to light, and our representatives in government are still not acting to enforce change, then we, the public, are responsible for the condition of things. And the question, “Who are we?” is even more valid.

So who are we?
It’s a cultural question so vast and so deep it will take (and there have been) myriad books and other publications, Net sites, films, TV and radio programs, and countless discussions and forums to fathom it all – in time. But we can look at some of the outward manifestations of our culture and reach certain conclusions. We can examine the tableaux of our own lives, and judge how we are spending our time on Earth. Most of the world doesn’t have that luxury; they’re just trying to stay alive, and avoid undue suffering. That’s true for some in our country, but not for many. We can look at the primary institutions in our country – government and electoral politics, the public education system, environmental protection agencies, business, labor and wages, and health care – and see if we think they’re working. Is the vast majority of our populace benefiting from these civic constructs, and are their prospects improving, or are significant changes within these systems required for that outcome? Are the systems we have devised to direct our lives toward the “pursuit of happiness” aiding and abetting that process, or not?
Seems to me that’s a question all who live in a democracy need to ask.

In wrestling with the question, “Who are we?” I was struck with the realization that the driving force motivating our young (and not so young) solders to go to war was the feeling of comradeship and brotherhood engendered under those extreme conditions. Time and again when interviewed these soldiers, even those who sustained wounds, expressed “love” and fealty toward their unit. Yes, patriotism and sense of duty were strong factors, but they were not the first things expressed when soldiers were asked why they were reenlisting. “I couldn’t leave my buddies behind,” they said in one way or another. Stronger than the fear of bodily injury or even death was the need for camaraderie, brotherhood and love for one’s fellow being.

So my question is: Does it take a war, a life or death situation, for us Americans to feel that way about one another? Are we capable of experiencing these strong feelings for one another only in the most extreme of circumstances? Are the feelings of comradeship, empathy and a shared deep appreciation of one another not attainable in other ways? I don’t believe that, and I know it is not true. But it seems that so many of our countrymen/women don’t, and it makes me wonder all the more – who are we?