Americans have tended to watch with a remarkable (I think frightening) degree of passivity as crises of all sorts have gripped the country and sent millions of lives into tailspins. Where people once might have deluged their elected representatives with complaints, joined unions, resisted mass firings, confronted their employers with serious demands, marched for social justice and created brand new civic organizations to fight for the things they believed in, the tendency now is to assume that there is little or nothing ordinary individuals can do about the conditions that plague them.
This is so wrong. It is the kind of thinking that would have stopped the civil rights movement in its tracks, that would have kept women in the kitchen or the steno pool, that would have prevented labor unions from forcing open the doors that led to the creation of a vast middle class.
Two key paragraphs by Bob Herbert, from a column titled Changing the World, which you should read. Below the fold I will explore it a bit, and offer some additional thoughts of its relevance.
Herbert begins the column by talking about a post card sent from Meridien Mississippi by Andrew Goodman, the Civil Rights worker who was one of three buried in an earthen dam in Neshoba County MS in the summer of 1964. Goodman's brother David, who has become Herbert's good friend, gave him what has become one of Herbert's most prized possessions. Herbert explains that he thought of the post card and of Goodman in examining a series of "intractable problmes" that confront Americans, especially the wars, but also H1N1, the economic downturn, and this:
If you want to see the epidemic that is really clobbering American families, look past the H1N1 virus to the home foreclosure crisis.
Layoffs continue, in this the worst downturn since the Great Depression, and and there are large increases in runaway children.
Yet in the face of all this, Herbert sees the passivity described near the beginning of what I quoted. He believes the passivity and sense of helplessness that seem so endemic are a direct result of a lack of any personal sense of responsibility
... for the policies and choices creating our current messes
... for anyone who might be struggling
Let me step back from the column for a moment. In a sense I think Herbert, while right on general terms, misses more than one beat on much of what has been happening. Certainly those of us who have worked actively on a variety of issues, sometimes with effect, and to change the politics, can argue that we have not been passive. FDL Action is one clear example in how we can successfully challenge our elected representatives on issues of importance. So is the organizing we have done over the past 3 Federal election cycles - with limited success perhaps in 2004 - to change the nature of the shape of political power.
We may not organize massive demonstrations, because after all, massive demonstrations abroad and here in the United States were insufficient to prevent the abomination of our going into Iraq as we did. We have found other ways, starting with how we have expressed ourselves on blogs, here and elsewhere. We have used them to explore ideas, and to find others with whom we can organize. In this community, we have seen groups organize to try to redefine energy policy, then broaden into several efforts to work on behalf of real environmental change.
Returning to Herbert, he laments that being an American has become a spectator sport, with people believing they have no influence on how events play out, then notes that with such an attitude Andrew Goodman would never have headed South to try to help register Blacks to vote. Nor would we have seen contributions from the likes of Rosa Parks and Betty Friedan.
And then comes one of the more amazing brief paragraphs I have seen in a major newspaper by a nationally recognized writer:
The nation’s political leaders and their corporate puppet masters have fouled this nation up to a fare-thee-well. We will not be pulled from the morass without a big effort from an active citizenry, and that means a citizenry fired with a sense of mission and the belief that their actions, in concert with others, can make a profound difference.
corporate puppet masters with a clear imagine that it is they pulling the strings of political leaders, who therefore are not responsive to the needs or the requests of ordinary constituents, nor paying attention to the best interests of anything except the corporate elite.
Herbert is of course right. Think of the structure of Medicare Part D, with its prohibition on the government negotiating prices on behalf of the those who need the medicines. Perhaps it would be the bankruptcy bill, which protected lenders while restricting the relief of those financially troubled. Or the credit card companies winning a delay for the enforcement of limits, then without warning or apparent justification cutting people's credit and jacking up their interest rates. Or the refusal of some institutions receiving bailout funds to increase the lending needed to stimulate the economy and help people.
corporate puppet masters - an imagery not at all alien to the cyberworld in which I write these words. Something not limited by party identification, as many here have so often noted, especially when looking at the actions not only of some Blue Dogs, but at the influence in the circles of power by corporate interests - remember, Goldman Sachs is equal opportunity when it comes to manipulating the system for the benefits of its interests.
Making a difference can start with seemingly small actions - Herbert returns to Rosa Park and her refusal to give up her seat, and suggests others we can do, always involving and/or concerning others. Many here already do such things. If you will allow me to illustrate by using myself without accusing me of being egotistical, it is in large part why I teach school, to make a difference for others. It is also why I have twice gone to Appalachian Virginia to volunteer at health and dental missions. And it is often the reason that I write, in the hope that my thoughts and words might lead to a spark in someone I have never met who possesses abilities I lack but that can make a major difference.
We will not all take on the responsibility for change in the same fashion. Some here will run for public office, perhaps for a local school board, others for the National Legislature. That is something I will never do, but I encourage those for whom it is an appropriate course of action, and will to the limits of my finances and time support them. Others will be the point of organization, that is, they will take the lead in bringing groups together for specific tasks that make a difference: DK Greenroots, IGTNT, NfTT, community building diaries here, coming up with what is now NN, and so on.
Many will be willing to throw heart and soul into activities providing someone else take the first step. Perhaps I might suggest that it would be nice to let Raul Grijalva know how much we appreciate his organizing the House fight for a public option, but that suggestion would have mattered little had not 600 some odd folks taken the time to write him through the email of his staffer.
Some may do no more than talk with some friends, or write a diary about how strongly they feel, or perhaps give money to a progressive candidate for their first political contribution ever.
We may not all be capable of the big things, at least not at first. Yet all can make a difference - by a single action at first, then perhaps a series of actions, which however small, can accumulate to have a large effect. Those actions can be like the drops of water which individual seemingly have no impact but when gathered together over time can carve out the Grand Canyons of our political and social geography.
While campaigning, Barack Obama encouraged us to get involved. And many have experienced the satisfaction - quiet or exhilarating - of being part of making a change, a difference, at some level.
Those who have been down this path know that success is rarely immediate and never constant, but that if one looks one begins to see change, starting with oneself.
Here I think of the parable of the talents in Matthew. I remember what the Master says to the two who invested the money he left in their care, in the KJV:
His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
I think of these words not in a religious context, nor with hope nor expectation of becoming a ruler by myself, a master over others. Yet the words apply, because it is by our individual efforts that it becomes possible for us to find one another, to work collectively, and it is thus that we, together, can make a difference, and become - along with the leaders we will influence and help place in power (including some of our selves), that we will change our politics, our government, our nation.
Then our political leaders will no longer answer merely to corporate puppet master but rather to the sovereign, We the People, of which we are all a part.
Herbert says of such a course of action, beginning with the small tasks available to all of us,
It’s a risk, sure. But the need is great, and that’s how you change the world.
We can, and must, make a difference. All of Us.
Peace.