Leaping into the fray of words

This is slightly modified and excerpted from an e-mail I sent to some online friends. If you’re tired of the ranting–because I admit that I am–feel free to move along.

This is the administration that promised to be uniters, not dividers. The (name deleted) board is just a sampling of all the fighting raging across the Internet on message boards and blogs and in chat rooms. I have never seen our country so divided, and I guess it will remain so until people can acknowledge that the real lesson of Katrina is that it exposes NOT that it’s Democrat/Republican, federal/state, or black/white, but that our national divide is between the haves and have-nots. And I include not just the poor as have-nots, but the elderly, the children, and yes, even the animals. All of the marginalized or helpless who are now dead or dying and suffering while politicians bicker about who is culpable, who is responsible, who will DO SOMETHING to make it better.

When I hear “family values,” I cringe. When I hear “no child left behind,” I cringe. It’s all so hollow. It means “as long as the family values are like my family values.” As long as the children are not the offspring of society’s “failures” and “slackers” and “moochers.” Please, take my tax money ANY DAY to feed and educate and clothe a child, no matter what his color, no matter who her parents, no matter if they’re abusing the freaking system, instead of using it to rebuild Trent Lott’s house or drop bombs on the marginalized of some other country.

The outpouring of compassion crosses all boundaries among our citizens, yet our leaders can’t rise to the same level of compassion because they are so insulated by privilege. To have the people in the highest levels of our government foolishly remain on vacation or go shopping—don’t they at least have image-experts who can advise them, if nothing else, to fake that they understand the magnitude of the suffering? Not four days later, or one week later, but AT THE FIRST POSSIBLE MOMENT. Christians and non-believers get it. Men and women get it. Straights and gays get it. Blacks and whites get it. Even CHILDREN get it. How did these people with their blatant “let them eat cake” attitude hijack our government?

We show every day, in our churches, our schools, our hospitals, our not-for-profits, our communities, that we are compassionate people. But what we’ve forgotten is that we are THEIR BOSSES. WE PAY THEIR SALARIES. We don’t pay them as much as they can make in the private sector, but as long as they are cashing their paychecks or enjoying the perks that come with power, they are accountable to us. ALL of us.

Unfortunately, there’s so much residual anger from the election, or residual smugness, that this administration has people at odds on nearly everything imaginable. And to dissent, to protest, even to question, invokes accusations of being un-American, traitorous, “playing The Blame Game.” I never thought I’d see the day when expecting accountability and leadership from elected officials would brand me that way.

And of course, most maddening to me is my certainty that if half the shit that’s happened over the last five years had happened on Clinton’s watch, the howling would reach beyond the heavens, and you can bet people would be blaming HIS ass. Hell, they still blame him, and he’s been out of office for years. There is not one misstep this administration can make and be called on without screams of, “But Clinton did it first, Clinton did it, too, Clinton did it worse” resounding across the airwaves from the pundits. If they hate him so much, if they hold him in such contempt, why is HIS behavior the standard by which they evaluate his successor’s?

I’m so sick of it all. We are better than our leaders. I’ve never bought into “they should be held to a higher standard.” I just want them to be as decent as the people who vote them in. I want them to deserve the trust and loyalty they are given. I want them to live the values they spout as political slogans. If they make mistakes—And how could they not? They are human.—I want them to say, “I’m sorry. I will do better.” You know, the phrase we learn before we even get to kindergarten because we find out that it makes some of the anger go away.

I guess I want too much.