13 August 2003

arguing with one hand tied behind your back.

I’m arguing with my brother on the phone again. Politics, as usual.

"But I just want you to have an informed opinion – what have you been reading? Where are you getting your news?" I plead.

"I’m taking a break from the news…it depresses me. I just don’t want to think about it."

My brother hates it when I do this to him. He’s a pretty average guy, goes to work, comes home, smarter than he lets on. He votes Libertarian, which is somewhat of a relief, considering he’s more conservative than most Republicans I know. And for the record, my constant frustration with him aside, he’s a decent human being. He’s generous to a fault, always friendly and kind…. and I find this hard to reconcile with the guy who quotes Rush Limbaugh from time to time and who delighted in handing out fake Clinton joke dollars to anyone he met. And I just want to know: what is informing his opinion?

"Are you watching local news?"

An exasperated phew, "No."

"Talk Radio?"

"No."

"USA Today? Internet? Wall Street Journal?"

"No, no….look, I just don’t want to talk about politics, okay? Stop picking on me."

"Well, you brought it up, making your Ah-nold jokes and all."

Sadly, this conversation has gone round before, round and round with no real conclusion, with him offering nothing to back up his opinions. When I cite sources, he calls it liberal claptrap. When I suggest articles to read, he claims a lack of time. When I press him to give me one reason, just ONE, why Bush is a better president than Clinton was, he actually, astonishingly cites "honesty", then skitters away from a discussion of yellowcake, Haliburton, or the 2000 election. All he’ll say is, "Clinton was sleazy. I never trusted the guy."

And herein lies the rub, for all Americans. Image is everything, substance nothing.

The media rubbed Clinton’s nose in every perceived mistake, from Whitewater to spooge stains, while Ken Starr squandered children’s textbooks and old-folks medicine on a fidelity witch-hunt. And every night, I turn on the news, expecting to see something, anything that is critical of Bush. And I wait. And wait again. And don't see it anywhere but the editorial pages, for the most part, Nigerian yellowcake notwithstanding. And while we hide our collective noggins in the sand on this side of the world, blood cakes the sand on the other side. Rivers of it. And I keep wondering….when will people get mad? When will they wake up?

My brother is one of those guys who wears t-shirts with the American flag and watches football on Sunday afternoon. And what I want to tell him, if he would listen, is this: "Look, you call yourself a patriot and a good American. What does that mean if you refuse to make an INFORMED opinion? What does that mean at all?" But I don’t say that. I hear the anger creeping up in his voice, and I know that from here on out, we’ll get nowhere. So, I let him talk about his dog and his job, swallowing my ire and acting like the good sister.

But what I want to tell him, if he would listen, is that this is what it means to be a good American: I have a responsibility, as a member of a democracy, to participate fully and actively in my government. Not just wearing my "I Voted" sticker every four years, and not just waving flags and singing songs and saying I support our troops. And "taking a break from the news", like I suspect an awful lot of Americans are, is a LUXURY that should not be granted in a democracy. After all, there are people on the other side of the world LIVING the news, people that we have a responsibility to. Are soldiers in bunkers able to "take a break?" Are shell-shocked Iraqis? Are starving Liberians?

There is a reason that the rest of the world calls us lazy, complacent, and ignorant. It’s because we ARE. And saying that doesn’t make me unpatriotic or a bad American. I’m including myself in that criticism, because I haven’t taken to the streets yet either. What it makes me is disappointed. Because America is a really, really great idea. But right now, we’re not "living up to our full potential", as my high school teachers liked to say. We’re not sharing or playing nice with the other kids. We’re not being good citizens, of our own country, or of the world. The truth hurts. But if we want to change, and be an America that aspires to true greatness, then we have to start with the truth. Just like an alcoholic hitting rock bottom, we have to want to get better before we will.