In My Corner, Jack

So they got the first part of health care reform through the house. Good show. But, while it is historic, it is hardly premature. There’s been talk of the need for this for generations, and I even edited the publication of Michael Dukakis’s proposed health reform plan when he was in residence at the University of Hawaii. I left Hawaii in 1993, so that should tell you how long ago that was.

Still, the current plan must be doing something right as no one is pleased. I’m reminded of the song from My Fair Lady where Rex Harrison sings about a quarreling couple: “And rather than do either, they do something else that neither likes at all.” No public option, but loads of good stuff anyway, such as regulating the health insurance industry with its record profits, to whose bleats I can say only that they brought it on themselves just as the financial sectors of this country brought their industry down around their ears.

As far as I am concerned, however, it’s not the health care plan that I am most relieved about. It’s the fact the hate and violence that seem to pass for political discourse on the right did not succeed in derailing the legislation. Had the bill been defeated, we could have looked forward to a generation raised to believe that spitting on legislators, calling them racial slurs, screaming down opponents, and forgetting inconvenient hypocrisy by denying its existence are all acceptable forms of behavior.

As I watched the distorted faces chanting Kill the Bill I was reminded of the disgusting behavior exhibited after the civil rights legislation when whites taunted and menaced black kids entering previously all-white schools. It seemed at the time that the South might go up in flames, yet time passed and the generations after have to be reminded of the struggles leading up to the legislation.

And time does change things. Recently, some of those people back then, whose distorted faces were shown on news television, apologized for their actions. Time has brought clarity. With hindsight and if one wishes to be somewhat charitable, one can say that the sixties were a time of insanity, brought on by uncomfortable social changes.

Today, I suppose we might say we face uncomfortable economic changes. That’s what this is all about—what’s in it for me? If I don’t have a job, what is the government doing taking care of anyone other than me? I feel angry and frustrated and frightened; therefore, I will listen to irresponsible radio figures who sound just as angry and frustrated and frightened as I am, and I will scream and make assassination threats and then –one day—I will look in the mirror and (perhaps) feel ashamed.

The world is not going to end because people earning over $500,000 a year have to bear a tax burden equivalent to what I carry on my comparably miniscule pension. Nor will it end because 32 million more people have the opportunity to purchase (notice: PAY FOR), insurance denied to them because they once had some illness. Nor will it end because 47,000 poor children in Arizona, one of whom has a brain tumor and can’t afford treatment, will get a chance to regain health coverage.

The British have an expression for narcissism and self-absorption: “I’m all right in my corner, Jack,” they say. I can only hope that when people see what is actually in the bill and understand that someone cared enough to get this thing through Congress they won’t give in to the hysteria we can expect in the months ahead.