Spiderman

Last night my grandson and I watched Spiderman 3.  As an out of touch oldster, I’d missed 1 & 2.  Thomas filled me in on all of the important background about the relationship between Peter and MJ or with Peter’s long time friend who was also the Green Goblin.  Superheroes and Super-villains abounded.  Good and evil were not absolute - they shifted within the same being as emotions and circumstances shifted from scene to scene and their lives moved forward.

During commercials, I used the time to check the baseball score, read my emails and played a round or two of Words With Friends.  All of that portrays an image that this oldster isn’t completely out of touch with 2012’s social reality but remember, I still can’t figure out Tweets or Facebook.

When I decided to begin this blog, I resolved that I wouldn’t delve into political commentary and add to the noise that seems to pass for discourse.  However, one email I read, while super powers clashed on the screen, captured my attention.  This email was forwarded by a friend who is an advocate for some important legislation and knew of my interest in the subject. 

Within the email was a letter from a senator.  It was eleven paragraphs that amounted to a patronizingly simple-minded civics lesson in how a bill becomes a law.  His purpose was to use this recitation as justification for the choices he'd made.  Admitting that the bill had wide support, he said, “I committed to vote for the contents (of the bill) as introduced.”  Later in the same letter he said, “My votes (against the bill) were votes to uphold the Senate’s process.”  

The vote he finally made was that of a career politician (preserve the Senate’s process and sanctity) and not a vote of one who serves as representative (the duty to advocate for his constituents’ beliefs.)  In his letter he worried about the precedent that breaking the process might set - processes and protocols that are routinely breached when the political purposes of those who pull the right strings are served.

The senator  and the specific bill aren’t important to this post.  This is a common story that recurs in every state and nationally.  Each time this happens, it confronts each of us  with a choice.  We can blame the system, the media, big money, unions, Wall Street, gays, the NRA, the far right, the far left, those who mangle the Bible, Torah, or Koran to justify their own actions, or any of a number of other Super-villains.  Or we can act.

The question for each of us is whether we’ll invest the time to understand and be active in the system - to make our point and to cast a vote?  For me, the Senator who wrote the letter should be ousted when he next stands for election.  He has openly admitted that he answers to a call different than being a citizen representative.  He has decided to prance with his feeling of power - just like Peter (Spiderman), after the black goo encased him, strutted and danced oblivious to the disdain of passersby.  But there is more.

What course can each of us follow to learn how to advocate, vote, and make independent judgments about the issues that confront us?  One initial step is to remember that every ad is, at best, false and, at worst, an intentional lie.  Ads are intended to spin a point of view.  They use dramatic effect, emotion and confrontation to lead us to a place that ordinary judgment might not have taken us.  Sandman admitted to Spiderman that he regretted being influenced to go to the dark side.  He rued the choices he made because of it.  Even heroes with super powers can be led to places that upon reflection generate regret.

My sense is that if there is a Super-Villain in our politics, it is money.  Just as in college athletics, there is too much of it spent spinning webs of black goo that even Spiderman had trouble cutting through.  My modest plan is to turn off all the ads.  I’ll check the campaign finance reports for every candidate - and vote for the one who raises the least money.  Advocacy and voting are of enormous value.  In this age of Twitter, Facebook, and blogs both are so accessible that ads could be made irrelevant.  Elevating the quality of discourse is essential to self governing.  

Getting involved is the only way our grandchildren or their grandchildren won’t have to go into the US equivalent of Tahrir Square to reclaim the right to exercise the duty to govern themselves.  As Spiderman said, we have a choice in everything we do and we always have the option of doing the right thing.

--td