Who's Speaking?

I've been watching the current furor over the state of the Walter Reed hospital with interest, trying to understand how it happened, and trying to extrapolate from it. These are our shattered sons and destroyed daughters who have been in that fetid pit, after all. How did it happen? Where will it end?

We are both horrified that it could have happened, and angry that it did. Part of that anger is a reflection of changing attitudes toward the war, and part of it is realization of how squalid things have become here at home, when even the wounded can't automatically expect compassion and effective treatment. This wouldn't have come to light had not the Washington Post publicized it, apparently. In response, the Bush Administration has reacted, and though there is a measured, almost predictable cadence to their responses, they are doing the right things. They’ve promised quick action. They’ve fired people. They’ve instituted a bipartisan commission to review the entire military health care system. Like FEMA, and its hyper awareness after Katrina that it had better get the next one right, they’re scrambling to fix this mess and to put it behind them. Part of the reactions of the politicians and the generals is undoubtedly Kabuki, but it is action in the right direction.

What brought us here?

I always wince a bit when I have to confront being an adult about issues such as this. When the Ford Motor Company was shown to have done cost-benefit analyses to determine how much they should spend to improve their cars, relative to how much they could expect to have to pay out in damages to people injured in their cars, I wasn’t yet an adult, but I was pretty sure that this was not common. People simply didn’t do things like that, even when, obviously, it was being done. Now, as an adult, I am sure that people do not behave in the manner that they appear to have behaved in this case. People do not simply accept that their sons and daughters are being treated shabbily, or the sons and daughters of others, entrusted to them. Yet they have. Why?

I think we’ve gotten tired. We're not thinking clearly. The Army chief of staff was quoted as saying that working in the military bureaucracy was a morass, and it was like walking in hip boots through mud. It drained you, he said slowly, emphatically, and it did it every single day. Its a good image, and I suggest that it's more generally applicable than just here. I think that we’ve all been walking in muck for the last two years, and it's slowed us down, made us tired, and cranky.

We've seen whole groups of people hated because of who they are, or what their ancestors did, not because of what they've personally done or are very likely to do. It surprised us, at first, but we've gotten used to it. We've seen people at religious services blown up. It surprised us, too, but we've gotten used to it. We’ve seen politicians acting like spoiled, petulant children, but we’ve gotten used to it. We’ve seen our military doing things that we would have scorned and loathed if done by the henchmen of a dictator, but we’ve gotten used to it. We’ve seen a president floundering, a vice president lying, congressmen caught in unethical and immoral actions, but we’ve gotten used to it. And now we see an institution of healing being, to some degree, nothing of the sort. And pretty soon, we’re going to get used to that, too. We don't want to, just as we didn't want to get used to any of the other atrocities and abominations. We don't like any of it, but its all too big for us to handle, too intense, too overwhelming. We've hunkered down, and waited with fading hope for it to get better, or to stabilize. But it hasn't. It gets worse, and the contagion spreads.

I have a suggestion. Several, really, but they all come down to one.

Most of us cannot change the world, the country, the state, our company. We're doing good just to be able to change our immediate area, or ourselves. So -- capitalize on that.

Think globally, act locally. No matter how global, no matter how local. Find something you care about, and watch it, follow it. If you can fix something, fix it; if you can't, get someone else to fix it. Speak up. Make your voice heard. And work with people, not against them. We are together in this against the forces of apathy and greed. They've got the money, we have the numbers.

It sounds lame, I know. The fixers and the professional lobbyists don’t even know you exist, and the professional politicians don’t, either – until something shakes them up. So – shake them up. Speak. Act. Vote.

Take your country, and your planet, back.

Speak up.