Tsunami Watching

We are an international community of LookyLoos, slowing down to look at a disaster from a safe, yet still visceral, distance. I don't even need CNN to do it. I can watch Hawaii TV stations on my computer and see the little tsunami waves rush out and rush back in, with white water for special effects. I am slightly nauseated by this whole spectacle.

By spectacle, I don't mean the tsunami in Hawaii or the earthquake in Chile. I don't even mean the devastation in Haiti, the snowpocalypse in DC, the fires in California, the Mississippi floods, or whatever other natural disaster occurs across the globe. By spectacle, I mean the way we act: looking for death and collapse, being ever so slightly disappointed if nothing much happens.

I don't mean that nothing much is happening to the victims of natural disaster. Their worlds are being devastated. And we watch. Some people are into helping, folks like @watergatesummer and @lmzadi1, God bless these tweeps. Some are actively praying for those in need, like @Underdad. But most of us are watchers, deceiving ourselves that our tweets are meaningful.

I am condemning myself more than I condemn others. In all things, it is time for action. In natural disasters, we must donate money or volunteer at the Red Cross. In politics, we must also donate money, as well as make phone calls and sign petitions and call elected representatives and knock on doors and defend our point of view no matter how idiotic or reprehensable the attacks.

You see, there are only two things we can do. We can assent, or we can dissent. We can say "Aye" or we can say "Nay." There is no such thing as "Abstain." If we do not act, we are saying "Nay," and the result is...nothing.

February 25, 2010

Today was the health care summit when President Obama and congressional leaders gathered to discuss what to do about the stalled health care bill. No progress was made, except that President Obama and the Democrats finally accepted there is no middle ground, no negotiation, no desire to put the American people ahead of reelection fears.

At the end, President Obama signaled reconciliation is on the table. Finally! The Republicans will take their carping complaints to Fox News and any other media that will print them. The Democrats will be the target of Tea Party gatherings. And meaningful health care reform will pass by a simple majority in the Senate and the House. Later additional laws will be passed to finally create a single-payer system similar to Medicare for all.

There will soon come a day when President Obama will sign the legislation into law.  That day will be celebrated, and Senator Harry Reid (the patient man) and Representative Nancy Pelosi (what a woman!) will get pens that President Obama used. We will get the assurance that pre-existing conditions cannot be denied coverage and that health insurance exchanges will make insurance affordable for most if not all Americans.

We have been waiting for the world to change and we should not forget this day for which we have clamoured: the day President Obama finally drew the line in the sand. February 25, 2010.