The Most Relevant Discussion

I just finished watching the most recent edition of Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! online. The top story was about how Wal-Mart, because of intense media scrutiny, just dropped its $400,000 healthcare reimbursement claim against one of its former employees, who was injured in a traffic accident. Although a victory for now, this story, like so many others, simply outlines the power that large corporations have over our lives. Corporations own our media outlets. They dictate where we go to purchase our food and our clothes. Most disturbingly, though, in so many instances, they are allowed to essentially create legislation and policy in our government.
One of the other stories on Democracy Now! today involved how much money candidates have received from big Republican-leaning corporations. McCain has taken roughly 13 million, while Obama has taken almost 23 million and Clinton has received 27 million. These are frightening facts. Whose interests, then, will these candidates be most responsive to when elected: the American people or corporate America? This is a discussion that we need to at least begin to have.
So much of the mainstream news lately has been focused on the election. I am the first one to admit that it is engrossing. The American people are being lured into the contest so much so that MSNBC’s most recent Democratic debate, on February 26th, posted the biggest rating for a single program in the history of that network. The election, though, has become a distraction. There are so many events that have occurred since the January primaries that have taken a back seat to the primary fight. There was Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, which was positioned as an opportunity for the candidates to show how they would deal with an international crisis. There was the situation in Kenya, which most Americans couldn’t explain to save their lives. There was the 5-year anniversary of the War in Iraq, which got about as much hype as Chikezie did when he was booted off American Idol the same week. We are not growing in our understanding of what is happening in the world because of distractions.
When Amy Goodman visited class, she stressed the importance of the ‘soundbite’ to the mainstream media. She said that it is easy to pull out the now infamous Rev. Wright ‘God Damn America’ soundbite and condemn him for saying it. To do so is missing the point. What we have to say cannot be summed up in 7 seconds. Maybe it takes 7 minutes, or 7 hours, or 7 days. More than this, though, it takes discussion. That is what is so often missing from the political arena: the ability to have a productive discussion.
I admit that many times I sit in class and wait for my opportunity to speak. I hear soundbites from those around me and I react without listening to their full comments. I raise my hand, or I shout out, and nothing is accomplished because, more than likely, the person I am rebutting is busy conjuring up their next defense. Listening is boring, especially for highly opinionated people. I want to say what I mean and mean what I say and get others to mean what I say too. Perhaps this is not the most productive way to go about a discussion. Perhaps allowing someone to work out their thoughts, in a free-flowing way, and then allowing the next person to do the same thing, is a more effective method to use.
Being progressive is about appealing to the human condition, insisting on compassion and emotion. Amy Goodman is convinced that if people saw the atrocities of this war, things would be very different. If we were permitted to see the photographs of children lying dead on the street, of the coffins bringing our dead soldiers home perhaps this war would not have amounted to 5 years, over 4,000 American soldiers dead, an innumerable amount of Iraqis dead, and counting.
In order to appeal to others in this way, though, in order to expect others to be open to these images, we must not become so stuck in the minutia of our own ideologies. We must look through the details and uncover the bigger picture. We need to start talking, but most of all, listening, to each other to truly begin having the most relevant discussion.


~Joel Pietrzak