My daughters got me interested in watching the Netflix series “House of Cards”, and once I started I could not stop. The gripping thriller exposes the manipulations and deceptions that go on in US Congress, and initially one might think they are exaggerations. Money, power, politics, media all twisted and linked together at the hip with disastrous consequences on ordinary people. Kevin Spacey, one of my most favourite actors, is amazing in the series and plays the part of a corrupt, manipulating Congressman so well!
It was not until I came across the book “Dangerous Convictions” by Ex-Congressman Tom Allen’s (with the sub-title “What’s really wrong with the US Congress”) that I realized how close to the truth House of Cards really is. I had to put aside my nagging thought of why all such exposures come after the fact, i.e. now that Tom is not a Congressman, he is laying everything bare. To be fair, it seems he and others did try to oppose the contrived Iraq war, and other major foul-up’s by Congress, the Administration and Pentagon.
His insightful analysis brings a deep thoughtfulness to an otherwise ugly subject that we seem so resigned about. For example, he quotes from Habits of the Heart – Robert Bellah’s work – of the first language of Americans, that of radical individualism, and how out of touch it is with our current global reality. Yet, word meisters spin these words and emotionally carry the day keeping Americans stuck in a culture of yesteryear. They speak of “culture of dependence” as a deadly sin, as if interdependency – a fact of our global reality- is bad. They speak of taking back America, to some past image of better times, when the whole world has changed and the past cannot be brought back.
America is the only country where government is hated so much, which is odd given the outside world’s admiration for how successful the American democracy has been over the last few hundred years. America is the only country that spends one trillion dollars of taxes on a wasteful, wrongful, unjust and unjustified war – the Iraq invasion and occupation – and the same Republicans who to this day justify that war, speak of less government and less taxes. How does the ordinary man or woman reconcile this? Maybe if they were rational they would, but the media is in the pocket of powerful interests, witness Judith Miller (of New York Times) and her role in promoting the Iraq War. What is worse is the lack of accountability. When $8 Billion vanished on a cargo-plane from New Jersey to Baghdad, Administration officials dismissed it as “it was their money, so what if it is missing?” The bungling, the lying, the deception is only outdone by the apathy and lethargy of the voting public which believes these fantastic lies, e.g. mushroom clouds over New York City. The same media bullies who were proclaiming this leading up to the war, continue to be as popular as ever. No one dares question, no one dares speak the truth.
Beyond the Iraq War, issues like health care and climate change continue to polarize Americans and as Tom says “evidence does not matter”. In the dueling worldviews of individualism versus community how does one find a third language? And why is that important, not just for us here but for the whole world? It is scary to see how corruption has reached the shores of the most venerated institution of the largest democracy in the world. I like the optimistic quote that the book ends on from Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water: “One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope. When it fully learns that cooperation, not rugged individualism, is the quality that most characterizes and preserves it, then it will have achieved itself and outlived its origins. Then it has a chance to create a society to match its scenery.”
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