In March of 2008, Vice President Dick Cheney was interviewed on ABC by Martha Raddatz. During the conversation, Cheney claimed there was a general consensus for our success in Iraq, and Raddatz then asked how this could be, when two-thirds of the American people opposed the war.
Cheney’s now famous answer, “So?”
I certainly remember what it felt like to hear that from someone in charge of our nation’s destiny. I was angry, frustrated, and scared. I wondered, again, how the American voters could have re-elected the Bush-Cheney team in 2004. I wondered what the future of this country would be, if the majority of Americans voted for paternalism (not one of this Pagan’s family values), for “I’m running things and don’t care what anyone else thinks” and for just plain obfuscation (despite the fact that millions of viewers heard that “So?”, sources say it was not included in the transcript of the interview released by Cheney’s office).
Recently, seeing Senator Jim Bunning’s standing in the way of the Senate majority waiting to move on unemployment benefits and bringing construction projects to a halt, I was reminded of the Cheney interview. If you had reminded Bunning, as many did, of the lives he was affecting by becoming a one-person roadblock, his answer would probably also have been “So?”
But wait…Bunning had a point to make. After all, whatever happened to running government on a budget, as we run our businesses and households. If you watch MSNBC (yes, I’m a Rachel Maddow fan) you already know the answer: pay-go was abandoned during the Bush administration, during which Congress dutifully spent us into a huge deficit by passing legislation like tax cuts for the rich with no regard to the cost.
Now, of course, those same members of Congress are standing in the way of health insurance reform, of extending unemployment benefits and repairing our decaying infrastructure, all because they have suddenly decided that, while it was OK under a Republican administration to spend with no regard to matching revenue, we can no longer do it under a Democratic one.
Expect your legislators to be straight about what they believe, and vote accordingly? You can expect it, but what you’ll actually get is “So?”
Now what’s the point of all this? Here’s my thought: we just should not accept that fact that the people we elect can do whatever they (and their lobbyists) please with no accountability. They need to run for election, and they need our votes (and those of most of the people we know) to win.
Politics is a matter of simple math: you get enough votes to win, you get re-elected. Say what you want about stolen elections; I believe that we are still in a position to influence outcomes.
As Pagans, we understand that we are personally responsible for our actions, and for how those actions affect others. The only way the politics of “So?” continues to exist is because we, the voters, also say, “So?” instead of shutting down our computers and our televisions, and getting involved in grassroots organizing.
Think about it.
Then do something about it.
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