As often happens in the evening when my husband Derrick has heard a lot of political rhetoric on the radio or TV (I’m the one really watching or listening – he’s the one trying to do Sudoku to escape it all), Derrick will make one comment that will spark my imagination and get my fingers flying on the keyboard. Last night his quip was that the “beast” conservatives were trying to starve or drown wasn’t government, it was, among many would-be victims, our god-daughter who has Down Syndrome.
“Starve the Beast” has been a mantra of conservative politics for decades. The phrase is attributed to an un-named Ronald Reagan staffer and was most recently used publicly by Sarah Palin who called on Congress to “starve the beast” by cutting taxes. Grover Norquist, author of the coercive “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” rather than referring to some mythical beast, actually provides language that is closer to what Derrick suggested last night, when Norquist infamously said that “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” (Think baby and bathwater and you’ll see where I’m going.)
Our god-daughter has Down Syndrome and she and her parents get critically needed help from the government (we the people) to make it possible for her to thrive. From special education teachers, to social workers, to occupational therapists, to speech therapists, to local sports and arts programs, there are dozens of ways we the people work together to give this wonderful youngster a good life. All of these programs would be slashed if the “beast” were starved or drowned.
Americans need to ask themselves who is going to be starved and who is going to drown, and the answers are actually quite clear. Conservatives want to cut taxes on the wealthy by trillions of dollars and make up for it by slashing spending on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, education, infrastructure, research, disaster assistance and regulators. So, who is the beast?
Working and unemployed Americans between the ages of 45 and 55 are the beast. People in that age bracket, the most expensive when it comes to private insurance, will not only lose the light at the end of the tunnel which is the promise of Medicare, but access to any health care will be immediately cut off if “Obamacare” is rescinded and those with pre-existing conditions are once again denied access to any insurance. Young people between the ages of 18 and 26 are the beast, as they see their access to health care through their parents’ health plans cut off. Those two groups alone make up a huge number of people who are the beast, but the list is actually even bigger.
Teachers and students in public schools are the beast.
Professors and students in community colleges and universities are the beast.
Senior citizens in assisted living, nursing homes, getting in-home assistance, or who are on hospice are the beast.
Primary caregivers for senior citizens are the beast.
Children and adults with disabilities are the beast.
Caregivers for children and adults with disabilities are the beast.
Laid off workers and their families are the beast.
Police officers and fire fighters are the beast.
Social workers are the beast.
Sanitation workers are the beast.
Construction workers are the beast.
Scientists are the beast.
Veterans are the beast.
Patients, doctors, nurses, technicians, and aids in VA hospitals are the beast.
City, county, and state government servants are the beast.
I’m the beast. You’re the beast. Our children and parents and brothers and sisters and grandparents are the beast.
99% of Americans are the beast.
We the people ARE the beast that Grover Norquist is trying to drown.
When I think of this attack on this so-called “beast” I imagine a group of raging people carrying clubs and torches though the forest in search of the beast. Suddenly they come upon a lone house in the middle of that forest in which they believe the beast is hiding. Some brave soul walks up to the door and yells “open the door so that we may kill the beast!” But when the door opens, what they all see is a giant mirror. The beast they are trying to kill is themselves.
The question is, will they turn around and go home or will they smash the mirror?
Now let me briefly flip things around a little bit and say who another beast is, and who I think we need to be bringing out of that house in the woods for some good old-fashioned nonviolent intervention. That beast has worked for the last 30 years to slash taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations, removing trillions of dollars in revenue, while at the same time spending trillions of dollars on immoral and unnecessary wars, and doing both of those things together using a credit card that has run up trillions of dollars of debt. And then that beast has the chutzpah to stand in front of the mess that it made of our finances and blame teachers, disabled children, and senior citizens for the debacle.
For anyone who doesn’t know what “chutzpah” means, imagine that someone is found guilty of murdering his mother and father and is standing before a judge who will decide his sentence for that crime. “Please, your honor. Have mercy on me. I’m an orphan!” That’s chutzpah.
Yet another beast is the one who, knowing what the other beast sharing his house was doing, also kept on spending money it didn’t have, albeit on things considered important for the common good like education, infrastructure, scientific research, disaster assistance, student loans, health care, police, fire fighters, foreign aid, etc….
Policies enacted in the last 30 years, for which there’s plenty of blame to go around on all sides, have in fact drained the bath water to the tune of $16,004,335,589,706 (as of 8:02am this morning). “Your honor. Please have mercy. I’m broke!” is not going to help us get out of this mess, nor is doubling down on the policies that got us here.
We all have to look into that mirror now, accept that we are all part of the problem, and work together to put our country on a path back to a balance of revenue and spending. We’re smart enough, free enough, brave enough, resourceful enough, and wealthy enough to take care of each other today and invest wisely in our future so that generations ahead will live better, freer, healthier, safer and happier lives.
There actually is no beast that needs starving or drowning. There’s just an innocent and beautiful baby looking up at us, giggling and splashing in the bathtub, expecting us to love and nurture her and build a world in which she will thrive.
I think she’s worth whatever effort we have to put forth. How about you?
********************************
Craig Wiesner is the co-founder of Reach And Teach, a peace and social justice learning company. Reach And Teach also helps manage web operations for Tikkun/NSP.
……but we ARE the beast, all of us!……just as we are also the baby in the bath………and to face that, especially at this terrifying stage of the world situation around us………well, i truly wonder if we are smart ENOUGH………courageous, wealthy, resourceful, etc ENOUGH………to turn it all around…………
more than destroy our world, we’ve succeeded to destroy too much of our SELVES……and our collective dominant qualities now are FEAR and EMOTIONAL DISCONNECTEDNESS.
to turn all the destruction around, we’d have to face all that fear and disconnect (isolation, independence, cynicism, indifference ) up front, together, go through the causal traumas again, helping one another the whole way this time.
we’re all intelligent enough to know the truth, the urgency, the need, yet too many of us (and too many lonely parts of each one individually) are so scared because we find ourselves alone in that fear…….that we have numbed and drugged out most of our selves. and we prefer that to returning to that awful terror and fear.
can we make that traumatically painful connection for healing?………i only hear the question…………no answer…..
maybe that would be enough……if we shared the despair of the possibility there’s no answer……………..if anything, i believe THAT can open the door…………
Yes – we have to open that door and look in the mirror and get to work!
Love this, Craig. Thanks so much for sharing it!
I am NOT part of the problem. I am the Jerrimiah who acknowledges the problem and have spent my whole life being ignored. I tried; I failed. Any suggestions on how to make the willfully ignorant smarter while competing against the corporate medium? I’m all eyes and ears.
Jim,
to me it sounds like deep pain in your words. and, if so, i share that, too.
to have spoken your truth, from your heart, and been ignored, that can shatter the heart. i dont think there’s any human pain worse than that.
in saying we are all ‘the beast’, i guess clarification is called for. i don’t think there’s ‘original blame’ here. i’m not into self-blame, individual or collective. i only see what i believe is the outcome of a world full of rejection, disconnect and avoidance.
what i believe has caused the terrible disconnect is pain. (for most people, more pain and disconnect, for some, less). people need and love people. it’s in our genes. but when connecting with people brings on too much pain, we distance ourselves, physically or emotionally…..or both!
but human life in great or ongoing isolation and disconnect (even if physically we live or work together) is not fulfillment, not real joy, not even natural!
because it’s the worst thing that could happen to us (i believe), every part of our lives are damaged by that disconnect.
then, to heal all that becomes our most difficult task, near impossible.
and, that’s the state of our world, now, as i see it.
the only way i see to heal our world is through LOVE…….even though that’s probably the hardest way.
love doesn’t blame, it connects. and if and when our shattered hearts can connect and see the pain we share
maybe we can hear one another’s similar needs and attend to them, at least by respectful, compassionate, loving listening.
Didn’t some of the prophets have to run around naked to get any attention? I hear you brother. I remember in the weeks after the great bank crashes walking into church and having someone who had attended a workshop I’d given a few years earlier saying “How did you know all of this was going to happen? You had it so nailed!” Organizations like United for A Fair Economy and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have been putting the word out for years, but unlike Prince Harry or Princess Kate, they don’t get the attention they deserve (and I don’t think royal naked parts deserve any of the attention they get).
Personally, I don’t find the beast metaphor is helpful. It perpetuates the WE-THEY dichotomy that is the problem in the first place. I don’t think we should be pointing fingers at the 1% as the BEAST. As you seem to suggest, some of the 1% bear responsibility for our disastrous economy and lack of suport for those most in need, but the 99% must accept some responsibility too. My church pension, axccumulated after almost 30 years of ordained ministry, is invested in the stock market. My earnings are literally supporting corporations whose policies I may not agree with. Am I part of the 1% or the 99? I would like to suggest that 100% of us bear responsibility for our woes and must accept responsibility for our recovery. Jesus my Savior was very clear that finger pointing solves nothing. “Why do you focus on (= fixate) the splinter in the other person’s eye when you have a log in your own eye?”
yes, the description, ‘beast’ is extremely provocative, and insulting to a human.
and i think that may have been the reason craig used it? i can offer another reason for bringing the word, ‘beast’ here: it IS how many many humans tend to describe our enemies, isnt it?
and we start to believe it, and then, when we see someone as ‘less than human’, we can easily treat them brutally. that seems to happen on both sides of adult conflicts…..especially as those conflicts drag on….
so then, to be honest, craig seems to have been wanting (us? the 99%/) to share the responsibility, alongside our (declared) enemies. but then he ended by rejecting that ajdective, too.
we seriously need to discard that insult and see ourselves AND our enemies as we are: human beings in great suffering, not finding relief and healing. that can easily evoke ‘beast’ and other dehumanizing descriptions.
i believe we need to cling to and nurture our faith in the compassionate humanity in ALL of us, even in our present or long-term enemies. (the original human enemy was a man to his brother! cain and abel ! we must heal that terrible ability to stoop to fratricide, in order to live in peace and love.)
can there be any other true way?! is there anything more challenging?!
Thank you Shira. I agree that when we want to harm the “other” we use terms that make that other less human than ourselves. I didn’t invent the idea of using that term to refer to the US Government, though. Yes, we are all creations of a wonderful creator, from the smallest ant to the largest elephant and those of us who have more power than others have a responsibility to strive to make the world a better, safer, kinder, and healthier place for all.
Hi Grant – First…. I hope life is treating you well! And, yes, I agree that 100% of us are in this together and we have to build a better world together, by proposing solutions rather than pointing our fingers at what isn’t working. Among the things that I think would help:
1. Cut US military spending by half
2. Get our taxes back to the rates they were during Clinton’s presidency.
3. Tax financial transactions (small tax per transaction)
4. Have means testing for government programs and consider other changes to social safety net programs to make them viable for the long haul
5. Encourage individuals, states, and local governments to borrow much less
6. Create a single-payer health care system, cradle to grave
7. Invest heavily in infrastructure, schools, energy independence / renewable energy
8. Cut the number of people in prisons in America by half in ten years, and another half in another ten
9. Establish a “living wage” at the Federal and local levels
10. Reform immigration policies to be more humane to workers and their families
11. Encourage the renewal of American farming, small family farms, backyard, front yard, and rooftop food gardens, school food gardens… making the American people more food secure
12. Publicly finance political campaigns
I could go on, but how’s all that for a start?