At the Talking Points Memo Cafe, M. J. Rosenberg posted to tell Democrats “Stop Mocking Boehner’s Tears,” saying:

I found myself strangely moved by the way John Boehner assumed the Speakership [...] his humility was touching. Including the tears. [...]

I am a heart-on-my-sleeve progressive who wants Obama to be re-elected and to move 60 degrees leftward. [...]

[But the] tears are real. Why wouldn’t they be? Essentially a poor nobody from Ohio, who pushed a broom to pay for college, [Boehner] is in awe of where he is today. [...]

Yes, I know that crying over one’s own miraculous career while voting to deny others a chance to succeed is hypocritical, worse than hypocritical. But [...] our guys are just as hypocritical as theirs. [...]

The Democrats are less bad than the Republicans and that is why I’m a Democrat. But that will not cause me to mock a Republican who actually seems like a human being. And I don’t think Democratic spokespeople should either.

Though admittedly I’ve encouraged some Boehner semi-mockery at least once (i.e., retweeting this), for a long time I’ve lived emphasizing empathy and tolerance for perspectives not my own — including to the point of empathizing with the emotions of political opponents. Two causes (among many) for my approach: 1) creative writing, like acting, requires stepping into others’ shoes and appreciating their complete personhood, 2) my Ayn Rand phase, though unfortunately way too long, thankfully left me able to realize just how radically something in life — whether it’s a principle or a skyline — is subject to interpretation. You live for years feeling a skyline symbolizes one thing, and that interpretation and similar ones consolidate into an entire personality. But then your life undergoes a sea change, and now the skyline means something else to you. Having changed so drastically yourself, you can understand how others, whose premises you now disagree with, experience genuine emotions that derive from their acceptance of their premises, just as your emotions once flowed genuinely from wrongheaded assumptions.

Source of Pics O’er Here

Back to Boehner. Rosenberg was referring to the tearing-up near the start of the embedded video above, which strikes me, as it does Rosenberg, as sincere. There’s interesting dissent, as with felicitymb at Rosenberg’s post with a comment:

Mr. Boehner’s tears are brought on by feeling evermore (and destined to grow) sorry for himself. It’s one of the marks of a narcissist. The unfortunate, for us, trait of the true narcissist is a complete lack of empathy. (We were exposed to, and suffered because of it, this trait in Mr. Cheney.)

So felicitymb thinks Boehner, here, is a self-indulgent crybaby; it doesn’t seem quite that way to me. And some anonymous nobodies rack the tears up to alcohol. I wouldn’t know, and that seems nothing more than a personal attack. Anyway this Pittsburgh Tribune-Review profile of Boehner seems to confirm Rosenberg’s sense of the Speaker.

On one hand (justice) I envision Boehner as a complete bad guy aware of the pernicious effects of his policies. In a USA where one in four kids eats off food stamps, the top 1% of income earners (something like 400 billionaries) — whom Republicans consistently assist — have more dough than the entire bottom 50% combined, and there’s no universal healthcare (yet), it’s hard for someone on the left not to see him this way. Boehner’s got to be informed, not just about the radical wealth inequality he apparently never mentions, etc., and so according to this perspective, his sentiments are all fraudulent, an act. He must know better.

On the other hand (mercy), which I try to believe … I envision that maybe Boehner, for the most part, actually believes his own premises. Maybe despite the actual effects of his agenda, he worries about the amount of kids on food stamps just as I do, but disagrees as to the causes and the solutions. (Unlike nuts such as, say, Republican Andre Bauer, who grew up on free- and reduced-price school lunches, and who then as an adult compares the public-sector feeding of the poor to feeding stray animals. A disgusting and disingenuous appeal to his rightwing constituency.)

So what’s the sound of these two hands clapping? I line up behind the nonviolent movements of the world, the idealism and the belief in compassion and forgiveness, whether it’s in real life, as with Dr. King, or in fiction, as with Jean Valjean or hell, Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker. I’ll leave Jesus to your idiosyncratic imaginations.

But isn’t there an argument to be made — I’m not making it — that too often, starry-eyed compassion winds up ineffective? That, for the most part, the compassionate play softball in a world where villains play hardball? That, make-believe Darth Vaders and Javerts aside, hardly any villains have any real interest in being converted by the compassionate, #bipartisanship or no?

Okay, well, assume for the sake of argument that such “realism” is true, assume softball is sufficiently useless against hardball. After all, the ending of Return of the Jedi is played such as to allow the audience to conveniently forget Darth Vader killed what, millions or billions of people on multiple planets — so then Vader throws a single elderly emperor into a pit and gets full(?) redemption? Is that right?

The problem with this hardball-realist approach, I think, is that it just terminates in more violence. If compassion is nothing but a weak tool in your toolkit, and you’re downtrodden, disenfranchised, etc., then why not bring out the more powerful tools? Because: violence begets violence. The line between the oppressor and the oppressed gets blurred. You take the high-road of compassion and nonviolence, and you’re in the clear.

Unless and until this quote from Christian theologian Herbert McCabe comes into play: “If you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you.”

• Not a co-operative (such as Senator Max Baucus’ plan)
• Not a trigger (such as Senator Olympia Snowe supports)
• Not whatever it is the strident rightwing wants.

(Image: Timothy Morgan)

Here’s sufficient info to learn how to snailmail members of the US Congress, regardless of what your stance is on whatever issue. Here’s a frequently-updated priority list of which US Congresspeople to contact in favor of a genuine public option, though you of course might choose others to write.

Maybe you doubt the efficacy of writing US Congresspeople. I understand, especially when, for instance, the pharmaceutical and health product industries lobbied the US Congress $1.2 million per day in the first three months of 2009 (not counting advertising & other efforts, including whatever’s under-the-table). Despite much information to the contrary, citizen snailmail (especially when personalized) does reach US Congresspeople, or at least their staff, without too much delay. Evidence:

• In 2009 The Washington Post persuasively reported a professional lobbyist firm snailmailed astroturfed (fake grassroots) letters to US Representative Tom Perriello. So if they expect fake letters to work, you should expect real letters to work. I can’t resist mentioning Shakespeare: as the New York Times put it, “Generated mail is a pretty old idea. In Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar,’ Brutus is persuaded to assassinate Caesar in part by letters of support from the public — letters that were actually faked by Cassius ‘in several hands … as if they came from several citizens.’”


• On 10 Sept 2006, The Pottsville Republican & Evening Herald published a story about a 10-year-old girl, Taryn Kitchenman, who wrote US Representative T. Timothy Holden a letter. She wrote him: “I was wondering instead of putting [the new playground] downtown right by the old one, could you put it in Arnots [her neighborhood]. I was wondering because we only have one playground and it is not that good. We don’t have swings, we don’t have a good basketball court. I am only 10, I am not allowed downtown. Try and help me.” She received a reply the same week. Presumably this was a snailmail letter (and not fax or email “letter”).

To prove that I’m serious about my campaign, below I’ll post the letter I sent US Representative Nancy Pelosi yesterday. In an attempt to protect myself against discrimination and stigmatization, I censored out a very small portion of the letter, though presumably the letter is now public record somewhere. I’ve also PDF’ed the letter so you can see the formatting in case you want a guide for your own snailmail. Because you’re going to write your own personalized letter(s) — or do something equivalent or better — right?

Douglas Lucas
[street address]
Fort Worth, TX 76109
[email address]

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Office of the Speaker
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

16 September 2009

Dear Representative:

I’m writing to support your insistence that a healthcare reform “bill without a strong public option will not pass the House” (your Press Release, 3 Sept. 2009), to agree with your statement that if “a vigorous public option is not included, it would be a major victory for the health insurance industry” (your Press Release, 3 Sept. 2009), to ask you to continue to insist on a strong, government-run public option — which, as you know, does not mean a co-op plan such as that of Senator Max Baucus — and to ask you to fight any spin attempting to pass off a co-op plan as a “public option.” I’m a self-employed writer and tutor in Fort Worth, Texas, and, just out of college, I’m working toward a public-school teaching certification. Like many Americans, I have a pre-existing condition — in my case, [type of pre-existing condition]. I lose my BC/BS disability coverage in February.

My medicine for this one illness alone costs nearly $1000 per month. Without reliable health insurance, I cannot responsibly teach public school. Sure, a school would provide me with group coverage, but what if I were laid off? COBRA only goes so far; high-risk pools only go so far. Just as you chose a career in civil service to help others, so I want to help others, and a government-run public option would give me a strong safety net so I could focus on teaching. A co-op plan wouldn’t have the membership clout needed to compete with private insurance. The Iowa state government tried a nonprofit co-op — and it died in two years (New York Times, 17 Aug 2009). Just like a trigger plan, a co-op plan would take longer to start than a government-run plan, and we don’t have any more time. According to a 2007 American Journal of Medicine study, an American family files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of an illness every 30 seconds. In 2009 the Center for American Progress explained that every day, 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance: 2,190 in your state, 470 in mine. Every day. It is a moral issue.

Thank you for fighting in favor of a strong, government-run public option. Please keep fighting.

Sincerely,

[hand signature]

Douglas Lucas

In an effort to take some of the right-wing food coloring out of the swimming pool, here’s some information, as opposed to dis-information. By itself, the information below doesn’t prove the public option a good thing (though the public option is a good thing). But it does make you sigh and wonder where the hell the (representational, constitutional) United States democracy has gone off to. Here’s a hint about some of the above-the-table answers.

If you hate the public option but still want a lesson out of this, it’s that you should look at primary sources as much as possible when learning stuff. Preliminary research seems to indicate teens today, for example, have practically no media literacy training and typically don’t think about sources’ credibility.  Finally, you should watch President Obama’s speech about healthcare reform tomorrow (Wednesday September 9th), which might change the ballgame quite a bit.

N.B. The information below is subject to irrelevancy as time marches on.

• As of August 10, the American Medical Association supports the public option. Source? Their own website.
• As of September 1, the ALF-CIO, the United States’ largest labor union, supports the public option. Source? CBS, and (Aug 21) the AFL-CIO website.
• As of August, the AARP, the United States’ largest retirees’ association, supports the public option. Source? One of their own websites.
• As of June 21, a sufficient number of House Democrats support the public option in order to pass it. Source? The Boston Globe.
• As of September 8, enough Senators can get a public option through with the reconciliation tactic, and the Senate has a Democratic majority. Source? The Washington Times.
• As of September 7, President Obama “continue[s] to believe that a public option within that basket of insurance choices will help improve quality and bring down costs.” Source? White House transcript of his Labor Day speech.
• As of September, most Americans approve of the job President Obama’s doing. Source? CBS.

Click the graph below to see that the American citizenry definitely supports the public option. Sources: Quinnepac (July); Washington Post / ABC (June); New York Times / CBS (June); Wall Street Journal / NBC (June); if you want the others, you could start by looking at the source information near the bottom of this page.

A supposedly Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.”