The Collateral Damage of Words

As my “Rules for Reading and Responding” might indicate, I have a problem with the way many things are debated in our country. I don’t want to get in the middle of the fray of the current debate over whether or not the language used by some politicians during the Health Care debate was too inflammatory and intemperate, except to seize on an unfortunate comment made by a blogger. Tom Perriello represents a neighboring district in the House of Representatives. A propane line was cut at his brother’s house, probably because a blogger mistakenly advertised the address as Rep. Perriello’s, and urged those who were upset at his Health Care vote to “drop by.”

I won’t give the blogger’s name because he later apologized both for this blog and for his next one which was even worse. After hearing about the cut propane line, he responded by posting: “Do you mean I posted his brother's address on my Facebook? Oh well, collateral damage."

Again, the blogger has apologized and others are doing a good job of taking him to task for posting the way he did. The phrase I want to focus upon is “collateral damage.”

Words do matter, and “collateral damage” does result when people with influence resort to name calling, caricaturing, ad homonym attacks (attacking the person over the position) to develop an Us vs Then/ Good vs Evil/ world in which there must be victory without compromise. We see it happen among those who govern and among commentators who earn their living talking about those who govern (though sometimes I’m confused as to who is commenting and who is governing). Gossip and sarcasm is all that much of this talk really is, and yet the rhetoric is condoned when used in the service of power. It is ends-justifies-the-means rhetoric that violates all the classic rules of civil discourse.

The collateral damage is that when church or political leaders become hostile in speech that is unfair and even untruthful, while they may energize the most zealous of their followers, they leave many disillusioned by the cynical nature of the whole enterprise. This can be particularly true of young people who realize they have been hurt, or who realize they have been led to hurt others, by the arguments of those they end up seeing being the voices of interests that…, well…, are not serving their best interest.

My next blog will be about how I think that violent rhetoric has become worse since 9/11. Still, the use of words to incite is not new. In fact, the demonization of other leaders and nations, and the twisting and fabrication of facts in order to incite the masses, has been a common tactic to lead nations into wars so as to advance the agendas of certain powers. This led the general Carl von Clausewitz to astutely define war as “the continuation of politics by different means.”

Consider this: When debate becomes violent as political powers seek to win at all costs, politics then becomes war by a different means.

A Legacy Boomers May Not Want

OK, here is my first “real” blog. Remember, this is me thinking out loud, throwing out something for reflection. This is not set in stone stuff. I don’t mind disagreement and I wouldn’t mind changing my mind. Here goes:

I was born in 1959. According to most cultural timelines I’ve seen, that sneaks me in on the caboose of the train that is the “Baby Boomer Generation.” Boomers have been described as a “Me First” generation. Generalizations like this are always at least partial lies, but often that means they are also partial truths. Recently, I’ve seen evidence that maybe the “Me First” label is something more deserved than we would like to admit.

We Boomers first came into our adulthood with the rebellion of the 60s against authority. Yet, as we inherited political, social and institutional power and became the authorities, we found ways to build on the wealth we gradually inherited from our parents. Now, as the Boomer generation reaches the last years of calling the shots, the economy we re-shaped has suffered what seems to me to have been a delayed but inevitable severe recession. The impressive retirement funds amassed by Boomers took severe hits and the economy no longer is hiding how we have taken more out than we put in.

I am saddened by what may be an “Our Generation First” response to the economic crisis we had a major hand in creating. My state of Virginia, which built a national reputation on providing quality education, is determined not to raise taxes while balancing the budget. An area high on the list of cuts is Education. Massive state cuts are leading to severe local repercussions. I believe the school board members who soberly report that there is nothing more to cut from the Roanoke City School budget without seriously damaging basic educational programs.

And Virginia is not alone. Across the nation, massive cuts in education are being made, both in the closing of schools and in the closing of programs designed to help the children of those whose rights we Boomers stood up for back in the 60s: the underprivileged.

Education used to be a leading cause for Boomers. Look at what we expected of our schools for our students with special promise and special needs. Why would we Boomers now find it more logical to cut education before raising taxes? The possible answer that saddens me is that, statistically speaking, most of our children are now cycling out of the educational system. When it was about us and our children, we demanded better education. Now what are we demanding?

Unless we reverse this recent trend, here is the end result that I fear will be part of my generation’s legacy: The generation we rebelled against made major sacrifices so we could have better educational opportunities then they had available to them. We might end our tenure as the generation in power by demanding our assets be protected through sacrificing educational opportunities for our children’s children.