Cross posted on Daily Kos
Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 08:20:40 AM PDT
I am losing the ability to trust.
I’m about to turn off the TV. I’m close to throwing in the towel. I’m strong. I’m very strong, but maybe I’m not strong enough to be an American citizen.
Several years ago, I was in Scotland. A Scottish physician said to me, “America scares me!” I looked at her and laughed.
Now, America is haunting me as well. Perhaps all societies must endure a plunge into the abyss before emerging in the brilliant glow of sunshine. But, this great American descent is deeper and longer than I can fathom–with no end in sight.
This morning the NY Times reports that the IRS is withholding refunds due our poorest citizens.
“Tax refunds sought by 1.6 million poor Americans over the last five years were frozen and their returns labeled fraudulent, although the vast majority appear to have done nothing wrong, the Internal Revenue Service’s taxpayer advocate told Congress yesterday.”
Why should this scare you, and make you very sad? Very sad indeed.
It should more than scare you because, if you needed any further proof–this is it. The United States government is not simply waging a war on terrorists. It is waging a war against almost all of us.
The most powerful nation on earth, with the most powerful militia, and a president who bloviates “compassionate conservatism”, is relegated to stealing from the poor.
Think of it like this. You walk by a sick, poor, homeless person on the street, and you reach your hand deep into his cup and take out a few quarters. It’s so damn elementary.
It was no mere happenstance that after Katrina, the most vulnerable among us were left to die. It seems that left to die is now being institutionalized. Ask yourself what these small IRS refunds must mean to our fellow citizens? A trip to the doctor, winter shoes, pencils to do homework, aspirin, a quart of milk?
“The advocate, Nina Olson, said the I.R.S. devoted vastly more resources to pursuing questionable refunds sought by the poor – which under the highest estimate is $9 billion – than to the $100 billion in taxes not paid each year by people who work for cash and either fail to file tax returns or understate their income.”
Trust is essential to a functioning society. Trust is what enables us to leave our children at school every morning. Trust is what allows us to take lifesaving medication. When you select a doctor, you do so because you intuitively trust this person.
So, too is trust essential in political life. Democracies cannot flourish without trust. Without trust can there be consent of the governed? Without trust, can there be a willingness to accept the decisions of our government?Without trust, can there be a compact that the laws, whether we agree with them or not, apply to all–equally?
When we trust, we make ourselves vulnerable to others. Our “voluntary” army trusted the leadership to supply them with the tools to do dangerous work. Small things like body armor. Our heroes, betrayed by the government. Left to die, here again. If our heroes are worth nothing, what about the rest of us? Trust betrayed.
I don’t see light at the end of the tunnel–do you? How does one thrive in a country where deceit trumps candor, day after day after day? How does one live in a country when you know the government is not your friend? When you believe at every turn, the government wishes you ill?
History is replete with governments like the one we now endure. I will survive, in some fashion, but many of our fellow citizens won’t.
The American psyche will need generations to recover. How does the next government, whenever that comes, inculcate the sense of trust which has been so violently stripped from the body politic?
I keep returning to 2000. The election of 2000. We were asked as a nation to accept, to trust, the system. We made a terrible mistake.
Our government is as broken as our healthcare system.
Where is the opposition party? Is there an opposition party?
