Are we a society?

I hate to give more space to Sarah Palin's bizarre speech on the horror in Tucson, but one thing she said, no not the incredible "blood libel" thing, needs discussion in the United States, in Australia, in Ireland, in the United Kingdom.

"We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker,” Ms. Palin said. “It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

Yes, Mrs. Palin has made her political philosophy clear: We are not our brother's keeper.

Which would be one thing if she were a "lone nut," but she is not. She speaks for a significant minority of Americans when she says this, a minority which includes many elected officials.


There has always been this "anti-society" feeling running through the history of the United States. The whole Horatio Alger myth, sold aggressively to the nation's children in the last half of the 19th Century, was all about "the individual," not ever about social responsibility.

No, it is always "the individual" who is guilty. How easy. By declaring that it is, not only Sarah Palin and her ilk who escape both responsibility and any need to change, but none of us has to change any priority.

When I noted this week on Twitter that I didn't think that a state like Michigan - a state which spent well over $2 billion on school and university football facilities this decade, and $4 million just firing and hiring a college football coach this week - or New Jersey, which could afford to lower tax rates on its wealthiest (including its Governor) last year - really "lacked the money" to support children and education, people complained. After all, people like their three-car garages and their winning football teams. If we say "society is not responsible" we need not worry about the choices we make. (The University of Michigan spent almost $125,000 last year just "searching" for a new Athletic Director on the other side of town, and Dominos Corporation will lower their state tax payments next year by expensing the cost of flying that AD around the country in search of a new coach.)

Today we see this idea more embedded in political debate than ever. This week, an event featuring American Express pitchman Geoffrey Canada pretends liberality while insisting that impoverished communities "save themselves." Of course they don't really mean that, whether with the Black Panthers in Oakland, California 40+ years ago, or in Arizona today, any actual attempt by a minority community to control its destiny is shut down. So what is meant is that impoverished communities are guilty. It is their fault that their kids are poor and their schools are bad and that heath care is often horrible.


After all, if it was not their fault, why would they be the ones whose behaviours must change.


But I subscribe to a different set of values. I'm not particularly religious, but there are concepts in human thought that I value, and the responsibility of society is one of those.


We are our brother's keeper. And we are responsible if people are hungry, are ill without hope, are educated in terrible schools. We are responsible if violence which we might stop runs unchecked, and we are responsible if our resources are so unevenly shared that many have no chance in life.


I can quote the bible, "And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest." - Leviticus 23:22 - which establishes that those with resources have a legally set - and governmentally determined - responsibility to share with those who do not. "When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou shalt not go over the boughs again: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and for the widow." - Deuteronomy 24:20. But that really should not be necessary. 

As humans, as social animals, we are called to understand this innately. To understand that we only have resources because our shared society enables us to succeed, and that we have a human obligation to ensure the success of all of our human community. 

Last night in Tucson President Obama touched on this obligation, in a moving tribute to the victims of last Saturday's shootings.

And now we must make good on this. Competition is fine. We should compete on the playing fields, in games, in the marketplace of ideas. But we are a society. And in the things that matter, whether it is safe housing or health care or opportunity or certainly education, the time for choosing winners and losers is over.

When it is important, we need to stop racing, we need to stop putting the responsibility on the least powerful, and we must act as a human community. 

- Ira Socol 

Educating Responsibility

In the wake of the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson on Saturday morning responsible people all across the United States began, once again, to wonder why. Others, including so-called "political leaders" like Ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin began scrubbing their websites and Twitter feeds and US Senators Jon Kyle and Lamar Alexander (both Republican "Leaders") began crafting denials.

Let us begin here: In the long, ugly history of American assassinations, the perpetrators themselves have always been mentally unstable. John Wilkes Booth was a crazed narcissist. Lee Harvey Oswald and Leon Czolgosz were odd, paranoid loners. Squeaky Fromme? John Hinckley, Jr? I wouldn't want to try testifying to the "sanity" of any of these people. But in every case, other voices lay behind their actions. Each of their targets was defined as "un-American" and "destructive to freedom" and part of governments designed to hurt ordinary Americans. So, in each twisted mind, societal justification for their actions could be constructed.

And behind those other voices lay thousands, maybe millions, of Americans willing to allow that rhetoric to go forward, or even voting for those speaking with hate - or at least - via votes for legislators - voting to keep those speakers of hate in power.

And behind that lies the denial. "I didn't mean it that way." "I didn't vote for Newt Gingrich, just my local Republican congressman." "I was just making a point, I can't be responsible for crazy people."

At some point, we all need to point to ourselves and take responsibility. Yes, those who found themselves having to scrub, explain, or deny this weekend need to act most quickly - but, of course, they won't.  They won't even begin to consider taking responsibility. So those of us who were, as my Ma used to say, "raised better," need to act.

Because when assassin Loughner urges people, in a YouTube Video, to "read the United States of America's Constitution to apprehend all of the current treasonous laws."He is directly channeling not any personal demon, but Speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner. And let me extend the responsibility a big step further out. If you - any of us - voted for a Republican congressperson this past November, or did not vote because we were "mad" at Barack Obama (however legitimately), you - us, we - are responsible for John Boehner being in a position of power.

"We never, ever, ever intended it to be gun sights." Ms Mansour said attemps to tie Ms. Palin to the violence were "obscene" and "appalling." "I don't understand how anyone can be held responsible for someone who is completely mentally unstable like this," Ms. Mansour said. "Where I come from the person who is actually shooting is culpable. We had nothing whatsoever to do with this."

OK, forget Sarah Palin, an opportunistic coward with no observable morals, let's look at the two responsible, sober, US Senators from the top paragraph: Here's Jon Kyle just a few months ago, of course, labelling - effectively - those who are not anti-immigrant as "pro-criminal." Here's Lamar Alexander promising, four days ago, "guaranteed retribution" to those who  might require filibustering Senators to actually filibuster. Nice talk boys. Of course, if you voted for a Republican Senator, any Republican Senator - even sweet Olympia Snowe of Maine, you are responsible for making Kyle and Alexander powerful.

I'm not saying you are guilty. That's a different level, but in basic human terms you are responsible.

But I'm not immune from this criticism. I get hot. I say things. Inappropriate things. I belittle people. I'm responsible as well.

"We live as we were reminded yesterday in a dangerous, hair-trigger time, where tempers always seem near the boiling point and patience seems a lost trait.

"Democracy's arguments have never been pretty, but technology has changed the American dialogue.

"Because we can now know of problems instantly, we expect answers immediately. And when we don't get them, we let everyone know in no uncertain terms.

"We scream and shout - hurl charges without proof. Those on the other side of the argument become not opponents but enemies.

"Dangerous, inflammatory words are used with no thought of consequence. All's fair if it makes the point. Worse, some make great profit just fanning the flames.

"Which wouldn't amount to much if the words reached only the sane and the rational, but the new technology insures a larger audience. Those with sick and twisted minds hear us, too, and are sometimes inflamed by what the rest of us often discard as hollow and silly rhetoric.

"And so violence becomes part of the argument.

"In an eloquent statement, the new Republican House Speaker John Boehner said yesterday's "attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve. "

"But it is much more - it is an attack on each of us and our way of life.

"If elected officials cannot meet with those who have elected them without fear of being shot, if the rest of us allow such a situation to exist, then we are no longer the America that those who came before us fought and died to protect and defend.

"We must change the atmosphere in which this happened, and we can begin by remembering that words have consequences.

"Like all powerful things, they must be used carefully.

"More and more, we seem to have forgotten that."-  Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation

OK. so what?

Well, in education we have a special responsibility. We have a special responsibility to responsibility.

On the same sad Sunday as we deal with the aftermath of the events in Tucson I watched this story on CBS Sunday Morning. A story which contains this exchange re: a Middle School principal, a bullying student, and that student's mother:

"But McDermott says Stephanie is still "a work in progress."

McDermott says Stephanie's behavior has not improved, in part because she still doesn't seem to grasp what the problem is.

"I'm not sure yet that she wants to change who she is," he said.

Smith asked her, "How does it make you feel to know that parents are so worried about their kids, what you're doing to their kids, that they called the school to complain?"

"I don't find it right because I don't threaten kids that bad," Stephanie said.

"That bad? If kids are scared of you … come on, this is the first time you're hearing that kids are scared of you?"

"Uh huh," she said. "'Cause they're always like, 'I'm not scared of you.'"

"But what are you saying to kids that they would turn around and say 'I'm not scared of you'?" Smith asked.

"Like, 'I'm gonna beat you up.' Like when I say that to them, they'll be like, 'I'm not scared of you.'"

"Maybe they're not telling the truth," said Smith. "Here's the thing: If you call people names, if you threaten to beat them up, doesn't that make you a bully?"

"Yeah," she said.

But Stephanie's mom, Sue, isn't so sure.

"Stephanie, you know, really isn't that bully that people label her as," she told Smith.

"What do you think she is?" she asked.

"Oh my gosh, I don't know . . . A sassy, sassy smartass little girl, you know?" Sue laughed.

"I get the sense that there's a little piece of you that's kind of proud of her."

"Exactly," said Sue. "You have to stand up for themselves, you know? In society, really, I don't think anybody would really pick on her."

We can bemoan this mother. And it is true that there's some kind of sickness there. But it is a sickness exploited by the Middle School system which remains in place. I cringed watching the little kids thrown into the horrible, completely inappropriate, bullying encouraging environment that are the corridors and classroom spaces of the school in the story. And while a "healthier" child, or a "better" mother might deal with this differently, we simply cannot count on everyone being "healthy" or "better." Certainly not in a nation with no reasonable health care system, no reasonable mental health care system, and no actual societal support for parenting.

So we have to be better. Instead of just counseling kids about bullying, this principal needs to make real changes, to rethink his middle school, to literally make his students responsible for their peers.

As we need to rethink all of our schools, so that we actually model respect for every human and differing lifestyles, beliefs, and behaviors. So that we actually model the ability to take on controversial and complex topics and discuss them in reasoned intellectual debate, and not hide them because "our community won't understand." So that we don't run from, yes, even allowing the President of the United States to speak to our students - no matter what we think of him, or "outlaw" programs we choose not to like.

We need to reconstruct our behavior in schools so that we admit our mistakes, apologize to students when we wrong them, seek their counsel on making them whole after we have hurt them. We need to flexible enough in both our belief systems and our professional actions so that they will see that there is a different way.

This is profoundly important. Profoundly. So let us take heart from a couple of examples. In New York this week new Governor Andrew Cuomo invited the leaders of the state legislature, including the Republican President of the State Senate, to speak - to speak politically and openly at his public first State-of-the-State Address. And in Utah a Civility and Community 2011 effort has been launched state-wide.

These are beginnings. But we, each of us, must do much more. Democracy, or even just "society," isn't easy. It is complex, messy, confusing. Those who hold onto hope for our future must demonstrate our commitment now.

- Ira Socol

Sarah Palin's Disability Disability

Sarah Palin hates people with disabilities. I knew that before I knew anything else about her. She introduced herself to America by holding up her baby and telling all the world everything that was wrong with him.

That's despicable.

If she really viewed her infant as a human with real potential she would have either left him and his siblings at the hotel (like a responsible parent) or simply introduced him, rather than claiming some kind of hero status because she chose not to have an abortion (a choice, by the way, which she implied was hers to make).

That plus the simple facts that Palin opposes a universal health care system (the only thing which would actually move the "disabled" toward equality), opposes adequate educational funding, opposes hate crime legislation, and opposes federal regulations which might ensure that people are treated equally in America. She also, of course, opposes parental leave laws and increased welfare benefits which might make it possible for parents to care for high needs kids.

Now we have Sarah Palin vs. Family Guy, a cartoon politician debating an actual cartoon. And, well, I'm with the actual cartoon, and here's why:

Just as The Simpsons, for all the criticism leveled at them by America's right-wing, remains the only show on television where the family eats breakfast and dinner together daily and goes to church together every week, Family Guy and South Park are the only two shows on American TV which deal consistently with disability issues in the context of normal life.

Wheelchair-user Joe, on Family Guy is - by far - the most competent male on the show, but that's not the thing... the thing that Family Guy does is face the issues. Yes Joe is a hero cop, but it won't get him into the brewery tour (see above), and yes Chris can go out with a strong, determined girl, but people will still make fun of him for dating a... yeah, you know the word. That's a kind of reality brought into American living rooms which pretty stories on the Nightly News can not offer, and which all of Sarah Palin's whining about "haters" can not touch.

Just as on South Park, where Timmy and Jimmy are truly part of their school's community, of their town's community. They are not "surprisingly successful," because, damn, few of any of us are. Instead they are real kids who sometimes do things well, often can not, who are sometimes picked on, and sometimes befriended.

Let's bring in the Jeff Shannon of the Seattle Times here, commenting on a BBC Ouch! poll which found Timmy to be the favorite disabled character on TV in Britain:

"So why would disabled voters choose an animated, learning-disabled, wheelchair-using fourth grader as "The Greatest Disabled TV Character"? A misfit kid whose vocabulary is almost exclusively limited to garbled repetitions of his own name, yet who has gained a minor cult following as lead vocalist for a heavy-metal garage band called The Lords of the Underworld?

"The simple answer is that Timmy is downright hilarious, but for disabled "South Park" fans, closer examination of the character's popularity (like that of "Stevie" on Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle") leads to a startling revelation: Comedy Central's controversial cartoon series, featuring a foul-mouthed batch of fourth graders in the "quiet mountain town" of South Park, Colo., is the source of the most progressive, provocative and socially relevant disability humor ever presented on American television.

"With his jagged teeth and can-do spirit, Timmy appears, at first glance, to uphold the condescending disability stereotypes that are gradually fading from mainstream entertainment. But like everything else in "South Park," he's actually challenging preconceptions, toppling taboos and weaving his singularity into the fabric of the show. Insensitive, unenlightened viewers may laugh at Timmy, but the character's popularity is largely determined by those who laugh with him.

"That this is happening on "South Park" — a series routinely condemned by conservative watchdogs — comes as no surprise to anyone who understands what the show is all about. Co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone (who financed the excellent documentary about disability "How's Your News?," available on DVD) may seem like juvenile provocateurs with a liberal agenda, but "South Park" would not have become a pop-cultural phenomenon if there wasn't a method to its madness. Parker and Stone are equal-opportunity offenders, and when nothing is sacred — not even the seemingly unassailable image of the late Christopher Reeve — the satirical playing field is level, and timely issues become ripe for outrageously comedic scrutiny."

You see Sarah, holding up your baby for political gain is hate speech, bringing the disability community into the mainstream is not. I hope that when Trig grows up, Sarah, he explains that to you.

- Ira Socol