I for one am NOT gloating. And I am on the leftish side. And I hate to say it, anybody who feels "giddy" about this whole thing should feel ashamed of themselves. Things in this country are far too serious for that. This is a very tough thing for me to say, considering how bitter I have felt over the past 6 yrs watching Our Glorious Leader get away with things that border (IMO) on the verge of treason. While remembering the media creating artifical "scandals" out of luggage or real estate transactions that happened 20 yrs before Bill Clinton even saw the inside of a Guv's office, years BEFORE Monicagate. I have often dreamed of the criminal behavior of Dubya coming back to haunt him, and then slowly realizing that due to a man named Rupert Murdoch, it would never ever happen .
If this has happened a year ago, when the body count on all sides was lower in Iraq, the hurricanes had not yet hit, and the campaigns were in full swing, I might have experienced one moment of "giddiness." But things have sunk far too
low for that.
Yesterday, by a divinely inspired fluke, (I am sure it was Divinely inspired) I was in the library in the way home from work to pay off a fine on some overdue stuff, and had this urge to rent a DVD. I go over to the shelves, and one of the first things my eyes fall upon is "Mr. Smith Goes To Washinton." I am a film buff, and this was one of those great all-time classics that I had always wanted to see but never got around to it. I was thinking of the potential fallout from this, oddly enough. The film has gone down in folklore until many people actually don't remember what the film is really about. Most people (like me) think it is about a "little guy", a honest ordinary American, who goes to DC to plead a passionate cause with the poliical fat cats and wins. An inspiring, heartwarming story about something that could only happen in America: a lone person who is angry about the State of the country, fights a battle, and wins. Kind of like Bono making the rounds in DC with DATA, and actually coming up with appropriated funds (a signed check) for the Millenium Challenge account, not just allocations (empty words.) Or the origional MR. Brockovitch. This film has become, over time, something like its director Frank Capra's other classic: "It's A Wonderful Life." Which came out around the same time, just before WWII.
Well, I recommend that everybody go out and RUN to their nearest video store and rent this NOW..if they don't own it. The film is SO relevant for our times that it should be required viewing for all. It is a much more darker and complicated film than folklore has sanitized it as. The premise of "Mr Smith Goes To Washington" is this:
What if one completely honest person really was elected to public office? And not only honest and righteous and humble of character, and wanting to do good, but actually really patriotic and such a believer in his country that he is willing to risk all? It would be a miracle. It's unthinkable. This film is kind of like the story of Christ wrapped up in a political parable.
Let me just give a little bit of a summary and high points of the film. As I watched it last night, I almost cried. And I realized why it would not help or be right to "gloat" about what happened today.
I don't remember the details (the opening of the film moves VERY fast) but the movie begins with a key Senator dying at a most importune moment, according to a Midwestern Governor. There is a potential scandal brewing around this guy and he needs some kind of miracle to cover his butt with the press, and he is stumped on who to recommend as a candidate from his state. He goes home and eats dinner with his kids, who rave over this Youth Leader that they all idolize, Mr Smith. The Guv puts this down to childish fancy, of course, but is so desperate that he decides to secretly check this guy out in his natural habitat. He goes to a Smith event and discovers that not only the youth of his state, but people all over the country, adore and idolize Smith..he is a genuine folk hero. (This is all a bit fanciful today, adoring crowds coming up to him in the street and the media gushing about him, etc, it might just have been metaphorical Hollywood license....but I've read about Capra and he was a bit of an idealist himself) but we can all think of people we like to think are "honest" compared to others, from what we can see. My current choice, based on the little we know, would be Eliot Spitzer or Barack Obama. And on the right, my personal Republican hero, Bob Dole. I say "honest" to a degree, of course.)
Hot dog! Problem solved. Mr Smith is the Guv's nominee for the Senate, (or however this process works, this was the part I don't remember--how he actually got to office) but everyone is stunned. The DC scenes leading up to Smith's trip to Washingon are searing. The Jean Harlowe character (I think that was her) , the aide to the Seantor that Smith is replacing, is a tough as nails cynical hack who laughingly dubs Smith "Daniel Boone" and we see scenes of various media and Washington pols laughing and preparing their knives. We assume we know the kind of cynical climate that is politcs but to actually see it in the context of someone we, the audience, have come to think of as "good" and knowing what lies in store for him, it's devestating. Becuase Capra assumes that the audience, like him, have not become cynical and must have some little faith that the there is good in the country's leaderhip, and thus something good aobut the state of America, still. And beyond that, the state of humanity. (This is one of the film's tragedies: Jimmy Stewart 's Smith was America back then....its projection of itself. Mr Smith and Mickey Mouse. That's not who we were, of course, and we knew it, but we still had enough faith back then to hope that someday, that is who we still could be. Could a film like this be made today? Could a characte rlike Smith even be taken seriously? Nope. )
ON his first day in office, Smith, instead of heading to his Ivory Tower on Capitol Hill to collect the spoils of power and settle into Roman pomposity, decides to do the tourist thing in DC like the ordinary citizen he likes thi think he still is. This is the only part of the film that is dated....the montage of patriotic images seems to me to indicate that at the time the film had a slight anti-Commie suplot. But Communism is not mentioned, so we can take this as we will. ) While he takes 4 hours to see the sights, the Aide goes nuts, and when he quietly goes through the door of his office, she treats him as if he was a little child. "Stay right there, Mr Smith!" then ducks into another room and yells over the phone to her contact: "He's here! Daniel Boone! We've got him!"
God, you cringe.
Well, when he goes to the Seante, it appears his big issue is "relief" (what we today call the role of the "Welfare State", ie Big Government.) This is at the tail end of the Depression of course, but we can take this as we will. What is the role and nature of the gov't in caring for its citizens. The Senators are incredulous. If you really want to see how a filibuster operates, get this movie, not C-Span!
The climate grows more and more hostile on bith sides of the aisle as the icredulous Senators express their contemot for sucha buffoon slipping into their cozy little circle. And we, the audience, start to see how Smith A(nd thus, we, the public, ) are dangerous. How they DON"T want us. How someone who actually cares aobut the people is reperesenting is dangerous. YOu get a crash course in the state of politcs, interest groups, oursleves. The rest of the film is all Smith's epic filbuster about "relief", and due to Capr'as skillful handling, even if you don't agree with all he says, you are made to feel he is a hero. Because you can see he really believes and hopes and trusts and now feels betrayed. As time goes on, the relief issue is suashed over the Senate's growing desire to see him ousted from the floor and his office. Whereupon Smith actually pulls a copy of the COnsitution from his pocket and ends up giving a speech about "love thy neighbor." Again, today he is too one-domensional to be beleived as anything other than a metaphor for the best in oursleves, but Stewart's performance (srely one of the great perfprmances of all time) pulls us in. At the end, relaizing his labors are dooming him and feeling his faith shattered by these wolves with mocking smiles, he faints on the Senate floor. Wherupon the Governor who put him up for office, to deflect attention away from his own iniquities, rushes into the Senate chamber and in total remorse confesses his crimes to all and sundry.
If only it works out that way. It doesn't, of course.
But I kept thinking: what are We, the public, doing to ensure our officials are are acocuntable for their actions? What are We doing as the guardians of virtue? Have we become too passive in demanding such accountabity? The answer is a resouding YES. I fully see that the adage is true: we get only the gov't we desire.
When you read a USA Today article that the war in Iraq barely registers in the public consciousness even as the US troop toll passes 2000, that appalls you, even if youre against the war. It is impossible for me to register such apathy in my mind. Even with all the other things on our plate, WAR is WAR. And it did not start yesterday.
This is getting too long...I might finish this post later. I think I was going to talk about the low point we have hit but it's another essy in itself. I was thinking along spiritual lines and the will to do things.
I now have to do the rounds of my favorite news sites (left and right) and find out what the hell actually happened here. Nowadays, for big dramatic events lik ehtis, I like to find out about it first from FYM..I love politcal debates among U2 fans....who follow the "politcal" band..there's no debate like debate among U2 nuts! Our megalomanical egos take a cue from our beloved B I think, and the longer the fan, the bigger the ego.
I stand guilty, being a fan longer than most on here, though comapred to some posters, I am much younger...