I Think It’s Going to Rain Today

By
Glenn W. Smith
– March 21, 2010Posted in: Health Care, Politics

tungurahua volcano 300x200 I Think Its Going to Rain TodayHuman kindness is overflowing,
And I think it’s going to rain today.
–Randy Newman

There is no better accompaniment to the vote on health care reform than Randy Newman’s “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” a song that mourns our lack of compassionate action while musically acknowledging a little hope.

The hope is slim and fragile. But so is the brief and heartening new volume, Made for Goodness, by Desmond Tutu and his daughter, Mpho Tutu. It takes just a few notes in the major key or a few words from an enlightened champion of humanity’s heart like Bishop Tutu to remind us of our Buddha-nature or our divine spark.

The book arrived just in the nick of time. I was watching the tea bags on Saturday spit racist epithets at Congressmen and scream that reform would ruin the country. Not a whisper from them about the health of Americans, of course. Full of gales of FoxNews lies aimed at extinguishing the spark, they acted as though an American child restored to health really meant the arrival of the Red Dawn in Calumet, Colorado, or maybe the appearance of the anti-Christ at the local bowling alley.

Bishop Tutu, no stranger to racist violence, silences the misguided bigots with a gentle reminder:

We are fundamentally good. When you come to think of it, that’s who we are at our core. Why else do we get so outraged by wrong?

Evil and wrong are aberrations…You can see from the people we truly admire that we are attracted to goodness…even after her death Mother Theresa is admired, respected and revered. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are similarly revered…In our own time Nelson Mandela commands the same kind of admiration…

Acting like the anti-Tutu, David Brooks actually wrote that passage of health care reform was a blow against empathy and humankind. I’m not making that up. Calling an obscure Senate procedure called reconciliation (the word rang with more hope in Tutu’s South Africa) a threat to the collegial bonds among Senators (forget the rest of us), he whined:

The remnants of person-to-person relationships, with their sympathy and sentiment, will be snuffed out. We will live amid the relationships of group versus group, party versus party, inhumanity versus inhumanity.

Our current health care system, based on for-profit, you-can-live-but-the-other-must-die gatekeepers we call the insurance industry, is not unlike ancient human sacrifice to a merciless god – in this case, the god of the so-called free market. We shove our neighbors into the volcano to appease this unappeasable god. How else can we look at it? Health care can be extended to all Americans with no economic or medical downside for anyone. The entire attack on reform has been based on an insane and idolatrous belief in a transcendent god-market and Glenn Beck’s hymnal of hate (see above).

The ironic thing is, the insurance industry has nothing to do with a free market. It makes money off what it doesn’t provide, off coverage it refuses to extend and benefits it refuses to pay. In a sense, it was just such feudal monopoly practices Adam Smith hoped a benign and open market would subvert.

So afraid of this god are we that lawmakers never defied it or its insurance industry demons. Oh, there has been some empty rhetoric. But from the beginning, what complicated the reform effort was the refusal to attack the cause of the crisis: the insurance industry.

The cravenness of many political leaders during this debate is beyond contempt. In no danger themselves, they stood atop the volcano and watched Americans one after the other being burned alive in the fiery hell below. And all they could think to say was, “What about my political future?”

On Friday, I had to take my wife to the hospital emergency room (everything’s okay). While she rested comfortably, a middle-aged man lying on the other side of the slender privacy curtain called out. “I’m cold,” he said with a wobbly chill but no impatience in his voice. “Can I have some covers?” I knew where the blankets were, so when no nurse arrived, I took him one and laid it over him. He thanked me with a smile.

The extension of health care to millions of American will not cost any of us so much as the thirty seconds it took to deliver a blanket to a man a few feet away.

Regardless of the merits, omissions or unjust additions to the health care reform bill, we have to admit that the debate itself has exposed the ugly and selfish side of America. Passage might be hailed as historic, but it won’t erase the haunting images of spittle-chinned rednecks, manipulated by the wealthy and cynical, screaming about how reform will destroy America.

So here’s to Randy Newman and Bishop Tutu and their lovely songs in the key of life.

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About Glenn W. Smith

Glenn W. Smith has spent the past 30 years in journalism and politics, where he’s made a name for himself as a writer, campaign manager, activist, think tank analyst and, as Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas says, a “legendary political consultant and all-around good guy.” “There’s no one like him,” says author George Lakoff. CNN commentator Paul Begala says, “He has unmatched experience, a graceful pen (or pixel nowadays) and deep insight into the best and worst of us.” Novelist Sarah Bird speaks of his “lucid and lyrical” prose. And, she says, he’s fun. Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington says Glenn writes with “grace and abundant humor” and “uses his colorful experiences in Texas to enlighten us all.”

Smith led Ann Richards’ successful 1990 campaign for Governor of Texas. He worked for former Texas Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby and U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen. Earlier, Smith was a political reporter for the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Post. He’s coordinated national campaigns for groups such as MoveOn.org. In 2004, he authored the highly acclaimed book, The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He also wrote Unfit Commander, a book that detailed George W. Bush’s mysterious disappearance from military service.

In 2004, Smith was featured in the film, Bush’s Brain, a documentary about Karl Rove. Smith provided commentary on Rove’s role as then-President Bush’s senior advisor. He has made numerous media appearances with Chris Mathews on Hardball, Joe Scarborough, Brit Hume, and many others. He writes a regularly for top national web sites, including FireDogLake and Huffington Post.

As a senior fellow at George Lakoff’s prestigious Rockridge Institute in Berkeley he studied, wrote and taught on the power of metaphor and narrative in political communications. He also lectured on religion and politics at the Starr King School for Ministry in Berkeley. As a sponsor and organizer, he has pulled together numerous national events with progressive religious leaders. He also organized a celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King at Riverside Church in New York City as well as “Freedom and Faith” bus tours, which was a nationwide campaign for social justice and progressive values.

Smith’s play, Double Play, which explored American Western myths and legends, was held over to sold-out audiences. He’s even written and performed songs in the Americana tradition, such as his best-known song, “Helping Marty Robbins,” a tribute to his hometown, Houston.

Most recently, Smith is the creator of DogCanyon, a political and cultural web site covering state, national and global issues from a Texas perspective. DogCanyon is an exhilarating and unique site that gets the connections between politics and culture and explores both the personal side of politics and the ups, down, craziness and beauty of “life its ownself,” as humorist Dan Jenkins would say. DogCanyon offers heartfelt personal essays, hard-hitting political analysis, and, most importantly, laughs.

As Paul Begala said, Smith writes in “the finest, firmest, fearless tradition of Texas essayists like Molly Ivins.”