Quiet, Please!

In the past two months, folks in Washington, D.C. have moved from the defining (and decrying) stage of problem recognition into the proposal stage. Multiple solutions to our economic woes are flying around everywhere, alongside all the variations of criticisms leveled against every proposal being offered up. Economic doom dominates all of the daily commentary. Many prior hot buttons and social issues that were supposedly critical to our national survival have virtually disappeared from discussion – illegal immigration, Iraq, Afghanistan, abortion, evolution/creationism, etc. Even supposedly new national priorities for energy and clean air are struggling for attention, while health and education seem to be holding their own. Given all of the daily slicing up, promoting, defending and finger-pointing going on, I am surprised that anyone has much time left over to actually THINK conscientiously about any of these problems.

Many politicians are lining up to claim that “too much is on the plate, we need to focus on one thing.” These folks are dead wrong. Frankly, if 535 Congressmen/women can’t split up, divide and conquer, and step to the national plate when they are needed, then we are facing a much bigger problem of competency and attention. Very few crises come neatly packaged for convenient handling.

I believe that Obama is right that a) economy and energy and health and education and environment are long overdue items precisely because we have refused to deal with them previously and now they are all ganging up on us; and b) each problem is part of the solution to the other. They are in fact interdependent among each other, and solving one is part of solving the others. “Solving” one problem at a time will take us baby steps when we desperately need to take the giant step that is now available to us. And have you noticed that the ones screaming that we should be focusing only on the economy right now are either a) the politicians who overlooked the economy for the past several years, or b) the economists or corporate career folks – they make it sound good and easy, but they are just like everyone else, pushing their own parochial agenda and perspective.

Of course, my favorite object of scorn – the cable news media – are in a feeding frenzy over all of this. Hour after hour, it is one doomsday scenario after another, poll after poll about how fearful Americans are, conspiracies uncovered one after another, 24-hour tracking of the latest embezzler of note. It is like watching those crazy weather folks in hyper-mode when the hurricanes are coming. It is also numbing to our brains, and the value-added of all this (dis-)information diminishes by the day.

Are there good people hurting these days, many of them reasonably innocent bystanders and/or casualties to the irresponsible actions of others? Yes. But we would be better-served not just to run feature stories about their hurts, but to focus on other people and organizations who are trying to help these neighbors find transition relief.

I suggest that we all turn down our TVs, skip over a few internet “timely news updates,” and ignore for awhile some of the hyper bloggers out there (except for this blog, of course!). The truth is, 90% of the American workforce is still working, even if working harder for less money in a less preferable job. Most family bills are being paid. Freebie living on borrowed money is slowing down, if not ending. Gasoline is still holding at @$2. Restaurants are still serving food, even if they are full only 5 nights instead of 7. Tomorrow the sun will rise again, as it has always managed to do. In a few weeks, one of those big magnificent full moons will dominate the night sky. Tomorrow (March 20), spring arrives yet again, ending our long winter and beginning yet again another year’s seasons. Planting, growing, harvesting and resting is a year's process, it is not done in a day. Life will refresh and renew itself in its annual ritual as it has for eons.

So let us quiet down a bit. Get back in balance. Act wisely for ourselves, and compassionately towards others. Use our adversity to move us to a better place we should go, not hunker down in a place in which we should not stay. Let our innate good and strong character come through yet again. And if we do, this too will pass. Turn off the noise, and listen to the music that is still playing our song.