Update: It’s been reported on MSNBC that erroneous assertions about the Frost child and family that have spun out of control to allegedly include death threats and falsehoods broadcast via internet and radio, may have originated, in part, from the offices of Republican Senator Mitch McConnell who represents Kentucky… ironically, a state that has many constituent families and children who would dearly love to have the benefit of SCHIP.
It is alleged that the falsehoods about various aspects of the Frost family’s life were contained in an email from Senator McConnell’s office to a certain journo. Thus far the Senator’s office is said to be refusing to confirm or deny.
It appears that ‘fair play’ amongst some elected representatives includes a nod to giving out a child’s home address on the internet, and other methods meant to publicly harrow a child and his relatives… all as a response to said child telling about his own experience of being badly injured in an auto accident and how a government program helped he and his family recover and move forward in life.
If these matters of unleashing a harrowing on the child and his family from a Senatorial office are true, then those who have knowingly poured such botched Frankensteinian sewage into the public discourse no longer see child, mother, father, siblings, life force. They see instead: object, thing, threat.
It makes an enormous clang to witness some individuals coldly condemning critics of General Petraeus but thinking a kid whose gone through a long recovery from a terrible auto accident is just more ok fodder for the old steam fitted and clanking machine.
But, it’s not the first time some, and I emphasize the word, some, politicians have used children (comatose adults, soldiers with paraplegia, persons killed in disasters) as though they are sacrificial missiles specifically made to launch at ‘the opposition’ in some senseless blood feud … wherein the missile-launchers walk away afterwards to rest their corns, polish their crowns, and smoke cigars together…
whilst those they used as attack targets or missiles are left bewildered, hurt, still hungry, still sick, still unsheltered … or still dead at the side of the road.
The first time I was an eyewitness to certain politicos doing exactly this strange couvade-like battle was in the early 1990s.
I was in Washington about to testify before the Ways and Means Committee on Welfare Reform. I’m a former welfare mother who has given much thought, outspoken criticism, and what I hope is clear-eyed support regarding shaping welfare policy… but that’s a story for another time.
The relevant part, is that while I was in chambers for the many days of welfare hearings, a group of Democrats brought in large blown-up photographs of kids in need; those who benefited from and those who most desperately utilized welfare programs. These were photographs of real children who were the little daughters and sons of suddenly out of work miners, the children of mothers whose husbands had died, children of adults who had abandoned the family, offspring of husbands and wives of which one was desperately ill and the other suddenly out of work.
The pictures of these little children were compelling; Some were skinny little boney-bones, dried out hair, big eyes, beautiful but impoverished children. The Democrats indicated that these children were the ones that the welfare reform act, which proposed nearly eliminating help to the needy, would most hurt.
Within a day, the ‘other side,’ a group of Republicans, organized overnight and dealt what they thought was the death-blow reply. The following session, they came into chambers with equally large blown-up photographs in full Kodachrome color. The little ones portrayed in those photographs were their own children and grandchildren, beautiful little children with luminous eyes, shiny hair, velvet dresses and smart little suits.
This group of Republicans indicated that their own children were the real children who would be harmed if welfare programs were not done away with… that the future of their own children would suffer if those other children who were not theirs… were given governmental relief; medical, nutritional, educational aid and care.
As you might imagine, these shots were heard round the Capitol world. There was an ensuing hurl and whirl of the incumbent ‘How dare you!?’ and the recumbent, ‘Well, how dare YOU!?’ This seemed most centered on those who had gotten caught up in ‘who said/ pooh-bah said,’ those who had then abandoned seeking to discover the most useful and workable tolerances needed to create best possible outcome in the welfare issue for the many sides. They were far too busy flanging themselves upon their horses and riding off in all directions.
Yet, a far larger group of governing representatives went to work under the din, somewhat like a group of engineers trying to work out a new engine despite the fact that small but powerful factions of management were in a non-stop fisticuffs on the garage floor right next to them.
I can appreciate the heat people felt over the photographs carried by each side back then. I can. And, I had my own form of being taken aback…especially by governing adults’ too easy loss of consciousness about solving difficult issues… issues that required much thought and ‘staying with it’ and suffering with it all until the final forms were cooked all the way through.
Instead, too many, like teenagers following a bad companion who comes to the bedroom window at night beckoning them to an illicit joy ride, were seduced into belly flopping into being rabble– which is so much easier and simplistic. And which gets the back slaps and approving hoots, but doesn’t get the larger job done.
The Frost family, is one more case wherein we are forced into a waste of time, money and resources, so that some can perform what amounts to the most recent and predictable Punch and Judy “filibuster that doesn’t look like a filibuster,†Show. Like a bad sitcom; we’ve seen this all before.
I’ve read widely on the latest contretemps, not just two sides, but the many sides involved, including the excellent coverage by my cobloggers here on The Moderate Voice. And I keep thinking back to why I became an Independent who has had alternate membership in both parties back when I thought it was important to vote in primaries.
It isn’t that I don’t like either party; there are fine people who belong to all parties; helpful thinkers who get things done that are good for many; there are people in both parties that I want in my lifeboat.
It’s just that sometimes the cr–, rather than the cream, rises to the top of ‘parties,’ and you cant get anything done with all the same old predictable hind-ends blocking the way and screeching endlessly over who has the right to say or not say, do or not do… all these being moot points regarding the much larger issues at hand.
Where I grew up in the backwoods, when there was gridlock on the highway, we knew the back ways through the forest, the two-track paths that you could only see if you squinted…and we would veer off-road to get where we were going in half the time as those huddled up on the big road. Sometimes you can get far more done on various issues by going a different way, rather than waiting in que for the ‘gempmums and ladies’ to ‘get it,’ or to get over each other… or themselves.
I don’t have a plaint about journalists looking into the Frost’s background with veracity, and I don’t have worry for Graeme Frost; his little heart is a huge one that may provide shade and shelter for many others by the time he is full grown.
But, I do have concern for those adults too easily seduced into thinking that bar talk and saloon behavior is useful discourse, and those who think that inaugurating a game of ‘telephone’ to purposely encourage rumor, innuendo and invective to spin out of control, is worthy and statesmanlike.
Yet, with or without Senator McConnell from Kentucky clarifying what his office is really up to, if anything, I think we can fairly much guarantee that there are greater minds, right now, as we speak, who are driving off-road to get away from the ‘public rabble’ pile-up and pile-on, regarding this issue.
Those off-road drivers are taking a different pathway toward the same goal as before, no doubt, engineering, drawing up amended plans. Despite those who seem to so love ‘the slime-light,’ these other thinkers and doers not embroiled in rabble rousing, will make progress on the SCHIP issue. It just wont be showy in public. Just like the seams in fine welding, hard work if its done right, hardly ever shows on the surface. What shows instead, is the end result: an engine ‘with a heart’ that runs strong and burns efficiently.
There’s no reason why the SCHIP program can’t do the same.