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Under the Sun Cynthia Oi |
Trash talk divides
politicians from publicTHEY came in two groups, one following the other, each band talking for about a hour late one afternoon last week.
The first consisted of five men and a woman; the second, two men. All of them have lived long in the islands, all carry the same titles, all worked the first three months of the year at the same place doing the same job they have done for years and years.
All spoke about the same topics, but listening to them was like listening to the characters in "Rashomon," the Akira Kurosawa movie in which descriptions of a crime differ from one participant to the next.
Divergent narratives can be expected from members of rival political parties, but it seems the breach of reality between Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature has stretched as wide as the ocean span between Lihue and Los Angeles.
Everything Democrats do is an outrage that protects the status quo of the ruling party, said the Republican duo in their post-session debriefing with the Star-Bulletin.
Everything Republicans do is deficient and calculated to deceive, according to the six Democrats.
Republicans say you can't trust Democrats to fix anything and that everything wrong with Hawaii is due to their languid inability to change. Democrats say Republicans grumble and blame, but have done nothing on their own except tear down and obstruct.
Like in Hawaii, the national landscape is littered with the debris of moderation and tolerance.
Criticism about the chaotic war in Iraq evokes criticism of the critic and, in turn, criticism of the critic's critic. Blasts about patriotism or lack thereof draw responses about stifling debate and intimidation tactics. Rational discussion is submerged in a thick, black bile of lies and half-truths that with repetition gain credence until untruths become undeniable fact.
Inside the D.C. beltway, initial gasps of disgust about abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib followed by the gruesome murder by terrorists of a Pennsylvania man yanked emotions from even the most hardened of cynical hearts in Congress. But high-minded instincts to find common ground for solutions were engulfed by a more vulgar need -- to vanquish a perceived enemy, to win and win big.
The attack dogs bared their teeth. When Democratic Rep. John Murtha, long a defender of the Pentagon, warned that without properly equipping and training troops, the war's goals would be unattainable, Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a frenetic Republican from Texas, accused him and other critics of lending aid and comfort to the enemy.
"We all know that the Democrats are against the war. They are trying to do everything they can to undermine the war," DeLay growled.
To be frank, DeLay was playing with the truth, and he knew he was, but that's the kind of hardball expected in Washington; in order to look good, you have to make others look bad.
While we in Hawaii would like to believe we have kinder, gentler ways, it is clear that if we really did enjoy that civility at one time, that was then and this is now. Even outside the state Capitol, local talk radio chokes with invectives from our own breed of shock jocks to whom nuance means the difference between a lite beer and an ale and to whom truth is worthy only if it can be hyped.
Those of us who are paid to pay attention to trash talk tolerate the clamor, even after the 50th repetition of self-serving drivel. But the public doesn't have to listen and they don't. That's why most don't vote and if they do, they punch the name most familiar to them with little regard to the candidate's value. The notion is one politician is like the other.
So when House Speaker Calvin Say lamented that people don't pay much attention to the details of legislative doings, he had a point. The deepening divide isn't just between members of political parties. The break is widest between people and their representatives.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Cynthia Oi has been on the staff of the Star-Bulletin since 1976. She can be reached at: coi@starbulletin.com.