Capitol Spill

What’s Wrong with Washington? An Outsider’s Inside View

    Very early in the semester we were faced with the well-known reality of many individuals that come here with a driving ambition to ‘fix’ Washington D.C. To people around the country it appears as if there is something fundamentally broken or evil in this city and its halls of power. Clearly, the immediate conclusion is the following: we need a savior to deliver us from this evil. Sound familiar? It should if you know the story of the New Testament. The following constitutes a rationale of what I have learned of Washington’s flaws, with emphasis on subtle cognitive structures and the hidden myths therein. 

     It is inherent in human nature to hyperbolize: people we do not know, concepts we do not understand, musical masterpieces that overwhelm us, and places we've heard of, but have not yet visited. The same can be said about Washington, as people assign government and law mythical proportions with immeasurable powers. Out of these general notions weighed down by sheer ignorance comes the defining thought to many across the nation that we must get a particular person elected, at all cost. Some even go as far as to say that if this does not happen the consequences will be apocalyptic, with the entire fate of mankind hinging on our votes—not surprisingly, most such people would identify themselves with the Christian faith. Don’t get me wrong, it is right to support a candidate and you should vote, but how far is too far? Where do these ideas come from, how do they become so defining to these citizens, and what leads them to believe this complete antagonism between political parties? Many would say polarization and vitriolic rhetoric is the fundamental reason, but I would beg to differ, as they have got it backwards. The conflict-ridden atmosphere is in fact the result of what is happening around the country. My presence and interractions throughout D.C. have convinced me that Washington is indeed highly responsive to its voters and constitutes, a mirror of the electorate.

    Through all of the rhetoric and ideological prestidigitation one can find on Capitol Hill, I managed to identify a pattern very familiar to an Eastern European. The rise of ideologies in the 20th century revealed to the world what implications messianic thinking can have when secularized. Don’t get too excited, I am in no way going to succumb to a conspiracy theory on how the Antichrist is coming or going or returning, etc. In actuality I am trying to make a point by showing you how we blur the lines between religion and politics, resulting in a politicized religion—complete with its own saviors (for some it’s Glen Beck for others it is Pres. Obama) –a public realm that craves saviors. This becomes clear in any policy debate—one man has the answer (In recent budget debates it was Paul Ryan) but also on the ideational level the ‘silver-bullet’ oversimplification that we assign to all issues under the sun. Indeed, whether we like to admit it or not, the epistemological idea of what political scientists have called ‘immanentizing the eschaton’ is alive and well with us today, a token from an era dominated by ideological warfare. A highly revered Romanian Professor of Government at MDU writes: “Communism and Fascism, in their traditional incarnations, have failed. The same cannot be said about the psycho-ideational structures that made their rise possible.” (V. Tismaneanu On Anti-Americanism: The Resources And Persistence Of A Political Myth) It should be clear, if understood properly in its historical context, what the negative effects can be when succumbing to our own salvific temptations. The answer might lie in extensive politological analyses that I am not yet prepared to carry out, but I can say this: Engaging ‘the other’ will break down many myths assigned to the person otherwise vilified through media snippets.

     You might ask: What are you proposing, Robert? What is your silver-bullet, what should we advocate for now? In an attempt not to fall into this trap, I will conclude with thanking you for the intellectual effort in reading to the end, but also in quoting a greater thinker, Albert Einstein: “The World’s problems cannot be solved with the same mindset that has created them.”

-RB

A Modern Day Evil

“I did not even know that I had human right rights…” At a House hearing, on Thursday, September 24, the presiding Congressman, asked one of the witnesses to elaborate on the state of human rights for those in North Korea, and North Koreans who have fled into China. That was her response.

In the West we hear a lot about human rights. They are part of the fabric of our intellectual, social, and political framework. We are certainly quick enough to speak out when we think that they have been violated. I literally cannot remember a time when I did not know that I had intrinsic worth, that I mattered, that my life, my ideas, and my passions were important. As a part of my internship I get to attend briefings and hearings on matters that concern the organization, and my organization has been a involved in this issue for quite some time. So off I went, quite happy to not have to make the hour plus commute to my internship. I was anticipating a rather easy day, I had a couple hours of work to do from home, which was not too bad, and I was quite excited to get into an official Hearing. I do not know quite what I expected the hearing itself to be like, but what I got was one of the most challenging and brutal afternoons that I have ever had.

It began quite uneventfully, the Congressmen were about half an hour late, which is quite normal for Washington, or so I am told. The Congressmen gave their opening statements, thanking the witnesses for coming and curiously enough every single one of them, Republican and Democrat alike praised the witnesses for their courage in coming. In retrospect this should have clued me in but it did not. Then the witnesses were given their chance to speak. They told of the horrible conditions in North Korea, of deprivation and brutality so great that it left flight as its only option. They told of how in comparison with their home, China (Red China mind you) seemed like a dream come true. But then the dream turned to a nightmare as these refugees discovered that they were a commodity to be bought and sold. China’s already vicious one-child policy has created a major shortage of women, to the tune of between 30-40 million men who literally cannot find wives of any kind. This has created one of the most lucrative markets for the sex slave trade in the world. But why do the women not protest? A secret treaty between China and North Korea means that China returns all North Korean “migrants” to the hell that they are fleeing from. If a North Korean woman in China goes to the police, she will be turned back over to the North Koreans and either publicly executed or worked to death in labor camps. The tales of these people and the courageous (and almost exclusively Christian) people who are working to rescue them stirred my heart.

But then the hearing turned to the nature of the camps themselves. Survivors of the North Korean death camps had given one of the Congressmen descriptions of the various tortures of the camps along with hand drawn pictures of scenes that doubtless haunt their nightmares. One  of the pictures that haunted me was of a forced abortion, from a woman who had been raped in China and then turned back over to the North Koreans to dispose of. A board was placed across the woman’s belly and prisoners were forced to jump on it. The picture portrays a gun to the head of one of the weeping prisoners. More and more prisoners would be forced to jump on the board until the unborn child was crushed out of the woman in a flood of blood and ruined flesh. As the Congressman read the description, the reality of the picture on the screen hit me and I was hit with a flood of horror that is not quite like anything that I have ever felt. I do not recall the next several minutes of the hearing.

Picture followed picture, and the Congressman’s voice gave the matching descriptions in a strange monotone. The way that he read those descriptions was part of the unnerving nature of the briefing, in his opening statement he had showed himself to be as passionate and well-spoken as any politician. The absolute self-control that rendered his voice toneless was in itself a testament to the hideous nature of what he was reading. Though I could go on, I will not. Suffice it to say that I was not at all expecting what I got out of that day. And what did I get out that day? I am not sure.

But it is not every day that one is confronted by something that you could clearly and unquestionably call evil. So much of the time we live in a shades of gray world, with positives and negatives on both sides of a thing. I think it is good every now and then to come face to face with something that has no other side. Something that your very soul rejects, all the way down to the ground. Realizing that there are things that must be opposed allows us to hope for things that are worth fighting for even when things are drowned in a sea of grey. I do not know necessarily that I will dedicate my life to fighting the injustices in North Korea, or in working to free those who have been sold in slavery in China. But I am certain with no room for doubt, that if I were to pour out my life in such an endeavor it would be worth the cost.