By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Something quite unique happened this week, although it came with tears and sorrow, with anger and determination. The smoke cleared away to wisps; news agencies attempted a thoughtful response to difficult stories, and we — haltingly, but surely — began to tell the truth to one another about some core issues that have goaded, driven and all but immobilized us for years.
For instance, we followed the dots of the tragic suicide of Robin Williams to an urgent need to not only discuss burgeoning problems of depression, but to raise our voices in a call to adequately fund services for an America struggling with mental health challenges. It wasn’t just his personal loss that touched us, it was our collective loss that motivated us. As if something loosened the strictures that kept us mum, we seemed to find our voice.
TV news buzzed with a level of candor that startled the casual viewer, and web sites provided details to news bites the editors seemed to think we’d already chewed, swallowed and assimilated. Although it took more than a decade to achieve, it feels as if, with Hundredth Monkey agility, the collective mind has turned a page without even knowing it. We are suddenly able to track the mission creep of genocide relief in Iraq to strafing in protection of Kurdish oil reserves without impaling ourselves on the razor-sharp edges of our fractured American mythology.
Without a blink or a stumble, we can openly examine Hillary Clinton’s hawkish inclinations, including her coziness with both Israel and Wall Street. We can name the death of a Two Star General in Afghanistan a hollow and meaningless finale to a ruinous and disastrous war; we can even rethink the possibility that spying does not keep us safer but instead threatens our freedom. And don’t look now, but it appears that we’re also talking candidly among ourselves about the growing problem of police brutality and racism in America.