Here is a documentary that’s at times so unsettling, so frightening, that you believe it can’t possibly be true. But it is. And it’s us. Our political discourse has become so fractured and so dysfunctional that, as Ken Rudin, NPR political commentator, puts it, “People don’t talk to each other, they talk at each other.” Bob Schieffer of CBS News says that these past few years are the worst he’s seen in his 41 years in Washington, starting from 1969. Another figure says that in that time, Republicans and Democrats did disagree, but at the end of the day, they’d go out, have drinks, talk, and know each other’s families. It’s easier to treat your opponents as strangers, and not know anything about them, in order to lambast them on the floor of the House or the Senate.
On its face, Patriocracy seems obvious enough, since we’re exposed to noise, noise, noise on the Internet and noise, noise, noise on the cable news channels. It’s a lot of noise, and it’s overwhelming noise. Is it Congress that has made this country so unable to communicate with each other without grabbing for each other’s throats? Certainly. Are the cable news channels also to blame? Yes. Are we at fault because information is so easy to find these days and one source is easier than tapping into many sources to get a full view of what’s going on? Also yes. Patriocracy spreads the blame easily, and remains even-handed between Democrats and Republicans throughout. It says that we have serious problems to solve in America and they’re not being solved by all the shouting and poisonous rhetoric and bitter feelings. We’re not a well-informed society today, not even making an effort to be well-informed, and things have to change.
But before it offers solutions through retired Rep. Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma that could work, Patriocracy explores the breakdown between all of us. It’s the hard-line conservatives and liberals in Congress who don’t want to compromise. They just want to win at all costs. It’s Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow and Glenn Beck and Wolf Blitzer and Rush Limbaugh. You can find your political bent, opinions to match your opinions, on whatever news channel you want. Fox News for conservatives, MSNBC for liberals, as is so brilliantly pointed out by Kent Collins, chairman of Radio and TV Journalism at the University of Missouri. But he goes beyond that, taking the same news story filtered through Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity and showing exactly how it’s not news, even though both employ faux news anchor looks and official-looking graphics. It’s the grand centerpiece of this documentary, and the most eye-opening aspect of it.
There are insights from many current former and House representatives, as well as Senator Alan Simpson, but the most sobering piece comes from former Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina. He talks about a town hall meeting he conducted in which he found that he was wrong. He wanted to spend five minutes talking about the faults in President Obama’s health care plan and then spend an hour and 25 minutes talking with his constituency about solutions, what improvements could be made to the plan. He says he should have spend five minutes seeking solutions and an hour and 25 minutes railing against the president. One woman tells him that he should watch Glenn Beck if he wants to find out what’s wrong with this country, and that what Beck has to say scares her. Inglis replies that if his commentary scares her, she should turn off the TV. A commonsense solution, he says, but then from video of the event, we hear such an uproar in reaction to that suggestion.
Through so many of these figures interviewed, director Brian Malone pushes for compromise, for people to listen to each other, for there to be a middle ground. Mickey Edwards’ list of proposed changes in Congress, including a weekly question-and-answer session between the president and Congress just like the British do it with the Prime Minister, would be a good idea, and so would “pay for performance,” meaning that if Congress doesn’t do what’s necessary, such as with budgets and the like, they don’t get paid. A longer work week is also proposed, but honestly, I’m not sure.
I like all this. I wish it would happen. But in the pursuit of compromise, in calling for both political parties to come together and concentrate on these issues, take them seriously, how will each side react if they don’t get everything they want on a bill? Will they graciously concede their desires for the greater good of the country? I agree with Malone on the overblown nature of cable news channels, and I agree with Edwards on his proposals, but I can’t see the light so quickly. How do we pull out from what we’re currently in? It’s true that we do need to be well-informed, that we need to consider the facts over our emotional reactions. Like Mulder on The X-Files, I want to believe. But right now, the idea that political discourse could improve feels so alien. It starts with me, and it starts with you, as readers, as viewers, as voters. It does start with being better-informed, with telling our Congressional representatives to do better. But how many will listen? It’s a long, hard process, and maybe that day will come yet. Something’s got to give….again.
Patriocracy is only the second DVD from Cinema Libre Studio that I’ve reviewed, and I’m even more impressed at how passionate they are about the topics they present through the documentaries and movies they produce and distribute. They want the world to think, really think, to listen to different viewpoints, to explore new things. They don’t have to agree, but hopefully they understand. The extras on this DVD include 6 more minutes with Alan Simpson, 5 more minutes with Bob Schieffer, and 4 more minutes with Ken Rudin, as well as the trailer, and trailers for The Best Government Money Can Buy?, The Forgotten Bomb, Ethos, Gashole, and Electile Dysfunction. Cinema Libre Studio is rapidly proving itself to be one of the best DVD labels working today.
It’s an election year, so the political ads are bound to get worse, which Patriocracy profiles through the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This may not be the year to consider what Patriocracy subtly pleads for, since it’s already well in progress, but it should be seen by as many people as possible, to see that the noise, noise, noise is getting us nowhere, nowhere, nowhere. It’s time to go somewhere better in our society, and have something different to listen to.
