A Government in Denial
People are said to be in denial when they refuse to own up to issues that are confronting them… Issues they may refuse to own even though by not addressing them, they stand to lose loved ones, jobs, or the respect of family members and friends. In extreme cases, families pull together for interventions, or a boss may give the person an ultimatum: “Deal with your drinking or find another job.” Life in denial is way more common than most people think, and since most interventions are of a personal nature, the details are, and should be, nobody else’s business.
Unfortunately, when a large cumulative group of individuals band together with a collective case of denial and set public policy that effects all of us, that intervention must be very public and carried out with a firm ultimatum: Get over your denial or find another job.
Our government is in denial. America has severe issues with housing, treatment, employment, and education at the local level. America is seeing these issues impact our loved ones and neighbors. We are seeing a massive increase in private security services policing public space, a massive increase in hate crimes, in the incarceration of mentally ill people, and an unprecedented wealth discrepancy between the haves and have nots. This has been documented over and over again—we can all see it and we all feel it.
All the signs are there and the symptoms seem to be getting worse: The inability to remember its commitments, such as the Federal government’s role in ensuring people’s ability to affordable a home. The quick temper and finger pointing, such as HUD secretary Alphonzo Jackson’s declaring, “[S]ome people just don’t deserve to live in subsidized housing,” to the people of New Orleans as he destroyed 4,000 units of mostly undamaged housing. Or the current exercise of Cover-It-Up-and-Hope-It-Goes-Away that is playing out with the reauthorization of the Stewart B. McKinney Act. Another word for cover-up is lying and the line between lying and denial is the razor thin line of intent:
“I wasn’t stealing your money, I was just borrowing it.”
This is the stage of denial when families, friends and co-workers either give up on a person or decide that they really do care enough to confront the person and force them to confront their demons. It’s called an intervention and our government is in serious need of one.
When the answer to the rising numbers of homeless people is to change the way we define who is homeless, is our government in denial or is it lying? And, to the families living doubled up or in motels and SROs who would now have to be able to prove they have moved around three times in the past year or two times in the past 21 days or they are not really homeless, does it even matter?
When the Bush administration has spent the past eight years making communities write over 300 ten-year plans to end chronic homelessness using a “Housing First” model, while continuing to decimate funding for affordable housing, is that living in denial or living a lie? And to the 907,000 children in America’s public school system, does the difference really matter?
When prisons and jails across the country are documenting threefold increases in the incarceration rates of mentally ill people and our community-based treatment programs continue to receive cuts in their funding, is our government in denial or lying by labelling these people “service-resistant” and arresting them as public nuisances? And do the rest of us really care?
The question really is: Are we in denial? Or are we so busy watching FOX news and singing “God Bless America” that we’re willing to ignore all the symptoms before us and just hope things will get better and that our government will come to its senses.
When a family member is so far gone that she can’t tell right from wrong, that he can’t tell truth from lies, those who love her or him are likely to stage an intervention. Uncle Sam needs our help: He is in denial… Are we?
WRAP