Editor’s Note: This op-ed is by Bob Stannard, a Manchester resident and a lobbyist for Citizens Action Network, a group that opposes the relicensure of Vermont Yankee. This commentary first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
I saw the movie “MASH” the other day. Not the TV series with Alan Alda and Mike Farrell but the original movie. It starred Elliot Gould as “Trapper,” Donald Sutherland as “Hawkeye,” Tom Skeritt as “Duke Forrest” and Robert Duval as “Major Frank Burns.” I had not seen the movie since it was released in 1970.
It was hard to believe that over four decades had passed since this popular, all-time classic film was released. Watching this movie caused me to realize just how much has changed since 1970.
The main (and very loveable) characters in the movie — three slightly unorthodox doctors, Hawkeye Pierce, Duke Forrest and Trapper John McIntyre — were drafted to serve in an appropriately named Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) unit during the Korean War. That the movie was released in the middle of the Vietnam War was no accident.
Duke and Trapper arrive, and it becomes clear that they were rebellious, womanizing, mischievous rule-breakers (they arrive having “borrowed” a Jeep, and immediately begin flirting with the nursing staff), but they soon prove beyond argument that they are also good at their jobs. They immediately clash with their new tent mate Major Frank Burns, who is a religious zealot and an inferior surgeon. Hawkeye and Duke put pressure on Lt. Col. Henry Blake, the unit’s commanding officer, to have Burns removed from their tent (notwithstanding that Burns was there first). They request to have a specialist; a thoracic surgeon, assigned to the 4077th; hence the arrival of Hawkeye Pierce.
The three decide that they have to rid their tent of the religious fanatic, incompetent Maj. Burns, and without giving the movie away, were successful in doing so. Suffice it to say that Burns ends up in a strait jacket while our heroes end up in a golf game.
Back in this era, the Bible-thumping, incompetent crazy person is hauled away. The smart, funny, liberal, unorthodox competent people were looked upon as heroes. That was then and this is now.
Today, it appears to those who would be apt to relate to the characters of Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John that we have switched roles. Today, Hawkeye and Trapper would be sidelined and the lunatic Maj. Frank Burns would be the star of the show. We’ve watched this movie play out in our U.S. Congress, which has been hijacked by the so-called Tea Party movement; seemingly crazed individuals who would just as soon burn down the house to get rid of the carpenter ants.
The Tea Party movement was started by former Republican leader Dick Armey and funded by the Koch brothers. It is another example of the unwitting being co-opted. We saw this in 2000 when then-candidate George W. Bush empowered the Evangelicals (the Major Burnses) and used social issues such as abortion to divide the nation and, consequently, win the presidency. After eight years of watching some scary folks rise to a level of influence, many people were pretty turned off. Those very wealthy folks who felt threatened by the prospects of losing power, and their handsome tax cuts graciously handed to them by the Bush administration, were not about to go quietly when a black Democrat won the White House.
President Obama was handed a nation with an economy soaring off the cliff. He was also handed a remedy from his generous predecessor: a stimulus package he had no choice but to implement. The package was enough to keep us from shooting over the cliff, but not enough to make a noticeable difference to the average working person.
This created the ideal climate for Armey and those well-financed folks he represents to rile up the crazies. They came up with a clever name — The Tea Party — and whipped them up into a frenzy of screaming that we’re spending too much money. The fact that the Republicans financed two wars off the books, to the tune of trillions of dollars, never came up. Nor do you hear this loud minority cry about the corporate welfare that sucks up billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars every year.
No, all you hear is the battle cry “We need to stop spending,” or “We have a crisis.” We do need to get our fiscal house in order, but the crisis is contrived. We had a predictable housing bubble burst, resulting in a downturn of the economy, while simultaneously cutting off our revenue stream by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest in the land. It’s an intentionally manufactured crisis.
The people who at one time in this society would have been put in a strait jacket, stuffed in a Jeep and sent back home now have great influence. They have successfully held our country hostage, demanding we cut spending. Those doing the funding want to rid the nation of Medicare and Social Security.
This only happens when the rest of us sit back and let the loud-mouth bullies and crazies rule the day. If you think there’s a better way to run this MASH unit, then you better enlist. They are not about to draft you.
