Tom Coburn Should Read the Poem "No Man is an Island" Before Talking About Budget Cuts and the Tornado Disaster in Oklahoma

When I was in middle school, my home town was hit by a devastating tornado. We were fortunate. While my neighborhood was without power for almost 10 days, and many homes were destroyed, the loss of life--considering the power of the tornado--was relatively low.

The destroyed houses, fallen trees, and crushed cars are sights that I will never forget. But the impression that stayed with me the longest, and was formative for my belief that government can--despite Ronald Reagan's argument to the opposite--do good, were the droning sounds of Army helicopters, big green trucks full of marines and supplies, the hundreds of utility workers from all over New England and New York, and those big men from the Connecticut State Police who manned the perimeter around Hamden and New Haven that hot summer day and night.

Within an hour after the tornado hit our "first responders" were present and getting down to business; our tax dollars did some good that day. In 2013, I doubt the federal and state assistance would have come as quickly, in force, or efficiently.

My well-wishes and positive energy go out to the good people of Moore, Oklahoma. So much loss and destruction: they will need the support of all Americans in rebuilding their lives and community.

Oklahoma's Republican Senator Tom Coburn is a reminder that abstract public policy matters have real life implications for people's lives. Discussions about cutting the state and federal budget in the interest of trimming "waste" means that you fire people and put them out of their homes. Cutting down on money for disaster relief and infrastructure means that people die in an emergency and the country has poorly maintained roads, railways, and bridges which is both an impediment to economic growth, and creates difficulties in properly supporting communities when they are in crisis.

Tom Coburn is a member of the Austerity neo liberalism coven. While people suffer, he is more interested in expounding on the gospel of budget cuts in response to disaster relief for the people of Moore, Oklahoma than in adhering to a rubric wherein the social compact is precisely a promise that the State will provide proper support for its citizens in dealing with disasters and other matters outside of their immediate control.

Bodies remain unburied. Yet, Tom Coburn is treating a disaster as an exercise in accounting.

He is also a hypocrite. Coburn has supported aid for his state in times of trouble in the past while opposing similar programs for other communities.

Austerity and neo liberalism are morally unconscionable policies not just because of how the logic of profit maximization is used to destroy the legitimacy of the public commons and the social safety net by transferring the State's resources (i.e. the people's tax money) to the private coffers of elite policy makers and their agents. The immorality is of a different nature: the Tom Coburns of the world do not have to deal with the material consequences of their own policies. In all, this is a breach of trust between citizens and their elected officials.

When the Barons of Austerity and privatization have no need for public services such as police, fire departments, schools, hospitals, and in this case disaster relief, they are immune from how their policy prescriptions hurt and destroy the lives of real people.

Members of the elite ruling class like Tom Coburn have no need for federal aid in times of crisis because they are rich. Men such as Tom Coburn do not need to worry about the common or civic good because they live in their own parallel public of the beltway, the policy wonks, think tanks, insular apparatus of the political party system, plutocrats, interest groups, lobbyists, and gated communities.


In all, the Social Darwinism which is Austerity and neo liberalism in practice suggests that those of us who are impacted by disasters, be they natural, or man-made as in the case of the Great Recession, only have ourselves to blame for a lack of preparedness.

If a person has neither the resources or expertise then from this perspective one has only themselves to blame. There, the victims of disasters are viewed as somehow lazy or have violated the American ethics of thrift and preparedness. And as we saw with Hurricane Katrina, this sense of who are the deserving and undeserving of assistance is magnified by the twin lenses of race and class in America.

Some may call my belief in "good government", and its auxiliary concepts "the common good" and the social compact, a bit "romantic" and "nostalgic." Given the vicissitudes of Austerity-era America with its paradoxes of record wealth and profit for the most wealthy, and devastation for the working class and poor, a bit of political imagination and idealism may be precisely what is necessary to force mobilization and change.

To right his mind, ethics, and civic priorities, I suggest that Tom Coburn should read the poem No Man is an Island by John Donne:

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thine own

Or of thine friend's were.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

As Tom Coburn reflects upon how the people of Moore, Oklahoma are suffering, perhaps John Donne's poem will spark a sense of civic responsibility from him. Maybe, No Man is an Island will serve as a reminder for the Austerity barons in both the Tea Party GOP and the Democratic Party of how public servants ought to be bounded by the virtues and obligations of community, belonging, and service to all Americans.

It is okay to dream from time to time. Is it not?