Citizens or Neighbors? 6OKT10

by Julie Clawson

Last week a Tennessee man’s house burned to the ground while firefighters stood by and watched. Gene Cranick hadn't paid a $75 insurance fee that opts him into his county’s fire protection services, according to him he simply forgot to send it in. So when his house caught fire, firefighters showed up and watched his house burn (with his pets inside). They worked to save a neighbor's field (who had paid the fee), but simply stood by as his house burned to the ground. There is much to-do being made about following the laws of the land and the safety of firefighters working in a place they aren’t insured to protect. Comparisons are (rightly) being made to instances where people die in the ER because they are refused treatment since they don't have health insurance. What we see is that the system rewards those with privilege any money who can afford protection, but denies help to those who fall outside that group.
Those, of course, aren’t the only laws that prevent help from reaching people. Numerous cities have passed laws against panhandlers. Included in these laws are rules that forbid giving handouts to beggars. These laws make it against the law to feed the hungry – giving a sandwich to a homeless guy on the streets is technically illegal in many areas. Also there are the laws about not giving aid to immigrants. Pastors cannot offer shelter, food, or sanctuary to the needy if they are illegally in this country. Doctors cannot treat the wounded for fear of lending aid that is against the law. We have allowed ourselves to be consumed by a system where we have essentially forgotten that the Sabbath was made for people, not people for the Sabbath.
Somewhere along the way we have started caring more about being a good citizen than being a good neighbor. It’s strange, because we still attempt to instill in our children the idea of being a good neighbor – to help even those that oppose us. With two young children at home, I see a lot of the TV shows and movies aimed at kids. I see Dora going off to help out her arch-enemy Swiper when he gets in trouble. Or in the new Tinkerbelle movie, I see the fairies mounting a rescue attempt for the one fairy that always tries to ruin their lives. No matter who those people are or how bad they have been, the message gets sent that if they are in trouble you help them no matter what. In the same way we teach our kids the story of the Good Samaritan, emphasizing that racial, cultural, and economic lines do not matter when it comes to how we should help others who are hurting. We say that we value being a good neighbor, but how quickly that gets abandoned when it gets in the way of being a good citizen.
Allowing the laws of the land to stand in the way of love is not what it means to live out what Jesus was encouraging in that parable. Standing by and watching a house burn down and pets be burned alive because of a $75 fee is not being a good neighbor. Nor is letting someone die because they aren’t rich enough to afford insurance. From a certain political perspective it can be justified as being a good citizen, but that is not even close to being the same thing. Perhaps we need to listen more to the lessons we teach our children. Being a good neighbor means taking care of people no matter their economic, racial, or political status. It means loving them no matter how badly they may have treated us or offended our sensibilities. It means we have to stop being the Priest or the Levite who let the excuses of legality and red tape justify our crossing to the other side of the road and walking right past those who suffer. Being a good neighbor means revering compassion and love above following the letter of the law. The laws were made to serve, not to prevent us from actually serving.
But I fear we have it all backwards in our society as we constantly seek to find new and more creative ways to avoid doing the hard work of actually following Jesus.
Update – For a perfect example of this messed up worldview, read these comments arguing that letting the house burn down was the "Christian" think to do since having compassion means you follow a weak "feminized" Christianity that doesn't care about responsibility or prosperity.

Glenn Beck Mocks Fire Victims, Reaches New Depths of Awfulness & Firefighters Watch As Home Burns: Gene Cranick's House Destroyed In Tennessee Over $75 Fee (VIDEO) 5&6OKT10

SO THIS IS A CONTINUATION OF glenn beck's 'restoring honor' rally IN D.C. ABOUT A MONTH AGO? PATHETIC, AND SHOULD GIVE HIS SUPPORTERS REASON TO QUESTION HIS MOTIVES AND MORALITY, BUT UNFORTUNATELY HE WILL TWIST THIS TO SOMEHOW MAKE IT A MISUNDERSTANDING EXPLOITED BY THE LEFT AND HIS SUPPORTERS WILL BELIEVE THAT TOO......FROM HUFFPOST

I've probably written and rewritten this opening paragraph about Glenn Beck and his morning zoo sycophantic sidekick Pat Gray four or five times with various sequences of compound obscenities and ad hominem insults. But I'm opting for more restraint at this point, even though neither of these jackals deserves it. Especially so, considering their latest hand-in-hand plunge into all new depths of awfulness.
By now, you've probably heard the news about Gene Cranick and his family, and how the South Fulton, Tennessee fire department stood by and allowed the Cranick house to burn to the ground, destroying everything and killing the family's dogs and cats. All because the Cranicks failed to pay a $75 fee. While a raging brush fire neared his home, Cranick begged the fire chief to stop the fire before it engulfed his house. He even offered to immediately pay the $75 fee, but the chief refused and the house burned to the ground.
As a survivor of two house fires (technically, one was a gas explosion) my heart goes out to the Cranicks and the nightmare they're enduring today. But my own experiences are incidental -- you don't have to have survived a pair of house fires to recognize the unapologetic callousness of Beck and his squishy Quatto-from-Total-Recall parasitic twin Pat Gray.
Here's what happened.
Yesterday on his radio show, Beck and Gray not only defended the fire department's refusal to save the Cranick's house, but they also accused Cranick of "sponging" off his neighbors -- all the while mocking and ridiculing Cranick's rural accent. Courtesy of ThinkProgress, here's the clip:

And the takeaway quote from Beck:

If you don't pay the 75 dollars then that hurts the fire department. They can't use those resources, and you'd be sponging off your neighbor's resources.

That's right. A matter of days after losing everything they owned, including their home, their pets, family photographs -- everything -- and all because of a delinquent $75 fee, Gene Cranick and his family were excoriated, scolded and teased by multimillionaire celebrity televangelist Glenn Beck in front of a radio audience estimated at upwards of 10 million listeners.
Gray is real pip, too, isn't he? I'm trying to figure out why it's especially hilarious to do an impersonation of Cranick. Although it's easy to understand why Gray thought it would be funny to go there -- mainly because Gray is the deep-voiced equivalent of the late Bruno Kirby's comedy-impaired "Lt. Hauk" character from Good Morning, Vietnam. Talking in a silly voice is so funny. Doesn't matter who or why. It's a silly voice, after all. That crazy rube and his burned down house. Mock-worthy! Crowd pleaser. If I may, a brief comedy lesson for Pat Gray here. Generally, when actual funny people mock someone's accent or voice, it's because the mockee has done something awful or bizarre enough to deserve the mockery. Someone in a position of authority, perhaps. Who's next in your madcap repertoire of voices, Pat? Stroke victims? Cancer patients? Abused homeless children? Whoever it is, I bet it'll be comedy gold. One for the "Best of Pat Gray" showreel.
Back to Beck himself. It takes a truly brave man to aim high and take on a defenseless working class family whose entire world was just destroyed over a $75 fee. What kind of a man hectors and pillories an average, innocent American family during their darkest hour and in front of 10 million radio listeners, all for the sake of ratings, personal profit and a few super-cheap laughs? Not a serious man. Not a "man" at all, in fact. Certainly not a man of integrity or honor -- or a man of God, as he so regularly claims to be. Really courageous, this Glenn Beck guy. What a hero.
As unforgivable and shocking as it might be, it's all part of an ongoing thread among far-right radio hosts, cable news talkers and wingnut bloggers. They can't seem to distinguish between actual targets and noncombatants, and generally believe that anyone and everyone is fair game. The creepy stalking and swift-boating of 12-year-old coma victim Graeme Frost, for example. Or a private school in Northern Virginia that was targeted by Beck on his TV show as a facility for "terrorist indoctrination." Or when broader wingnuttia went after those kids who sang a song about President Obama. Or all the times when Bill O'Reilly has stalked and accosted school officials. Or the time when Fox News Channel targeted and exposed a 12-year-old girl who dared to ask the president a question at a town hall.
Nothing like going after the hard targets, guys. The big names. The real killers. The evildoers.
Beck, Gray and the others are hyenas. Scavengers. Bottom-feeders who routinely wield the power of the most-viewed cable news network and one of the world's biggest entertainment multinational corporations to attack children and house fire victims. But I suppose they'll continue to do so as long as there are advertisers to sponsor their hard-hitting investigations of $75 delinquents. Though I'm not sure how mocking fire victims is good for branding and sales, but okay. As long as they can sleep at night knowing what brand of crap their products are associated with.
Somehow I still hear from people who insist that if we just ignore Glenn Beck, he'll go away. He won't. So while he's broadcasting such nonsense in the guise of this ridiculous googly-eyed character he's playing, we have no choice but to be tenacious about calling him on his awfulness, especially given the size of his audience. Meanwhile, when the karma for this Cranick bit comes back around to Beck, we can only hope it stings and itches.
Okay, fine. So my attempt at restraint wasn't so successful.

Firefighters Watch As Home Burns: Gene Cranick's House Destroyed In Tennessee Over $75 Fee (VIDEO)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/firefighters-watch-as-hom_n_750272.html

A smoldering rage may be all that remains after Gene Cranick's home burned to the ground last week in Obion County, Tennessee.
Firefighters are usually the bold "veni, vidi, vici" sort, but those from neighboring South Fulton could only say "veni, vidi." They came. They watched. That's it.
Cranick lives outside of the city limits and he admits that he forgot to pay a $75 annual service fee that would have provided him with fire protection. Firefighters wouldn't lift a finger, much less the hoses that might have saved the house.
The fire reportedly started in some barrels outside. As the flames crept closer to the home, Cranick says he offered to pay whatever it would take. The plea fell on deaf ears. Hours later, the home was gone.
So were three dogs and a cat.
"They coulda' been saved if they put water on it. But they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC.
The South Fulton firefighters did show up and managed to save a neighbor's field. The neighbor had paid the fee. But they would provide no heroics for the Cranicks. A local news report shows them climbing back on their trucks, flames still dancing over what was once the family's home.

Story continues below

The event was dubbed "pay for spray" by MSNBC host Keith Olbermann. It's a chilling vision of what could play out in a third world America, where paying taxes isn't enough to cover basic services. Fire protection, it turns out, is a privilege in some communities. On Monday's show, Olbermann railed against the larger implications the incident, calling it "a look now into the America envisioned by the tea party ... just a preview of what would come in a kind of a la carte government."
WATCH:

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Think Progress was equally incensed:

As ThinkProgress has noted, there are currently two competing visions of governance in the United States. One, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own society, and informs a policy agenda that primarily serves the well off and privileged sectors of the country. The other vision, the progressive one, believes in an American Dream that works for all people, regardless of their racial, religious, or economic background.

The conservative vision was on full display last week in Obion County, Tennessee.

Cranick's wife, Paulette, doesn't blame the firefighters. "They're doing what they are told to do. It's not their fault," she told WPSD.
South Fulton Mayor David Crocker didn't exude compassion when interviewed for the same report, comparing the service to an insurance policy. "Anybody that's not in the city of South Fulton, it's a service we offer, either they accept it or they don't."
A family in Tennessee didn't accept. They lost their home over a $75 fee.
WATCH:

• Third World America
• Video

A smoldering rage may be all that remains after Gene Cranick's home burned to the ground last week in Obion County, Tennessee. Firefighters are usually the bold "veni, vidi, vici" sort, but those fro...

A smoldering rage may be all that remains after Gene Cranick's home burned to the ground last week in Obion County, Tennessee. Firefighters are usually the bold "veni, vidi, vici" sort, but those fro...