Leverage in the Real World

My sister is totally in to this program called Leverage and then she got my son hooked, who then got me hooked. It's a delightful drama around correcting some of the inherent evil in the world and getting revenge the right way. My son and I have been watching a bunch of episodes, so you kind of get into that world, but reality is reality, and reality is not Life-As-In-Leverage.

On the other hand, in some ways, life is alot like this Leverage. We may not be supplied with the tools or the skill set (that may or may not be good ) to correct social injustice in the way this Leverage team is, but aren't we in some way or another, just because we are humans on the planet today, in some way responsible to correct what needs to be corrected?

Because I kept thinking about this one episode (in case you're wondering, it's called The Second David). Here you have a man who is tormented by the death of his child, which could have been averted if the insurance company had approved the claim, the insurance company he had worked at for 20 years. I was trying to relate this to the real world; because in the real world, we need that kind of stuff. America is built on this infrastructure of consumerism and it has bred the ugliest greed, so that bad CEO's and bad policies are actually the norm, for example in the health insurance industry or the banking industry. In the Leverage world, get the bad CEO's and the bad policies out was the theme and done brilliantly.

But in the real world, we sit here because we are in many ways powerless to do anything but accept it. We accept the medical directors who refuse claims because their job is not to serve people, but to make sure the company makes money. And we accept the health insurance companies denying our children the services they need or the medical supplies. We accept the health insurance policies that treat anyone with a "pre-existing condition" as if they were lepers and Untouchables. We accept banks stealing the public's money and we accept a thousand other inequities and social injustices in the name of consumerism and greed.

It would be very cool to have all that "leverage" that the Leverage team has to address some of these incredibly real issues. We don't. But - faced with the consequences of consumerism and greed, the bad CEO's and the bad policies, should we just give up?

I don't think so. I think that our very real world needs more strength of change. I don't claim to have the answers on this one, indeed, I am deeply and personally affected by the negative machinations of the health industry and the banking industry. But I appreciate the voice of this program that lends just a tiny bit of light.

No, we are not drama, and life is not a tv show, but is there something we can do? Laws are created and change is made by individuals who perceive a mission of rectifying just such injustice as we are witness to everyday of our lives. What can you do? What one thing can you do today?

Blessings.
- Darshan



© 2010 Darshan F Jessop