Film explores how power reveals character

by J Scott Christianson, Columbia Daily Tribune Columnist.

The cliché “power corrupts” is wrong. Power reveals. It reveals the true character of those who possess it.

If you really want to know a person’s character, watch how he relates to those over whom he has power. Almost everyone treats their peers and those above them well. But watch how your friends and colleagues treat their waiter, the retail clerk, the receptionist or secretary, or their spouse and children. Then you’ll begin to understand who that person really is.

Last year, Matt Blunt assumed the power of the governor, and his true character has started to show through. If you want to learn about the type of man the governor is, I suggest you watch the film “Out of Sight, Out of Mind.” Produced locally by Rhonda Cleeton and Bill Helvey, this film explores the impact of the governor’s Medicaid cuts on some of the state’s most powerless people.

Unlike previous treatments of this subject, the film doesn’t deal in the hypothetical or abstractions about budget forecasts. Instead, the filmmakers went directly to those affected and let them speak in their own words. Consequently, you will learn a lot in this film that you will not learn elsewhere.

For example, you will learn that a disabled couple who have worked hard to make something of themselves, own a house and contribute to society will be required sell their home and live at the most subsistence level to meet the pay-down on…