And of course there are "regulars." The Statesman publishes one letter per writer per month, but when you've been a subscriber for as long as I have, you begin to get a feel for the repeat offenders. They are angry flag-waving, Obama-hating conservatives to a man. They have loud, largely unfounded positions on foreign domestic policy. And like I said, I want to invite them to Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving, after all, isn't about giving thanks, as its name would suggest. The Pilgrims who made Thanksgiving an American tradition invited the Indians over for dinner––ostensibly to share the bounty––only to seize their land and resources the next morning on what would become another American tradition: Black Friday. This holiday is about unceremoniously violating the protocols of hospitality.
You can guess what I have in store for these letter-writing regulars. Or you can stay tuned.
Imagine that I have two from today's Statesman (Patrick Cannon, Frank Celsnak) sitting down on couches in a cozily lit room. In the fireplace, what was once a roaring fire is down to glowing embers and the occasional lick of flame. We're nursing hot spiked cider in our festive Thanksgiving-themed sweaters. Dinner went really well, and the turkey was perfectly cooked. Everybody went for seconds.
I open with the following: "So, Patrick [R. Cannon of Meridian], you once identified as a 'California liberal.' Why did you leave California?"
Cannon: "Well, I left California because ei,sow;fielfmchjtidlx,citow,mie. And it was much too liberal. I relocated to Idaho because ed,tueomtielcjrep.a'risjf,r5oqc, but 'Imagine how disheartening it was for me to move my family from California to Idaho and find my new hometown newspaper is a willing participant in the liberal insanity.'"
Moi: "And it is your contention that liberal journalism schools––you mentioned Columbia in your letter––are responsible for falsely reporting about the President's 'socialist' and 'checkered past,' and for reporting that the bailouts of major automakers and national banks were Bush's fault."
Cannon: "That's what I wrote."
Me: "And it is also true that you, a man in the autumn of his years and still in possession of a thick head of copper hair, molested a minor? If convicted, you could face 25 years in prison."
Cannon: "It's certainly possible. But I have not been tried or convicted by a jury of my peers, no matter how unlikely a fair trial may be, given that my peers are the oxcart-driving, snake-handling hoosiers of Meridian, Idaho."
Me: "Touche.
I take it, then, that you have never run for office or worked in the media or on a political campaign in an attempt to reform the system (as you see it) from the inside."
Cannon: "That would be a fair assumption."
Me: "And the same goes, I'm guessing, for you, Frank [Celsnak of Eagle]."
Celsnak: "Not exactly. I was in the Marine Corps, and earned my way as an engineer for General Motors."
Me: "Delightful! So your Tea Party politics can perhaps, in part, be traced to your roots in practical fiscal and social conservatism."
Celsnak: "Something like that."
Me: "Fair enough. And you hold that the liberal media is whitewashing a socialist power grab here in the United States, that George W. Bush was not a true 'conservative,' and that if Barack Obama was even slightly competent at his job, the numbers of uninsured, the unemployed, and below the poverty line, would have decreased dramatically over the last three years?––and that all this reduces our national sovereignty and plunges us into tyranny?"
Celsnak: "You have summed up my argument[s] perfectly."
Me: And the both of you believe that bailing out the banks and major automakers was both a terrible mistake and the fault of Barack Obama."
Them thar yokels: "Yep."
Me: "Then pardon my plain speaking, but who the fuck cares what you think? I mean, neither of you has demonstrated that you have any experience or knowledge of the media, politics, or the economy. One of you is a pederast, and the other has done nothing but follow orders his whole life.
The two things you have in common are blind anger and a misguided sense that things were better under George Bush. Neither of you has ever known the taste of authority, so what does your peon opinion matter?"
…
Celsnak and Cannon are idiots. I would have gone my whole life not knowing about their idiocy, but they went ahead and opened their mouths in public bitching about their President when they should be bitching about the abuses they've suffered at the hands of the system that has forgotten them.
At least the Occupy Wall Street movement got that part right.
I see the Tea Party and OWS as two sides of the same coin. Both (rightly) sense that something is seriously wrong with America. The economy is in the tank, the political mechanism has stalled, and the gap between the rich and poor is wider than it has ever been.
But all these Tea Party-ers and OWS-ers sound like a bunch of whiners. And not for the usual reasons.
Neither has turned its discontent into a potent or dynamic political force. So-called "Tea Party Candidates" are simple-minded obstructionists for whom the architecture of political and economic inequity that ravages their constituents is way too complicated to understand.
OWS has one hat in the ring, Elizabeth Warren. Let's give Warren some credit––she's a total rockstar. She has a working understanding of the system, policy and practical experience, and has a program for meaningful reform.
On the other hand, she's just one candidate. And she's positively reviled by the Tea Party folks who share her anger but lack her judgment and experience. Where's the glut of ambitious candidates? Where's the media blitz and fundraisers? Where's the coherent platform?
Blind partisanship, it would seem, is as paralyzing to the reform of our inadequate political and economic structures as ignorance and lack of authority.
I have never approved of protest. Marching, chants and banners are no substitute for votes and candidates, and it has always bothered me that people more readily take to the streets than take positive political action. Sure, you can bet your fat-cat politicians and captains of industry are watching OWS and the Tea Party on the news, but that doesn't mean they're scared, because the political and economic system that's in place favors them––not the unwashed masses.
It heartens me when I hear that Bank of America will repeal its proposed $5 charge on debit cards, or that "Quickster" was cancelled because Netflix lost a million subscriptions. All this shows that people know how to make use of their economic power to tell big business that they'll only be abused so much.
I would like to see the angry people of the world make such a meaningful splash in the capitol.
No comments:
Post a Comment