September 15, 2009 archive

I was moved by Buhdy’s anniversary essay, 2 Fucking Years where he reinjected a dose of spirituality into the conversation.

The theme of that essay that stood out to me was an affirmation of love in the cause. That was actually a bit shocking to me. In my real life, I make a living as a writer, poet, wordsmith etc. I take words pretty seriously. And I also take honesty most serious of all. And I have to confess, I am not sure what love even means in the context of my political activism. Is it the love you might find on a postcard? Or on a t-shirt with a peace sign? Is it Jesus love, of the all mankind variety? Or was it just the love of a blog owner towards the people who put their hearts and souls into this community?

I can’t really answer any of those questions, though I feel where Buhdy was coming from. But to be clear, it is not just love that drives me. In fact, I would say there is an equal part of pure hatred.

When I was 15, I had an epiphany. I had been studying the origins of anger for a psychology class. And in a moment of light, it dawned on me – all anger, frustration, aggravation etc. result primarily from one thing: expectations not met. Eliminate expectations and you will eliminate anger and frustration. So I spent the next 4 or 5 years dedicated to eliminating expectations. It’s pretty hard, but I eventually became a most docile creature (the fact that I was high most of the time didn’t hurt). In fact, I became a fucking pushover. People saw my docility as weakness, and seized on it. I was robbed, wronged, and left out in the cold until I finally realized, some expectations are necessary. And so is some anger.

I have refined over the last 25 years or so the concept. I now try to limit it to unrealistic expectations. I expect my wife not to have an affair. I expect my friends not to stab me in the back. And I expect my government, my democratic government of, by, and for the people, not to systematically work to undermine the well being of the people to whom the government represents.

I expect my government to be corruptible and flawed. A utopianist I am not. But I do not expect, nor can I tolerate my government as an enemy of its own people. And that is certainly what it has become. It has been over thrown. Conquered as surely as if tanks were parked on the mall in Washington. But this enemy is far more clever than the sword. It is a silent, subversive enemy. It has taken us by induction. And we have walked into its grip unknowing, without hesitation.

My anger, my rage can only be measured against the atrocities occurring around us and the lack of will to do anything about it. Or most commonly, the lack of will to even notice. This is a picture of a woman I met a couple of months ago at a McDonalds (don’t ask me why I was at a McDonalds). She was 79 years old. You can clearly see scoliosis has set in with her curved spine. I had heard about McDonalds hiring seniors as some sort of good will gesture ;). So in the most tactful way I could, I tried to get out of her why she was working there without embarrassing her. The best I got was a sardonic quip that confirmed her employment was not by choice (she was fully in charge of her faculties and quite a character). I asked her if I could take her picture and she obliged.

When I got back to the table, my three year old daughter asked me why I was crying. I lied to her and told her I wasn’t. Then she asked me if I was mad. No sweetie, not at you. Is that love? Absolutely. I absolutely love that woman. And I despise whoever and whatever made it so she, at her age, in this fucking country, found herself needing to get a job. To be certain I hold no ill will against the manager of that McDonalds. The people who put that woman there live far, far away.

This is war. Our country is under attack as surely as if bombs were dropping on our heads. But it’s not a combat war. The weapon of choice for our enemy is a box with electrons flickering across the screen. But it is war none the less. And I am not Jesus. I do not love my enemy.

Nor do I love the sycophantic droves of the netroots who worship at the alter of their own self importance. I can understand people believing that the Democratic party is the best instrument to push a progressive agenda. But I have little patience for people who rake in big bucks selling that idea like snake oil when they are merely securing their own positions among the Democratic establishment that has clearly been bought and is clearly not on our side.

There was a time when the goal of the broader progressive movement was in alignment with the broader Democratic party electorate. That was when Howard Dean was still a viable candidate. After that, however, the very real and very important People Power movement that had arisen around the Dean candidacy became dissolved in the solvent of John Kerry’s scotch and soda and a party machine that had no purpose for people power other than a means to raise cash.

Since then a cottage industry has emerged as various netroots entities all vie for the top slot as the best bundlers of netroots loot. While securing their own positions in this new hierarchy of the Democratic money game, they betray the most fundamental principle of reform: removing the corrupting influence of money.

It is a lie. We are never going to be able to buy our party back, especially with small contributions from the internet. Obama did not break records for small contributions. The Beatles are not getting back together, and we the people, even if there were a means to organize such contributions, don’t have the fucking money.

We are never going to elect better Democrats because there is no applicable methodology within our campaign framework to determine if a candidate is good or a candidate is bad. You think you know your candidate? You don’t. It’s a TV show.

Even if we could see into people’s souls, it’s not the people anyway. I would bet that at least half of the most uselessly corrupt Democrats in Congress started out wanting to change the world for the better. It’s the system. It always has been.

So this leaves only one remedy, and unfortunately for some celebrity bloggers, it doesn’t include them riding in limos. Leverage.

And that means that the central hub of progressive activism-via-Democratic party, Daily Kos, is wasted enterprise – except in terms of profit to the Daily Kos Corporation.

The two primary objectives espoused on that site, get Democrats elected, and advance the progressive agenda, are mutually exclusive.

This means that, unless my strategic calculation is incorrect, and it is not which is why ALL of our real political opponents from Big Insurance to the Banking Cartels utilize it, then the progressive movement has some soul searching to do. And I don’t know if love is going to assist in that.  

Eight years ago today, my husband arrived home early from work. As he walked into the room, I rose from my bed and announced that I wanted to get something to eat.

This was a big deal because I hadn’t eaten anything for three days. I’d spent most of that time laying in bed, not wanting to be alive, not wanting to be awake, trying to wish the nightmare away. Sometimes I would get up out of bed and wander around the house. I’d drink some water and see if anything new was on TV. It wasn’t. I’d stand there for a few minutes watching on the idiot box what I’d already seen with my own two eyes, turn it off, and go back to bed. I slept a lot. I cried more than I care to remember. I’d reassure the cats, who were all expressing the worry and concern of communication-challenged but emotionally astute children.

Most television channels still had footage of the crumbling towers on eternal repeat, but a few were starting to show other coverage. The TV coverage didn’t come anywhere close to the chilling, thunderous sound of the collapses as I experienced them from only a mile away. It was very lost on me, and therefore very easy to walk away from or turn off.

The worst of my horror was the certain knowledge that there was no way the US intelligence community hadn’t seen this coming. I tried to push what I knew to the back of my mind, denying it, unable to deny it, unable to forget it, and unable to share it with anyone. The knowledge of this was kind of like the sound of the towers coming down – it was something you’d never understand unless you’d been there. It wasn’t going to be on TV. Trying to talk about it would get one looked at with the level of sympathy reserved for the insane. That didn’t make it any less real or any less horrifying.

My husband gently asked me what I wanted to eat, fully planning to make it for me. I said I wanted something that we wouldn’t have to cook ourselves. I’m not really a junk food fiend, but for whatever reason I settled on Burger King.

We went to the “Bravo Kilo” as we used to call it in the military, and I ordered my usual, which was a whopper with cheese, no tomato. While we were sitting and waiting for my first meal in three days, a fire broke out in the kitchen. The fire alarm began incessantly shrieking and strobing. Shortly a hook and ladder company came barrel-assing into the parking lot. The other people in the restaurant glanced uncomfortably and sadly at the firemen, still feeling the shock themselves from 9/11. I was quietly laughing like a crazy woman – the last damned time I’d been outside the house there had been the same scene… smoke and incessant sirens. Just what I needed, another overload of adrenaline. Nobody there except my husband would understand why I was laughing, but it wasn’t like anyone could hear me over the siren anyway. Eventually after what felt like an eternity tied to a mast, the husband returned bearing my food.

Three days of not eating won out over the adrenaline. I took my burger to go and we got the heck out of there. I ate it in the car.

Every year on September 14th, rich or poor, sick or well, at home or a hundred miles away from home, I go to my local “Bravo Kilo” and order a whopper with cheese, no tomato.

Now you know why.