November 08, 2006
Politics.
It’s kinda funny. I used to not give a shit about politics. I used to think that I was so far detached from it that nothing really mattered and that I was better off not getting involved. Hell, my girlfriend had to talk me into getting involved, and even then I was skeptical.
Most people talk about 9-11 being a pivotal moment in their lives. Whether it’s New Yorkers who saw the devastation firsthand, ex-NYC residents who felt a part of them die when a part of their hometown died, or just a bunch of crybaby wieners who wanted to be part of something and pretend that they were involved in 9-11 for their own emotional or egotistical gain, a lot of people felt the reverberations of that one fateful day.
My pivotal moment would be the time period after 9-11. The worst thing that I could have experienced at that time would be living in a red state, in a redneck podunk town, where they took 9-11 and turned it into bloodlust for Middle Easterners, and wrapped themselves in the flag.
Jingoistic bullshit abounded. American flags and yellow ribbons were everywhere. Restaurants openly listed “Freedom Fries” on the menu. And everyone was eaten up with this “you’re either for us or against us” mindset. And I was down with the military going into Afghanistan to catch bin Laden. We had the right idea then.
And then Bush announced his intent to invade Iraq.
Regardless, my environs kept on rolling with the anti-Middle-Eastern sentiment. I couldn’t throw a stick without hitting some yokel incessantly whining about “ragheads” and how Muslims wanted to see America destroyed and blahblahblah. It was disgusting. It was frightening.
It was racism with a half-assed call to virtue tied onto it, and nothing more.
At that time, I started listening to the elders of my family. My grandfathers (yes, grandfathers, I’ll explain some other time) were both veterans of WWII (one Navy, one Marines) who had seen the worst that wartime had to offer. They, along with my grandmother, had survived the Great Depression, had fought numerous battles, and had seen and experienced shifts in public perception and innovations that I’ll probably never even be able to touch. They were crusty tough old fuckers raised in the age of Bogart, Lee Marvin, and the Rat Pack, old-school progressive liberals with book-smarts and street-smarts to spare, and they could all see bullshit coming from a mile away. And I adored them. Their open views on race, politics, and religion were a common thread throughout my early life, and probably the only thing that helped keep me grounded while flanked by the religious fanaticism of Southern Baptists and the slow-witted mentality of rural East Texas.
While I still retained a bit of the naivete due to peer pressure, these elements were lying in wait, seeds planted and waiting for the right bout of rain to fall so that they could blossom into something more sensible and concrete than any machination that Jim Bob Billy Jones could come up with in a thousand fucking years. (Thanks, Papa Will, Papa Bill, Granny…the three of you gave me gifts that all the material possessions in the world can’t compete with.)
I was still caught up in the post 9-11 fervor. If any turn of phrase could be used to describe me at that point in time, it would have been “deer in the headlights”. Shock and awe wasn’t a tactic they used on the Taliban, it was an apt description for my mindset at that moment. One night, my granddad and I were pulling into the driveway after a long Saturday at work. Bush was on the radio talking about invading Iraq and how Saddam had WMDs. I nonchalantly remarked, “Well, I guess he’s know what he’s doing.” The truck stopped suddenly. His huge, brown, callused hands tightened around the steering wheel, and he looked over at me with a deep sigh. My world slammed to a halt.
He turned to me and uttered a sentence that will stick with me until the day I die.
“Jacob…just because a man’s in charge of the country doesn’t mean he knows what’s best for everybody.”
I was kinda shellshocked, but as the truck lurched forward, I realized that he kinda had a point. I started to say something, but his attention was turned to the blooming plum thickets that led up the old dirt driveway to their house. He chuckled and said, “Even idiots get lucky sometimes.”
As months passed after that, I started seeing more and more things that signified that something was horribly wrong with the government. Horrified, I watched as Bush turned away the numerous countries that came to support us after 9-11, with a “no thanks, we’ll handle this” mentality. I spoke with foreign friends who couldn’t help but mention that the U.S. was falling out of favor with their citizens. More evangelical Christians started speaking in favor of the administration and acting like the politicians had given them carte blanche. My mom and uncle, both children of the sixties, who had grown up with the hippie/biker movements (along with my uncle’s draft-dodging), both suddenly turned into wacky Bush-lovers who beat the war drum right next to a Bible.
And let me tell you, you’ve never lived until you’ve heard one of my pervert uncle’s alcohol-fuelled rantings about God and America while he speeds down backroads in his rickety old van on the way home from work. You see, I was in deep shit with him because I was already a self-proclaimed atheist. My grandparents gave me free reign to check out whatever religion I wanted, so it made sense that when I got a scholarship to an Episcopalian private school while attending a Southern Baptist Church, that they said “Sure, do what you want”. It also made sense that my declaration of intent to stop going to church was perfectly fine with them, all of whom hadn’t worried about church and God in about 40 years.
Then the day came that my very conservative, proud redneck stepdad made a comment about the war, and I rebuked it with: “This isn’t worth it. We were supposed to be after bin Laden. We’re wasting our time in Iraq.”
He was furious. He was disgusted. He didn’t talk to me for about a week. I ended up having to apologize…but I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have needed to do that, and it hurt. I felt like I was lying to myself by apologizing for how I felt, which was the case. I grew more introverted, started keeping away from them and everyone else, and slowly sank into a mindset that was so different from those that I lived around that it almost made me an outcast. I had to practically disguise my political and ideological leanings or else face bizarre consequences.
The concepts of free speech and free thinking were dead and buried in the South, and the only ones who openly clung to them were people who were already living on the fringe, whether they were grizzled, aging hippies or disillusioned twenty-somethings who were just stagnating in a small town.
Even after moving to a much more progressive environment, I couldn’t help but be indignant and exhausted with the constant barrage of bullshit from the Republican talking heads. The neo-conservatives and their smug bullshit about having mandates. Rumsfeld spitting on the troops, and the warmongering fucks that never picked up a gun in their lives cheering him on while our guys and gals in uniform fought for blood in a war that became even more and more misguided by the day.
Bill Clinton tripping over his dick was nothing compared to this clusterfuck of a presidency.
Now that I look back, I can’t help but laugh. The change between me back then and me now is vast. I used to not give a shit about politics, and now I know goddamn near all of them by name and cling to the political scene like it was a fetish. And maybe it is. As I remarked to a co-worker/buddy of mine: “Sorry, dude. I’m a dork. Politics is my sports.” My stepdad refuses to get involved in any political-leaning discussions with me (even a quick discussion with my mom about the film ‘Syriana’ left him bitching and saying, “Let’s don’t talk politics or religion, okay?”. My response of “We’re talking about a fuckin’ movie.” left him sour-faced, but too bad.), and I can’t help but feel more distanced every time I visit. It seems like all my news-aware life has been spent under a post-Gingrich world of Republican politics mixed with the unfortunate consequences of growing up amongst Southern Baptists and other flavors of evangelical Christians, and the concept of a true victory has been very distant for a long time.
But today was just surreal. I felt like I was in a dreamlike state, all day long. I still managed to get work done, but all the breaking news of the Democrats taking the House and the Senate, Rumsfeld’s resignation, et al felt strange. Euphoric, even.
And I’m still in that zone. A little apprehensive, but vindicated, and looking forward to the future. All partisanship aside, one thought stands stark still in the center of my brain:
Let’s don’t fuck this up, guys. Time to roll up our sleeves. It’s been a beautiful week, but there’s still a long ways to go.
Posted by Jake at November 8, 2006 08:53 PM
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