confrontation

so i was out with some friends in a bar recently and we got to talking politics. actually, i don't like the word politics. it makes the subject sound like a game, like we're talking about our favorite teams or the ones we despise. in fact what we call politics is the actions of the powerful that affect us all.

so we got to talking about the debt ceiling and the struggle democrats and republicans are engaged in at the centers of power. my friend greg makes hundreds of thousands of dollars per year as a mortgage banker. i don't know the exact number but i think he literally makes between $350k and $500k. that's a lot of money. i don't begrudge greg his success. i have known him for nearly 30 years. he is a good person and he has a beautiful family. having said that, over the last bunch of years as his wealth has grown i have noticed his views have changed. it's not that he was liberal and became conservative, (or what have you.) it is more that he was apathetic and he became interested. he grew a viewpoint, if you will.

my friend sid, who represents the cross between greg and i in that sid is one of my closest friends and he and greg are also close, cracked a couple of jokes about how obama is a socialist who wants to spend all this money he doesn't have. it bothers me to hear stuff like this. in fact i actually think it is important to combat views like this when i am confronted with them. to me they are born of ignorance and they wreak ignorance.

so greg chimed in and compared raising the debt ceiling to opening a new credit card to make payments on five other credit cards. first, that is not an inaccurate comparison. that said, the united states of america is and has always has been the most reliable debt the planet has known, so it is different, too. our country has and does pay its bills and a big part of that is because of the nation's earning power. the united states is wealthier than bill gates, (so far, anyway. [i said gates, not jobs.]) ultimately greg's point made me cringe because to me it is simple ideology masking as a meaningful quip. and while we can all wish we weren't in the position of needing to open a new card to pay down five others, or raising the debt ceiling, we are because we have been financing two absolutely inane, immoral wars and we just participated in the greatest transfer of wealth, (upward,) in the history of humankind.

i said as much to greg and to all of my friends there, really, at a tavern in a sleepy hillside community. greg joked back that i was somehow just mad about not being wealthy. he laughed to indicate it was a joke and i have to say i was not offended by the remark. it's not true-why would i be offended? but then i saw a couple of my other friends laugh. i'm not sure if they thought about it and saw it as funny or if they just wanted to make greg feel comfortable since he was laughing. they did laugh a little bit though. just enough really, to bug the shit out of me.

so i leaned into the middle of our group and i told greg his position did not bother me because at least in his case it was self interest. i said he was merely defending his class and protecting his interests since the policies of the republican party, (and especially the policies of the tea baggers,) was to fend for the wealthy. i elaborated by way of saying what did piss me off was those who espoused those values against their own self interest, in other words those in the middle class who are angry at entitlement programs, (examples of the social pact for the common good that has been a part of this country's values since day one,) who think illegal immigration is the big bad wolf, who think one day they will be rich and when the realization that upward mobility is all but dead in our society they adjust their view to blame the various bugaboos of the day such as taxation, and illegal immigration. my other friends, (and i should say all of these particular friends are religious,) seemed offended but it was greg, (again,) who commented. he laughed my remark off again and said something about how it was democrats who were ignorant for thinking they could just spend willy nilly.

i was probably four feet from greg when i lunged with my right fist. i really threw the punch from too far away and so i passed the point of maximum force by maybe a foot before my fist landed slightly but squarely on the edge of greg's jaw. as he fell backwards with a look of shock on his face, i tried to get on top of him, over him actually. instinctively i wanted to bust him in the face a few good ones. sid and another peacemaker from high school, tom, (a todd marinovich's dad if ever there was one,) grabbed me at the shoulders and tried to get legs in front of me to keep from falling on top of greg like an ambush. i did not say a word. my jaw was clenched and i was focused, determined. they were yelling at me to relax and backup. sid gave me a brief monologue on how we were all good friends and we shouldn't let politics and different views bring us to violence. by us he meant me.

i let my weight fall to try to get that one good shot in, the one i craved like something more than chocolate or an energetic drunkenness or an illicit evening with a former lover, but those guys caught my weight and pulled me away from my mean-spirited, ignorant prey. greg landed on his ass and rolled backwards onto his back, and reached at his jaw as if his touch would somehow relieve pain. he whined about what the eff was wrong with me and he actually suggested he might sue me.

the thing was, (is, really,) greg's views have real consequences. irresponsible americans who can't study, don't care to turn a critical eye on themselves or their choices, do not actively work to be better humans or feel any sense of responsibility towards their fellow man, they are disproportionately to blame for the disparate power of corporations, the influence of cash in our government, our wars, our facilitation of high crimes, and the list goes on... these things affect people's lives. they create the kinds of real human hardships that result in unnecessary pressures, broken families, poor parenting, self loathing and so on. i guess i have just been too close to those things and i want to make change.

i have had experiences when i needed to be angry and focused and able to confront physically. i was at a party once where this guy had been drunk and passed out and was put into a bedroom. later, he woke and in another room he overheard me talking to his girlfriend. there was a slight flirtation in the conversation but nothing too overt and it certainly was not leading to anything. it was social gymnastics. from out of that bedroom he came like a demon, raising his voice only when he was within a step of me. he reached for me with his left hand and cocked his right arm. i put my arms up to block a forthcoming punch and scrambled to my feet and he got me right in the eye. immediately i felt a sting and sensed puffiness. a couple of guys grabbed the guy and pushed him away. my heart raced and my breath quickened. my mind scanned a catalog of reactions and vacillated between demonstrative rage and just letting the guys who were holding him work him outdoors. it went the way of the latter and the truth is, i wasn't that angry. my senses were heightened. i had some fear, some fight or flight and some survival instinct but mostly i just thought about what a fucking cro-magnon man this guy was and how angry he was. i considered going out after the guy. my eye was swelling and i knew i would have a shiner. i was offended-the guy's fist had invaded the space occupied by my face, but i wasn't particularly angry, or angry in the measure you might expect. i was pissed but what was i going to do? hunt the guy down? hatch a plot to murder him? run outside and attack him as if a little more violence would make some meaningful difference in this unfortunate event?

when i think about the people who allow the tea baggers to flourish because they don't know and can't analyze history, (thereby doomed to repeat it,) when i hear these same people promoting their ill advised, misguided world views, i get pissed because i know the real and far-reaching consequences of their laziness. i can't help but feeling violent. in a way i am a humanist terrorist. i have laughably little power and by the sheer force of culturization and happenstance, my friendships, (my enduring friendships,) color me an islamic fundamentalist amidst a sea of western influences. i am backed into a corner. there is nothing i can do to stem the tide of ignorance. and so i am mad, mad like a boxer and mad like a hatter.

i screwed that once casual friendship. greg and i have not spoken since i attacked him. my other friends think i owe him an apology. sid told me to call him if i want some help figuring out how to approach greg. (smug jerk.) it will be some time before he and i speak again as well. i don't need these friendships. i have enjoyed them from nostalgia recently but otherwise i have changed in ways that mark me as significantly different from this crowd. i want these friendships. i think they say something about me. they keep me connected to foreign ideas so i don't feel aloof and they allow me to take off my seriousness like a wool cloak. because of the ubiquitous volatility, i, (we. actually,) spend whatever time we have together, laughing and joking. in time that will wear on me but in the past so long as it was not too interminable a period, i have enjoyed getting together with my old friends.

now i have to reevaluate. am i unstable or am i the sane one? honestly, i think i am the sane one. while i never intended to administer some sort of universal flow or karma, i do feel like a vessel that was just there when a little straight right was one hundred percent appropriate.

independence day

this is the summer of my discontent. all around me the flag is flying. red, white and blue adorns my favorite pub. a neighbor put a huge "old glory," in her main window. my city is decked to the hilt for the festive holiday bash complete with concert and fireworks on july 4th evening. and me? i feel like i can't even speak my mind. disparage america, (or god,) and watch how quickly countrymen turn on you.

why? is it from reciting the pledge of allegiance as children? is it just that our world is scary enough without having to question our nation and our leaders, past and present?

america, you lied to me. you said you were great but everyday you play small. you are the sum of your people: 4% evil, 25% good and 71% lazy. you talk about american exceptionalism as if american imperialism was a myth, as if hegemony was a false notion, as if to claim a moral high ground?

how in the world could you ever claim moral high ground dwelling in the gutter as you do. if your government was by the people and for the people what the hell is citizen's united?

when i was a child i was taught that america only engaged in war when it was on the side of righteousness. when i grew up and opened my eyes i learned that our leaders told us lies to gain a semblance of support for the war in vietnam. i learned that america lied and bombed laos and cambodia. i learned that vietnam, like iraq and afghanistan was fought to create wealth in the military industrial complex, (at the expense of taxpayers.)

in the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

we must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. we should take nothing for granted. only an
alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

- president dwight d. eisenhowser, farewell address, 1961

i learned that america supported despots such as pinochet or suharto for our own financial well being, (which of course really only means the financial well being of our wealthy, ruling class.) america was friends with and educated: noriega, hussein, bin laden's family members, bautista, and so on, but easily turned on them when their demise was secured.

what happened to you america? what happened to the america of jefferson, washington, lincoln and franklin roosevelt? (hell, what happened to the america of eisenhower?)

who killed fred hampton? it was you; america.

who jailed geronimo pratt? it was you; america.

who feared che guevara? it was you; america.

in my adolescence i considered america the greatest country on earth, and myself of the lucky few for being an american. i slept well at night knowing we had a public safety net. if i should become crippled or otherwise unable to support myself, welfare and disability would help me to survive. when i reached retirement, social security and medicaid would help me to survive. today there is a gathering roar to dismantle these programs within you, america. even as you cut taxes on the wealthiest, even as you protect loopholes for mega-corporations, even as the wealthy and the corporations prepare to move to china and beyond for the next great wave of production, sans occupational safety and health, sans environmental protections, sans a living wage, the growing faction within you plots to disassemble these programs by any means necessary. your mean spiritedness dismays me, america.

your capitalism has run amok, america. your people, lazy and listless,repose beneath the false notions of the past, believing your leaders are not bought and sold, teaching your children to discount so many murdered citizens of other countries or worse, to disregard the unknown and unimagined living in those places, questioning nothing. questioning nothing. america, you are a people who question nothing.

i am sad this independence day at the pomp and circumstance about me. i saw a flag unfurl atop a building this morning down on main street and i recalled the feelings of pride and patriotism i once knew. i remembered how good it felt to learn about fdr's new deal in school, or to read about our involvement in world war II and how we ended hitler's reign of terror. i remember a teacher explaining to me the writers of the constitution knew there were some bad laws in place when it was written and so they made it malleable. and so it changed to abolish slavery and allow women to vote and so on.

how do we celebrate america when america, the idea, is so ill it is nearly dead? how do we celebrate america when 'bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses,' has turned to 'get your immigrant-looking ass out of my country?' how do we celebrate america when common sense medical reform is demonized in the face of overwhelming statistics illustrating how truly horrible our for profit system is? how do we celebrate an america that tortures? how do we celebrate america?

how is angelo mozilo not in jail? how do corporations get away with murder in america? why does america care so much about eliot spitzer and anthony weiner but hold no one accountable for credit default swaps or the abolition of the glass steagall act? how did america become the land of manufacturing consent?

i am not feeling it. i am not feeling like celebrating my country because i love my country and the ideals it once represented. i love my friends and family and countrymen too, but i don't want to celebrate with them especially if they think nothing is wrong. decry, decry, the 4th of july...