America the Beautiful

The hangman’s noose seems to be making a comeback here in America. From Jena Louisiana, all the way to a professors’ door at Columbia University two days ago, this symbol of racism in the United States has been popping up in a string of copycat like occurrences recently. It’s another reminder of the lingering racism in our country. The noose put outside the black female professors door yesterday brings up both the racism and sexism that are still so prevalent in our patriarchal land.

While we dreamily pretend that Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama could win a presidential election in our fine country here, our sick culture is busy sending us reminders that we have our heads firmly stuck in the ground. There is so much work to be done to repair our social fabric, yet we wander around blindly hiding behind a shield of political correctness which keeps us uncomfortable saying anything “sensitive” while the truth is that we still live in a country where sexism and racism run rampant.

And now we are stuck in a situation where the two Democratic frontrunners are a black man and a woman, and nobody is coming out and asking how on earth a woman or a person of color is going to win a presidential election in a country where nooses show up on female professors’ doors at one of our most prestigious University’s?

Here in Aspen, we are busy building a little exclusive town, squeezing out skinny pockets with parking rates of 11 dollars per 4 hours of parking that don’t make a damn difference to rich people, but are a huge penalty on people who only make twelve dollars an hour and have to pay eleven dollars for a hamburger at the end of the day if they want to eat in the same town that they work; and then they have to spend five dollars per beer. We are squeezing the life and personality out of our town by shutting down affordable bars and restaurants and replacing them with little bastions of exclusivity, membership only clubs and expensive restaurants and bars with bouncers to make sure you look like you can fit the bill and sport the vibe of ignorant wealth and the cult of holier than thou. This is about class just as much as the nooses are about racism and all the sexual harassment and other misogynistic behavior are about sexism. It goes all the way from way up here at the top of the pyramid in Aspen, down to the very heartland of America, where sexism and racism run even more rampant than in the educated class, and it all adds up to an America with its head firmly stuck in the sand, still acting out of its old ignorances, and busily denying that “yes, this is really happening.”

Down in the river, the fall leaves are dancing in the water. Crows are circling overhead trying to warn us about greedhead developers and the implosion of the society of the self-obsessed. Looking around at a big human family at war with itself, the creatures of the sky watch their habitat disappear. The crows hop around on our rooftops. I can hear their claws whispering and clattering on the shingles.

2008- and The Great American Ostrich

I’m not sure what conservative means anymore. I look around this nation, out to Washington, at our national debt, at our lending habits, at our spending habits, and I can’t help but wonder how it can be that “conservatives” have been in charge? We haven’t conserved much in a long, long, time.

It might be nice to have a “liberal” in the White House for a change. It might be nice to maybe have the chance, just potentially, to get someone in a leadership position who might try to lead us somewhere other than further into this mess of unsustainable consumption, waste, assumed entitlement and unjustified self-importance. Not that we should expect that much from the big blue party of our government though. Blue and Red, we seem to be just one nation under a free-market God.

When the wellness of the citizenry is put behind the well being of the economy, it is a symptom of a broken system. What did Bush say the other day about the global warming problem? "We must lead the world to produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, and we must do it in a way that does not undermine economic growth or prevent nations from delivering greater prosperity for their people." The problem is, we are not going to be able to cut greenhouse gas emissions without undermining economic growth, and the more “prosperity” we deliver, the hotter things are going to get. So Bush was basically saying, “we must do something, but we must not do anything.” Economic growth wins, but at the end of the day, human beings lose.

Does having a whole country of dissatisfied, unfulfilled, over-fed individuals, in a prison of consumption driven ideology, constantly bombarded with the message “you want more, you need more,” make having the most powerful economy in the world worthwhile? I don’t think so. I think the free-market may be failing us. The systems we create should be our slaves, not our masters. When their negative consequences become greater than their positive ones, it may be time for us to stand up and do something. We have to face the fact that it might be time for us to take the freedom from the market before it eats us alive.

To understand how the market is no longer serving us, we can look at any number of things, but we can begin with the 2008 Presidential race and the role the media is playing in the election of our next President. The modern media is just one example of a free-market phenomenon. Corporations own dominant mainstream media, chief distribution outlet of the American social consciousness. Corporations have certain rights and privileges, like human beings. We gave them these rights, and depending on who sits in the White House and who is in charge in Washington, corporations can gain or lose. Their rights are dependent on those who give them. If we can determine that these corporate institutions stand to gain or lose depending on who gets elected then we can also assume they will act to bring about the outcome that will most benefit them.

Over the years, the conservative party has been a faithful partner for these corporate interests, defending and protecting the power of corporations to grow and prosper. I think we can safely say that over the last few decades, having a Republican in the White House has been to the greatest benefit of most corporations, and has also kept the pockets of the ultra-wealthy at their most protected.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are the “frontrunners” for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election. It is almost as if we have been told this since before anyone started taking polls. It seems like the media simply picked these two, and have been telling us over and over again that they are the two most likely candidates for the Democratic nomination. They are the front runners. They are the ones to beat. Like good students, memorizing and regurgitating information as we’ve been taught to do, we give this information right back to the media in polls, which are then used to reinforce what they have been telling us. I remember long before any campaigning was going on, right after Obama’s famous keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, he began gracing the covers of some of our mainstream magazines like Newsweek. He was already a chosen front-runner. They have been talking about a possible Hillary ticket since 2002.

The United States of America, 2007: we are bogged down in a criminal war in Iraq that we were dragged into by neo-conservatives and a mainstream media which were cheerleading us along because war keeps people tuned in to the news; we are pumping out greenhouse gasses, at higher rates each day, even while we talk about needing to fix the problem. The 2008 Presidential race is there for the Democratic taking. So how is it that the two democratic “front-runners” we’ve been given, are logical long-shots to win in 2008?

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are great news stories, but they are not great candidates. I wish we lived in a Country where we could honestly say that a black man or a woman would have a fair chance in a Presidential election against a white man, but unfortunately, we don’t.

Senator Clinton recently said to General Petraeus, in response to his report to Congress on the situation in Iraq, "I think that the reports that you provide to us really require a willing suspension of disbelief." I think that the same words would be appropriate for our mainstream media, in response to their political reporting.

Obama or Clinton would have no problem winning in 2008 if our only voters came from college towns, educated enclaves, and large coastal cities like New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco. But America is much bigger than that, and unfortunately our abysmal education system, surprise, surprise, serves the corporate interest by offering millions of red votes, easily coerced to the voting booths by their little communities, influenced by preachers and people like Bill O’Reilly. This population, in between sea and shining sea, has always been there to win elections for the GOP, and candidates like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the one’s who really get these good old Americans out to the polls. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are winners for the Republican, not the Democratic Party. And Democrats, by buying into this misinformation, and ignorantly, wishfully, believing that a polarizing woman, or an inexperienced black man, have a good shot at the White House in this America, are unconsciously living up to the reputation of our mascot, the donkey, or jackass.

In these remarkable political circumstances, at a time when a good democratic candidate would be an odds favorite to win in 2008, we are given two candidates, a young black man, and a woman who is, in the words of Time Magazine’s Ana Marie Cox, “…the most polarizing figure on the current political landscape." So is a willing suspension of disbelief necessary to see either of these individuals being a sensible candidate for a Democratic party who wants to win in 2008?

The wool is again uncomfortably pulled over our eyes. Where are the sociologists on CNN or FOX, telling us about the pervasive sexism and racism which still roam across our land? Have we forgotten that right now, in this new millennium, there is a powerful element in this Country still trying to take away a womans’ right to decide what to do with her body? Have we forgotten that our judicial system still punishes minorities more harshly than their white skinned brothers and sisters? Go down to one of the southern states sometime, find some white folks who talk funny, and hang out with them for a day. See how many racist or sexist jokes you hear. I promise, that “N” word is still in common usage outside of the black, hip-hop gangster community. The white folks who use that word can vote, and they are usually the ones who get their votes counted. There are a whole lot of Americans out there, right now, who would laugh if you asked them to vote for what in their mind is just another n!@@$r or b!&$h. Is that a sad thing about our country? Yes. But are we going to remedy it by pretending it’s not true?

Are we going to just sit around and let ourselves be manipulated by the mainstream media, who chooses our frontrunners because they are most likely to keep our wool-covered eyes glued to our televisions, keeping us in the depths of dream-land until November 2008, when another Republican wins because we were fooled?

This is still America. It still says “One Nation Under God” on our currency. That God is still a white, male, patriarchal God, a free-market God. When people ask that God who to vote for, between a white man, or a black man, or a woman, how will that God answer? Are we ready for another Republican President? Are we ready for more years of defending the economy at the expense of the future of the human race? Get ready people, our institutions have more power than our people, and they have the most to gain from a Republican win in 2008. Is it any wonder that things are shaping up in their favor? Now I can't say how systemic the roots of this problem are. It may be that it is as simple as the bottom line and dollar signs for the media, a race between any Republican and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is going to be good for ratings. Having the first woman or black man as the Democratic nominee will certainly keep the attention of the populace, thereby increasing revenue for the media companies. Smart Republicans will rejoice if Clinton or Obama gets the nomination. How the leading Democratic strategists can be so blind, or dumb, or both, I cannot imagine. Were they raised in test-tubes, totally isolated from American reality?

Obama and Clinton might look good now, but wait till they get the nomination. Remember what they did to John Kerry? Remember how our media was able to turn a decorated Vietnam War Veteran, experienced, calm, cool, collected, experienced Senator, into a flip-flopping, anti-patriot? Think about what we are going to be bombarded with when it comes to Hillary or Barack getting the nomination.

If Hillary gets the nomination, it will look something like a return to the late 90's, Travel-Gate, all the same Clinton scandals, the cheating, Hillary will be turned into a weak woman for not leaving her philandering husband, setting a bad example for both American men and women, she will be vilified as a danger to the foundations of our country, a threat to the pure, good, Christian values of our land. They will characterize her as a power-hungry bitch, it will spread from FOX news to CNN, and she will be finished, and no doubt they will find a Republican candidate who will be her perfect opposite, a hero, a pure American man, it could be anyone from Fred to Rudy, but standing next to Hillary, he will be the obvious choice to protect American values and keep America secure.

If Obama wins the nomination, the smear campaign will begin. Sure, he's married, and talks good Christian talk, but he will vilified for being too inexperienced, too unrealistic, they'll pull out all the stops and portray him as being too dangerous for our country. They will use his admissions of serious drug use (cocaine, marijuana, etc.) against him, they will tell us how he still smokes cigarettes, and while he might have a better chance than Hillary, it will still be an uphill battle in the hinterlands, and non of us will be immune from the inevitable spin.