Political Oz
February 28, 2008 | 21 Comments
Oh no, it’s officially political ninny season in America. And we all know what that means. It’s time to shelve the issues and the activism and don our favorite party’s slippers, tap our heels three times and repeat this line until November: There’s no better place to kiss than your candidate’s ass.
And so it goes – especially with the Democrats when it comes to their expert-like ability to suspend logic and cheer the candidates who seemingly ignore their issues the most. Tap those slippers, baby, and forget that Clinton and Obama won’t even mention universal health care. Tap, tap, tap and forget that they both have military industrial complex henchmen crawling all over the top echelons of their campaign brass. And tap, tap, tap and ignore the fact that both are swimming in the big moneyed interests of Wall Street, nuclear energy and big oil, and the corporate consumer and food monopolies that bring us the big-box toxins.
There is apparently no end to the suspension of logic. But I guess we already know that since the dominant theme of the apparent winner of the Dem Oz-fest is the “man of hope,” Obama. At least he’s being honest. He’s not talking about accomplishments. Revolution. Systematic overhaul. Peace. Or any such measure of true change. Nope, just hope. And the crowds go wild, tap, tap tapping away….
All this hope comes from a most distinguished place of privilege too. If you’ve got a couple of years to do little but hope you certainly aren’t amongst those who are dodging bullets and IEDs in Baghdad. Or amongst those who are drowning in the financial atrocities of the subprime fiasco. Or amongst those who are so marginalized by the workforce that they no longer even qualify to be counted in unemployment numbers. And just try to send a hopeful note to your insurance corporation seeking an extension on the policy you can no longer afford. Good luck with that.
Sorry, but hope works better on a bumpersticker.
After publishing my piece on Nader vs. The Fundamentalist Liberals earlier this week, I received an avalanche of emails – mostly supportive – from folks immune from our nation’s spell of hope. None were better than the missive I received from Joel Hirschhorn. Titled “Delusional Hope: The Obama Rapture,” Hirschhorn offered this bit of reality:
Never have so many hoped for so much because of rollicking rhetoric and pulsating platitudes. A tsunami of hope has plunged America into electoral euphoria. In its path is the wreckage of critical thinking about what ails the US and what bold, revolutionary actions are needed. Barry Obama has accomplished semantic alchemy, turning justified but grim distrust and outrage with government and politics into hallelujah hope. But most hope never materializes and is a terrible predictor of reality.
Think about the prevalence of hope: sports teams heading into a championship game, research scientists envisioning a Nobel Prize, people in the criminal justice system awaiting trial, entrepreneurs starting a new business, people starting off on a long-awaited vacation, American Idol contestants, college seniors dreaming of becoming superrich, and all those supporters of Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and other presidential candidates that will not reach the White House.
Hope produces far more losers than winners. Hope is enjoyable until failure hits. But most people do not give up on hope, just move on to the next hope.
Indeed, we’ve seen this kind of “hope” before. Before we had today’s “Man of Hope,” we had the “Man from Hope.” Yeah, that man: Bill Clinton. Like today, the liberals of ’92 were enraptured by the Dem ticket, silencing themselves on the issues and demanding that everyone “shut up and get in line” no matter how ill-defined the destination was.
We were told that Clinton – along with his VP Gore — would be the nation’s first “environmental president.” Oh, the hope of it all. But, like today, the hope of yesteryear required that we not “rock the boat” in the election season and, instead, just ride the wave to change. The result? Well, here’s what I wrote in the Spring 1993 issue of Safe Food News:
In a very short period of time, the “Environmental President” and his hand picked administration have done the following:
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Promoted food irradiation as a “solution” to the meat contamination crisis;
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Advocated doing away with the Delaney clause, one of the nation’s most important food safety laws which, if enforced, would ban the use of many carcinogenic pesticides;
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Given final approval to a hazardous waste incinerator located near a grade school in Ohio, despite EPA studies demonstrating its danger and promises from Gore that he’d stop it;
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Rescinded five important anti-pollution regulations drafted by outgoing Bush EPA head William Reilly, including one which would have phased out the ozone-destroying chemical methyl bromide and another which would have required exporters of pesticides to provide clear danger warnings and safe handling instructions on labels.
I guess it’s rarely pretty when hope meets reality. And the reality of the Clinton/Gore finger to the eye of the enviros and liberals was that they allowed themselves to taken advantage of in the election season. Or, if you’d rather, they let their hope get the best of them. Instead of making demands from the Clinton/Gore team they hoped for the best and silenced themselves all the way to those heady days of White House invitations and more hopes for presidential appointments.
It’s as if we’ll never learn that the squeaky wheel gets the grease – especially in politics. But the panderers simply get taken advantage of. Worse, we seem to forget that our Democracy was intended to be “people” driven. Remember, the politicians were supposed to follow – not lead – the will of the people. And when the people cede that essential power to the politicians we do, indeed, get led…by our noses.
And all of this is just a very long way to say: Don’t forget or ignore the issues. We don’t owe any candidate anything other than the responsibility to make sure they FOLLOW the will of the people. They must EARN our votes. And, from my perspective, they will only earn that vote by stopping the rhetorical gimmickry and begin seriously addressing the war, health care, the culture of fear, the obscene economic inequalities, the environment and the outright betrayal of democracy that exists today.
In other words, I’m not tapping my heels. I’m demanding answers.
Nader vs. The Fundamentalist Liberals
February 25, 2008 | 11 Comments
We live in scary times. And no one scares me more than the faux-liberals of today. They are a most intolerant mob that has become so dislodged from logic that they’d rather gaze reverently at the false packaging of hope than seriously contemplate the issues of the day. They love bandwagons and hate activism. They strive for insular popularity while trampling the populace. And, in the true spirit of fundamentalism, they loathe dissent and flog the dissenter with the kind of glee that is seemingly borrowed from Jimmy Swaggart’s beating of the godless unbelievers.
Oh yeah, hell hath no fury hot enough for the fool who holds a mirror up to the nonsense of modern liberalism. Just ask Ralph Nader.
Nader, as we all know by now, committed the horror of horrors in the eyes of the liberal fundamentalists yesterday by announcing – gasp! – that he’s exercising his Constitutional rights by throwing his hat in the ring of presidential politics. But, given the reaction from the rather slovenly liberal not-so-intelligencia, you’d think that he announced that he wants to suspend the Constitution and, instead, fly planes into tall buildings.
My goodness, imagine if all this liberal bluster was saved for things like taking it to the streets and stopping the war, or demanding universal health care, or cracking down on the subprime criminals on Wall Street, or impeaching the president who has brought us all of these not-so-nice policies. But that would require real action. And the fundamentalist liberals don’t have time for action – just rhetoric, blame and all the Obama Kool-Aid they can fill their confused kidneys with. It’s easier that way.
Remember, it’s these same liberal fundamentalists who have time after time denigrated the anti-war crowd for “going too far,” much as they’ve also wagged their blogging fingers at those who dared to demand real solutions to health care, tax injustice, workers’ rights, the Bush debacle (impeachment) and energy policy.
Sadly, it’s a symptom of the fundamentalist liberals that is becoming all too familiar: They don’t believe their own rhetoric. How else can you explain their rabid condemnation of Bush AND the condemnation of the impeachment movement? Or their understandable yelps against the current health care crisis but their seeming acceptance of the nonsensical “solution” being rhetorically weaved by Obama/Clinton? Or their preaching of tolerance but their vile invectives toward a man’s right to speak and/or seek office? If Nader’s right to seek office can be so easily ridiculed, where will they stop? Sorry, but that’s not the liberalism I studied.
Worse, my perusal of the myopic blogging universe has revealed that most liberal commenters blasting Nader’s announcement have almost completely ignored the issues that Nader has cited in announcing his candidacy. Remember, Nader made it clear that he wasn’t going to run if someone like Edwards was going to be the Democratic nominee because he saw eye-to-eye with Edwards on things like health care, reining in corporate control of our democracy, stopping the war immediately and demanding workers’ rights now – not tomorrow after all the jobs have been effectively shipped to China. But the good liberal fundamentalists didn’t choose the substance of Edwards, instead choosing either the “hope” of Obama or the same old shit of Clinton. And so Nader moved to fill a rather large void in the issue spectrum.
Nader did NOT say on Sunday that there was “no difference” between the Democrats and the Republicans, as many liberals are trying to say he said. Instead, he said there was a difference, just as there is a difference between the Obama/Clinton positions and his positions. And then he went on to articulate those differences, just as he’s done on his website (www.votenader.org).
It’s sadly comical to me to see the fundie liberals bash Nader while he’s calling for universal health care but give Obama a pass for leaving more than 15 million Americans uninsured in his so-called solution. Or bash Nader for his role in “causing” the Iraq war but giving Clinton – and a majority of her Dem colleagues — a pass for actually voting for it. Or blaming Nader for the entirety of the Bush years while refusing to acknowledge the real blame that rests at the feet of the fundamentalist Dems who have done little but play along for eight years – remember, it was only ONE Dem (Feingold) who opposed the Patriot Act.
For the Dems, the solution to the Nader candidacy is not to call for a repugnant and chilling rebuke of his Constitutional rights but to strengthen their own issue resolve so that the Nader option wouldn’t be necessary. But they’re refusing to do so, instead zeroing in on a candidate – Obama – who is mostly hype and hope and very, very little substance or resume. It’s Obama – not Nader – who is in bed with the nuclear industry and its lobbyists. It’s Obama – not Nader – who won’t say a peep about reining in Wall Street. It’s Obama – not Nader – who won’t promote universal health care. It’s Obama – not Nader – who won’t even mention the Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. And it’s Obama – not Nader – who doesn’t have a track record for standing up and speaking up even when it’s not very popular to do so.
Earth to the liberal fundies: Skip the Kool-Aid, try the reality sandwich.
And thanks for offering a necessary option, Ralph.
This Little Life of Mine
February 21, 2008 | 7 Comments
Well, I’m trying to turn the page. But it often feels like a 16-foot log rather than a wafer-thin sheet of pressed fiber. You know the feeling. But I’m a lucky man, you know. Lucky enough, that is, to continue to bump into people who simply inspire me with all things that people should be inspired by in this crazy life.
I remain in awe, for example, of all the very moving and heartfelt comments I’ve received from folks in the last couple of weeks. I’ve been at general stores, schools, farms, co-ops and sidewalks and every other place it seems and been stopped and offered fine words of support and/or personal remembrances of the old horse that died, Big John. And to all I continue to say: Thanks, I needed that.
Thanks to the always-reliable Boots we got back to work last week with Big Jim. We still had the orders for firewood to fill and, with the price of oil, people can get pretty anxious over their wood supplies this winter. Jim did great, even pulling the old team sled back to the barn from deep in the woods where he and Big John had left it. And we got the wood pulled, cut, split, loaded and delivered. Nice work if you can get it.
I’ve also visited a couple of horse farms in a rather cursory attempt to find a new teammate for Jim. I keep telling myself not to rush into it but it’s hard – and slow — going in this deep snow with just one horse. Moreover, I got four calls for sleigh rides last week (my big sleigh requires a team). We shall see.
Visiting other horse farms is one of my favorite things to do. You get to witness the enthusiasm, the passion and the near-maniacal-like dream of doing things the old, slow and sustainable way. It seems like no matter whom you visit, they’re eager to show off their horses, their homemade equipment, their barns and the way they do things. And, more often than not, you’re greeted by a bevy of their family members who are seemingly in a competition to see who is more excited by the visit. I know the routine because I’m guilty of it whenever anyone shows up at our place to see our little horse world.
Too often – as you know – I get caught up in the ninny political side of Vermont. I get worked up over the charlatans who “represent” us and the excruciating lack of progress or even meaningful activism on the issues that remain near and dear to my heart. But what I don’t often show is my intense love for the people and the land of this state. Vermont’s been my home for nearly twenty years, half of that in the uniquely quirky Northeast Kingdom. From the day we unloaded the moving van at our first Vermont house — an off-the-grid abode in Walden — and encountered the “real” people of Vermont, I’ve been in love. You’ve just got to avoid the “professional” politicians and their starry-eyed sidekicks who are all too willing to see hope in a lie and progress in pure gimmicks. Yeah, you know the story.
And so it is. My little world. With my little family. In this little Vermont community — Worcester — that never ceases to teach me about the importance of such little communities. The kind of community whose school principal and secretary write notes of support to this blog over our loss of a horse. The kind of community where you get a hug or a thumb’s up sign of encouragement while pumping gas. The kind of community where a neighbor offers to weld my broken horse gear. Or another neighbor offers a horse to borrow. Or another neighbor who stops to ask, “how’s the revolution?” Not a bad life if you can get it.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings. Onward.
Wondering & Wandering
February 12, 2008 | 1 Comment
Please, indulge me once more. And allow me to thank you all for the private emails and comments of support. As I write, I’m looking out the window at my horses. They’re teaching me again. Today it’s about the weather.
Each is doing what they do on cold, sunny days. You know, the kind of days where the air feels solid as it enters your lungs. A day like today, in other words. Blue. No, make that: Crystal blue. The kind of blue that seems like it’s been ordered. Or created for a photo shoot. Clear and blue and bright. And in seeming celebration, the horses turn their bodies to face it straight on. Their eyes gently drooping like a child fighting bedtime. Their frosty breaths rhythmically pulsing from their large nostrils. Looks of true contentment rule the paddock. Nothing else matters but this moment and the sun. Indeed.
But things are different in bad weather. Because the bad weather gets their ass. Sure. Why not turn your ass to the wind? Or the snow? Or the stifling summer sun?
And so it shall be for me today. I will enter the cold air of the woods and face the sun. I will aim for contentment. I will hope for peace. And I will turn my ass to anything bothersome.
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Like you, I have my touchstones in times of reflection. Gary Snyder does the trick. As does Ed Abbey. Or Emerson, of course. Musically, it’s been Patti Smith of late. Or Cat Power. Or Zoe Keating. I think I see a pattern. I read the old white guys but listen to the women. Whatever that means. Here are a couple of excerpts and a video for your reading and listening pleasure:
Patti Smith:
one last breath
the sky is high
the hungry earth
the empty vein
the ashes rain
death’s own bed
man’s own kin
into the wind
one last breath
hole in life
love knot tied
braid undone
child born
the hollow horn
warrior cried
a warrior died
one last breath
lick of flame
spirit moaned
spirit shed
the heavens fed
man’s own kin
grips the sky
and he’s gone again- from “Gone Again”
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Gary Snyder:I have an old friend in Montana named Tom Birch. He’s a philosopher, teacher, hunter, and backcountry rambler. When asked why he so liked going into the wilderness Tom replied, “Wilderness treats me like a human being.”
What?” I said.
“Yes. Treats me like a human being.”
I asked, “What in the world makes you say that?”
Tom said, “I mean: it treats me like an adult. It doesn’t try to protect me, coddle me, put up handrails for me, provide a policeman or social worker for me, adjust the heat, or even put out a pad to sleep on. And nobody knows where I am. For me, to be fully human is to be fully responsible to my own skills or lack of them, and to have the possibility of death always there at my right hand. Then, when you’re fully vulnerable and on your own, you know what it feels like to be fully alive.”
This is one of the clearest hard-core arguments for wilderness and for living on the wild edge that I know of. The Buddhists say, this is the way all of life is anyhow, we just don’t normally recognize it. Nature is not fuzzy and warm. Nature is vulnerable, but it is also tough, and it will inevitably be last up at bat.
– from “A Note on Reality and Etiquette.”
–
And, finally, some music from Patti Smith:
Enjoy the sun.
Big John, R.I.P.
February 11, 2008 | 13 Comments
My trusty old horse, Big John, died on Friday. He was 23 years old. And the best damn horse around. Period.
Friday started out like the perfect day. It was mild. The fresh snow was hanging in the trees and the sun was making everything magically sparkle. And we had work to do since a neighbor, friend and client had put in an order for firewood.
My partner in crime and horse logging, Boots, arrived and we harnessed up Big John and his partner, Big Jim. The first order of business was to open up the logging trails by hooking the team to my small sled and taking a joy ride. It’s a way to knock the snow down, warm up the horses and get one hell of a beautiful ride through the woods.
But as we climbed one of the hills, Big John started coughing. I thought he just had something stuck in his throat – a hay remnant from breakfast, perhaps. We got to the top of the hill and I noticed his head was getting lower and lower. I stopped the team, peered around the side to get a look and see if he got a line tangled or something. Instead, I saw blood. Big John was bleeding rather profusely from his nose.
Boots quickly unhooked the team from the sled and I started to ground drive them toward home with thoughts of a plan upon our return: call the vet, get him in the barn, get towels to clean him up, etc. We were a half a mile back in the woods. And we only got about 30 feet before I noticed John wasn’t going to make it home. He was leaning on Jim, almost walking sideways, barely able to hold himself up.
I stopped them, sandwiched myself between them, feeling John’s 1800 pounds now pushing me against Jim, and unhooked them. Boots took Jim and set off for the house. I stood in denial with John, talking to him and trying to coax him to walk home with me. This was the first time he had ever stopped when I was saying go. He shook his head, as if to say “no” but also to shake the blood from his nose. But he listened to me for one last time and struggled to walk another ten feet or so. And then he laid down.
He took several last gasps of air with his huge head in my lap. And then his massive and gentle body became still. It was over. Big John died, only minutes after being the willing worker he had been for his entire life. All I could do was wail. And wail.
My vet said the cause of his death was most likely an aneurysm, not that uncommon for an older horse. Working him and keeping him in shape was the best thing I could have been doing for him, he told me.
And John liked to work. He was more of a people horse than a woods horse – the opposite of Jim. He loved to pull people in my big sleigh. He loved parades. And he loved kids.
His biggest vice was not wanting to be caught while he was hanging out in the pasture. It drove his previous owner crazy, and it didn’t make me too happy either while chasing him around and around in the morning when we first got him. But then my daughter offered to help. Presto. Big John would never run from a kid.
Since we live right on the road, people are always stopping to look at the horses. And we love to talk about them and show them off. Oftentimes people will ask — or we’ll offer — to give them a ride.
“Oh yeah,” they’d say, “which one can I ride?”
I’d point to Big John, the biggest of the big horses, who stood 18 hands – a good six feet high to the top of his back. Yep, a ladder was useful – if not required – to get up on him.
“Very funny,” they’d usually respond.
But it was no joke. Big John was the gentlest of giants. He never did anything to hurt anyone or anything. When kids or scared adults got near him he wouldn’t so much as breathe hard, almost as if he was trying to reassure them that everything was fine. And it always was. He had dozens of people get up on his back, most of them kids, and he’d very slowly walk around and give them a thrill of a lifetime.
In the spring and fall I would often put John’s famous double saddle (yes, a two-seater saddle!) on him and ride him to the elementary school to pick up our daughter, Isabel. The school’s secretary even joked once that she was going to amend the parking lot signage to include a horse sign since the current signs offered a place for “cars” and “busses” only.
Nothing fazed John. He’d ride between the busses, through the parking lot, and around the excited children – even letting the kids surround him and hug his leg. We got there early one day and he even let me ride him around to the back of the school and put his face to my daughter’s classroom window.
“Isabel,” I heard her teacher say, “your dad and your horse are here.”
Big John also did parades. Isabel and her friend rode amongst the fire trucks and other mayhem in the Worcester Fourth of July parade – with John’s hair braided and flowers in his tail and mane. I will never forget the looks on people’s faces when they saw these little girls on such a big horse.
He was also my teacher. Before I had John I only had Jim and a dream of being a “teamster.” John made that dream easy to attain. He stood patiently as we figured out the ins and outs and buckles and straps of hooking up a team. And off we went, high stepping through the fields, into the woods, through town, up to the town green, to the school and, of course, to pull wood, too.
There’s nothing like the bond between the teamster and his horses. Imagine the trust – or, if you’d rather, the leap of faith – required to take a one-ton prey animal, hook him to another one-ton prey animal, hook them to a heavy piece of equipment, and then drive them with a one-inch leather strap in your hand through all kinds of scenarios that are completely and totally contrary to their instinct to flee. It’s remarkable. And powerful. And moving.
While I’m sad beyond words about John’s passing, I’m thankful for the six years we got to work together. He taught me so much about patience, trust, teamwork and a singular focus one needs when working in tandem with such large animals. And I’m relieved that he died quickly in one of the most beautiful areas in our woods.
Getting John buried was no easy task. There’s more than two feet of snow on the ground and, as I said earlier, he died a half of a mile in the woods. We made all kinds of calls and visits to people we knew who had the big equipment necessary to both get to him and dig the hole. All but one couldn’t make it for one reason or another. Having been raised around horses, he knew what we were going through.
If I helped him dig out his trailer and load his excavator, he said, he’d help give John the burial he deserved. And so he did, crawling his way back over the trail and digging the giant hole.
“I’ll take it from here,” he said to me as he prepared to put John in his final resting place, sensing that I didn’t want to be around for that part of it. “I’ll say a prayer for him,” he added while giving me a caring touch to my shoulder and a motion for me to leave.
Later, when we all went to see the grave, we were moved by the makeshift cross he had made with two branches and a shoelace. Isabel and her friends later added to the simple shrine (see photo below).
It was a long weekend for all of us, including, of course, Big Jim and the other three horses. For much of the day after John died, Jim stood and stared at the trail that leads into the woods and about every ten minutes would let out a loud whinny, calling out for his teammate or some answers. We had none.
Thank you, John, for giving us all so much joy. We will never forget you. Rest in peace — you earned it.
Natural Born Trespassers
February 6, 2008 | 3 Comments
Look Mom, no record! Arrest record, that is – because the old Drunken Boat album is still out there. Yep, this morning I’m mailing in the letter to the unflappable Chittenden County State’s Attorney, T.J. Donovan, that vouches for the fact that yours truly has completed the 30 hours of community service he required of me in order to drop the two charges of trespassing hanging over my head.
For those keeping track at home, you’ll recall that I went on one hell of a reckless and lawless spree last year in a rather quixotic attempt to wake the sleepers about the fact that we are, indeed, a nation at war. What can I say? I’m a silly boy who is easily lulled into the illusion that the practice of democracy in the full view of the public still matters.
My first act of wanton lawlessness involved the pursuit of a meeting with Vermont’s lone congressman, Peter Welch. But the ambulance-chasing attorney turned double-talking congressman decided it was best to have us arrested at his office rather than agree to meet with us at a time, date and place of his choosing. Welch, however, quickly realized that the cuffing of his anti-war constituents didn’t look all that good – especially when his supposed “number one issue” was trying to stop the war. Go figure.
Only days after having us cuffed and booked for seeking to meet with him, Welch agreed to meet with us. Oh yes, you all remember THAT meeting, right? Yeah, the one where we had the audacity to ask that the congressman take 10 minutes of unfettered blather time in exchange for five minutes of answering “yes or no” to 15 or so questions about the war and its funding. You know, “yes or no,” kind of like the “up or down” votes he has to cast all day long as a member of congress – no middle ground.
But in the age of terror and bombing the holy hell out of foreign nations, we learned that Vermont’s liberal elite are apparently more appalled by the posing of “yes or no” questions than they are about Welch’s dithering doublespeak and its implied support for an illegal war that has killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Priorities, my friends, it’s all about priorities.
The good news on the Welch front is that despite the hand wringing and soft verbal pokes we received from the liberal appeasers, the not-so-good congressman got the message. Welch, as you may know, went on to basically answer our most important “yes or no” question by pledging to not vote for another penny for the War on Iraq. Mission accomplished, indeed.
And so we, the Natural Born Trespassers, turned our attention to the military recruiters in Vermont, with a goal of shutting down their military recruitment efforts for as long as we could. This was surprisingly easy: Put the word out, show up, and see that the big, tough military boys and girls had left and locked up by the time we got there. Hmm, “the few, the proud and the frightened?”
But, lucky for us, the fellows at the Vermont National Guard had a recruitment office right across the street. And so we paid a visit. Well, make that: We occupied the joint and set up our own little “green zone” in their offices. Until, that is, closing time when we were cuffed and carted to the police station and – you guessed it! – charged with trespassing.
In the 90 or so days that have elapsed since our bloodless trespassing spree, I’ve had about four appearances in Chittenden’s District Court – each featuring a friendly greeting from T.J. Donovan himself. You see, he wants us to go away. And so each time we arrived he had an offer for us. First, he wanted us to plead “no contest” to the charges in exchange for 15 hours of community service. Next, he dropped it to 10 hours of community service. And, finally, he offered to dismiss the charges in exchange for 15 hours of community service for each charge. Deal.
As much as we wanted to take this to a jury trial, the annoying drives to Burlington, the scene at the courthouse and the very likeable Donovan made it too easy to accept the deal and wipe our records clean.
Let me tell you, Chittenden’s District Court is a sad place to be. It’s here where Vermont’s under-employed, under-paid and under-belly makes its appearance. Each morning the halls are lined with dozens of people who have been cited for what seems like mostly alcohol-related offenses: DUI’s, fights, thefts, etc.
The case for decriminalizing pot was on the front pages while we were making our court appearances. And, let me tell you, I have to agree with those who say that pot cases are not clogging the courts. I saw only one pot case come before the court, and it lasted about two minutes as the young man accepted the $200 fine as a plea deal before happily making his way to the exit.
But I still support decriminalization – mostly because it certainly seems like we’re focusing on the wrong drug. I didn’t hear one defendant, for example, declare that he put his face in a bong and then punched a wall, his spouse or the neighbor. But I heard several cases where folks hit the bars and then wreaked havoc on a loved one or a neighborhood. It really seemed like it was one, sad alcohol-related offense after another.
My days at the District Court are over now. I did my time – 30 hours of anti-war work on behalf of you, dear fellow citizens, including 5 hours of planning and implementing our little visit to Governor Douglas’s State of the State speech last month. Now, other than the trespassing case involving our little interruption of John Negroponte’s speech in St. Johnsbury in 2006 that is awaiting a hearing before the Vermont Supreme Court, my record is clean!
Which means: We’re in planning mode. Stay tuned.
{Photo Credit: The Fabulous NTodd}
The Society of the Spectacle
February 4, 2008 | 2 Comments
Guy Debord described our predicament best in 1967: We are living in the “society of the spectacle.” While he wrote it 31 years ago, it sure felt like he was describing last weekend. And so it was, the sound and the fury of America’s great spectacles draped us like a wet blanket. The Super Bowl and the Presidential “race.” All, in the end, signifying nothing but the continuance of the spectacle. And over and over it goes.
But now America wakes to the constipation of consumption. We arise to that awkward moment between the flashes of nothingness. Our eyes stinging from the visions. Our bodies aching from withstanding the gluttony required to watch and to listen to the charade. Our minds filthy with the false promises of hope and change and the illusion of winners and losers.
America, you’ve been given your marching orders: consume and vote. Pick a product and a prophet:
Pepsi or Coke.
Paper or Plastic.
Hillary or Obama.
Democrat or Republican.
Giants or Patriots.
CNN or Fox.
The Baby Jesus or the Crucified Jesus.
Chevy or Ford.
Us or Them.
Lights. Camera. Action.
All signifying nothing, indeed.
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