Sanuk D

I don't know what I'm doing here, I should be someplace else.

In Thailand they have a color of the day.  The color for Tuesday is Orange.  It is the day of Hanuman, devotee of Rama, who helped Rama battle the evil Ravana.  Tuesday is perhaps not an auspicious day to have a primary election because Orange is not a primary color.  Sunday, Thursday, and Friday (yellow, yellow, and red, respectively) would be better.  Maybe we would get more turnout on a yellow, yellow, or red day.  Perhaps our expectations would also be lowered such that we would not believe our political leaders to be incarnations of Hanuman.

Such was our hope for a Democratic party Representative from the 11th Congressional District here in Western North Carolina.  See, back in the day we had a corrupt banker / stroke victim for a congressman.  That was cool because we are open and accepting people here in the Land of the Suwaree, and showing our support for a half dead Republican seemed like the liberal thing to do.  We thought we had one in ‘04 but turns out she wanted to show pornos to kids.  Or she supported teaching contraception in public schools.  I get confused about how that works.  Instead, our current congressman ran through the T in ‘06 so that he could get back to Washington without being threatened by outside linebackers.

What he does seem to be threatened by, however, is any real association with his national party leadership or their platform.  That’s not to say that his vote against the stimulus package was not a principled stand against mounting deficits or that his vote against the healthcare bill was not a principled stand against perceived incursions by the government into  the lives of private citizens.  All I am saying is that his principles seem more aligned with the party in opposition to the one with which he is afilliated.  That’s all.

So that leaves us with the she-who-shows-porn-to-kids / educates-them-about-reproductive-health taking on whatsis in for a seat in the State House (which she will win, btw, because her supporters are motivated and direct mail  ain’t gonna doit in a mid-term primary for state representative.)  It also leaves us wishing she had mounted such a vibrant primary challenge to the quaterback.  Not that any of this is life and death.  The things that need to get done are going to get done before the general election anyway.  It’s an economic and political necessity.  What will remain is the opportunity to accomplish those things we have not even dreamed of yet.

Politics, you slovenly wench, you have seduced me yet again.  You come at me, face painted with the rouge, promising that somehow things will be different this go around.  Thirty minutes later, I am both depleted and filled with self-loathing as you move on to the next innocent sailor.  In this month of STD Awareness, I feel the need to get myself checked.

But I know I have a social disease, and it is terminal.  I believe in government and its power to bring us together to achieve good ends.  I get mad when people who would represent me in government act tacky.  When someone I know to be a good person wants to serve in the legislature, I feel compelled to support her.  Or him.  It could be a him, but right now it is a her.  Just saying.

Anyway, here I am, doing the same thing and expecting a different result.  It’s just one letter, I tell myself.  One letter never hurt anyone.  Just one evening of ignore the pleas of Tallulah to come play.  Just one evening of letting the dishes rot in the sink.  Just one evening sitting in a darkened room writing letter for the ethers.  It doesn’t mean anything.

Now, where is that phone bank going to be tomorrow night?

The trip to Lake Tomahawk began with great consternation.  Why do I get so excited about super-broadband access when there are kids who will be hungry today?  How do I respond when a person of my same religious creed refers to the Dude and the SubDude as reptiles on the newspaper website?  Who can I trust to advance the cause of sensible land use in the Land of the Suwaree without disenfranchising the Suwaree in the process?  These are not bad questions, but they are a bit hard at 7:45 on a Saturday morning.

And there is something in me that becomes suspicious when I value participation on an Internet message board above conversation with My Sweet Lady.  Being active in one’s community is not a bad thing, but since I have chosen to be a husband and father, perhaps my priority should be on getting Fruit and Fiber rather than Google Fiber.  It’s taken a lot of time for me to learn that being a good family man, working man, and man of faith is a full day’s work.

It’s also honest work, honorable work.  There are things I can’t do, at least not at this point in my life, and sustained participation in public discussions is one of them.  Other things I can do, and like Voltaire’s Candide, I want to cultivate my garden.  As I returned from the journey over the mountain and felt the warmth of the sun on my back, it occurred to me that the time to start some sprouts in a cold frame may have come.

On April 2, 1865 the Army of the Potomac, under General Ulysses S. Grant,  penetrated the defenses of the Virginia city of Petersburg, a vital railroad hub 20 miles south of the Confederate capital, Richmond.  Fearing entrapment, General Robert E. Lee withdrew the Army of Northern Virginia from the trenches surrounding both cities, pausing only long enough to ensure the escape of the civilian rebel government led by Jefferson Davis.  For seven days, the Army of Northern Virginia was hounded by a Union force which managed to cut off all sources of food while never allowing the Confederate army to pause for a day’s rest.  Throughout this ordeal, and even after the surrender of General Lee to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Jefferson Davis persisted in the belief that Lee could escape south and that the Civil War could be continued.  He called the abandonment of Richmond, “the opening of a new phase in our struggle.”

This is what we would call “spin.”  Evidence abounded that the Cause was lost, yet Davis could not surrender his belief that the Confederacy would achieve independence .  He was blind to the reality of his situation, yet everyone but Jefferson Davis seemed to be able to see it.  From Democratic Senate deal grabbers like Ben Nelson to Republican “Obama Waterloo” hopefuls like Jim DeMint, it seems like our modern political leaders have been as distracted by their own delusions as old Jeff.  The focus has shifted completely off of statecraft and on to a land rush for media real estate.

The tone has taken on that of a circus when one adds in the recent antics of John Edwards, who apparently has been reluctant to pay medical expenses for the daughter he has only recently acknowledged as his own.  Equally strange is the outrage of the Tea-Party conventioneers who take umbrage at the event organizer who is capitalizing on the libertarian movement to turn a profit.  At any moment, Tom DeLay and Rod Blagojevich are going to step from behind the curtain wearing silk jackets and top hat funded by the free speech rights which corporations recently had “restored” by the Supreme Court.

Despite recent evidence to the contrary, I believe we are a dignified people.  The current public discourse does not appeal to that fundamental dignity.  My hope is that the circus atmosphere of the present climate will create a will and a space for more moderate and pragmatic discussion and solutions.  As quickly as the pendulum seemed to swing in 2008, it seems to be swinging in the opposite direction today.  So much motion is making me seasick.