It's inherently difficult to get moderates and even-tempered folks to get riled up, hence their being moderates. America's religious landscape has become increasingly polarized and extremist, both in terms of increased zeal of fundamentalists and conservative Catholics, but also in the increasingly strident, intolerant tone of the new unbelief embodied by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.
The most intelligent voices are completely written out of our religious discussions, which usually ends up being a red-faced yelling match between Bible-thumping ignoramuses and smug, insufferable atheists of the Bill Maher stamp. Everyone in the middle, from agnostics to Prebyterians to lapsed Catholics, is sidelined, even though those who are not fundamentalists for the Bible or soldiers for human reason make up the vast majority of people in this country. Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists are especially disadvantaged by this dualistic construction of our public debate (where only Christians like Pat Robertson get to talk), and Muslims are only allowed in to be attacked or to defend their basic right to practice their faith, whether it be in rural Tennessee or lower Manhattan. Religion is not simple, it is startingly complex, mysterious, and multifaceted. Those who present questions of faith and religion in simplistic terms are stupid at best, malevolent at worst.
(This is why I enjoyed Hal Crowther's piece in the Oxford American where he castigates the fundies but defends a more tolerant practice of religion, rather than just dumping it all out, Richard Dawkins style.)
Neither side speaks to me, mostly because I've been in both of their camps, and became disillusioned. I grew up in a very devoutly Catholic family living in a rural diocese often considered the most conservative in the nation. I was an altar boy for five years, briefly considered joining the priesthood, and took part in a couple of anti-abortion protests. For a long time this ironclad Catholic belief fulfilled me, until I started learning the church's history and reading philosophy. I then very quickly found the church and its faith demands to be ridiculous, mendacious, and incapable of being followed. These thoughts were already in my head in high school, and once I went to college (ironically at a Jesuit university) I quickly stopped going to church, and soon declared myself to be an agnostic, then an atheist. I enjoyed entering theological debates with my more devout fellow students, drunk with the powerful arrogance of my new way of thinking.
I'm not sure how, but over time, my views moderated. I spent a long time thinking of myself as a "culturally-Catholic agnostic." Much of this had to do with the fact that I knew plenty of people from a variety of faiths and denominations whose belief seemed to bring out the good in them. I am still frightened at what horrible acts zealotry can spawn, but I am equally convinced that many great people, such as Gandhi, MLK, and Sarah Grimke, were strengthened, nurtured, and driven by their faith, and contra the new atheists, would not have done what they did without it.
Nowadays I'd call myself an Agnostic Episcopalian. After going to an episcopal church with a friend a couple of years ago, I have been attending services off and on. The ritual still speaks to my soul, and the hour I spend in church is positively therapeutic, even though I don't fully believe the words I say and hymns I sing. It feels good to be part of a loving, accepting community, and to listen to a pastor who is just as much a humanist as he is a Christian. Of course, to the fundies (and the clergy of my former church) I am an unbelieving apostate who is breaking bread with sodomites and their allies, members of a denomination that has strayed from the true path of Christ. To the atheists, I am an idiot and a weakling seduced by the blandishments of unreason and emotion. Whatever they all may say, I don't really think of myself as wither an apostate or a mental weakling, but as a spiritual seeker who has finally found a home.
Perhaps it is time for a new ecumenical movement that embraces ambivalence, mystery, and uncertainty rather than castigates it. According to our public discourse, there are only two choices: zealotry and apostasy. Both are thin spiritual gruel. Instead, why not a lavish feast of different faiths grounded in mutual respect and humanity? It's time for the fundamentalists and the apostates to spend time on the sidelines for a change. I have a feeling that the rest of us would be a lot happier.
Footnote: One relatively recent, great book on the effects of Biblical literalism by James Simpson (Burning to Read), really got me thinking about all this. He argues that the Reformation did not lay the groundwork for the emergence of liberalism (as the Whiggish view goes), but in fact was marked by fundamental intolerance grounded in the doctrine of Biblical authority. Reading his account of the early English Reformation has a lot to tell us about America's current religious culture.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Track of the Week: David Bowie, "Warszawa"
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I'm sick this week. It happens every February, the most wretched month on the calendar. When I take ill, I like to have music for soothing and healing, and I've developed some go-to songs over the years. Back when I was a senior in college, I got massively ill after making the poorly considered decision to dig my car out of a snow drift without boots on. It was spring break, and the snowstorm combined with my sickness meant I had to stay in my apartment.
I was in the midst of my David Bowie phase, and had just bought copies of Low and Station to Station, which I listened to constantly over the next few days. These were appropriate choices, since Bowie recorded them when he was in a period of illness and recovery, and I think that context shows up in the grooves.
On Low, the first side is all relatively conventional art-rock songs, with verses and choruses, and the like. The second side is made up of experiments and sound collages, which I didn't appreciate so much at the time. Nowadays, I like "Warszawa" best. It's based off of Bowie's impressions of Warsaw under communist rule, gathered during a train layover there. It is the sound of a grey, listless day without hope of sunshine. To me it paints a picture of a ghostly city, full of people who are less living and more just waiting to die.
What I hate most about being sick is having the feeling that just living and breathing are an ordeal, that most I can hope for in the day is to survive it. That's exactly what I hear in this song.
I'm sick this week. It happens every February, the most wretched month on the calendar. When I take ill, I like to have music for soothing and healing, and I've developed some go-to songs over the years. Back when I was a senior in college, I got massively ill after making the poorly considered decision to dig my car out of a snow drift without boots on. It was spring break, and the snowstorm combined with my sickness meant I had to stay in my apartment.
I was in the midst of my David Bowie phase, and had just bought copies of Low and Station to Station, which I listened to constantly over the next few days. These were appropriate choices, since Bowie recorded them when he was in a period of illness and recovery, and I think that context shows up in the grooves.
On Low, the first side is all relatively conventional art-rock songs, with verses and choruses, and the like. The second side is made up of experiments and sound collages, which I didn't appreciate so much at the time. Nowadays, I like "Warszawa" best. It's based off of Bowie's impressions of Warsaw under communist rule, gathered during a train layover there. It is the sound of a grey, listless day without hope of sunshine. To me it paints a picture of a ghostly city, full of people who are less living and more just waiting to die.
What I hate most about being sick is having the feeling that just living and breathing are an ordeal, that most I can hope for in the day is to survive it. That's exactly what I hear in this song.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Junk Food, The Real Opiate of America's Masses
A few months ago I wrote a post about my favorite kinds of junk food, and I said this:
"If Karl Marx were alive and amongst us today, he would say that cheap junk food, not religion, is the opiate of the masses. People are willing to passively accept warrantless spying by their government, drug tests from their employers, and surveillance cameras on any corner, but will get up in arms if you dare restrict their right to giant containers of sugary soda."
The recent article in the New York Times Magazine about the science behind addictive junk food got me thinking about this fact again. Until recently, overconsumption of junk food was a cheap vice that was completely socially acceptable. Folks might frown at smoking or judge someone for drinking to excess, but chomping through a whole bag of Doritos and washing it down with a liter of Mountain Dew would hardly draw much notice. Not only that, this was something that I did as a child all the time while having parents who would have taken me to the woodshed if I drank or smoked. A friend of mine who grew up in a very religious, evangelical environment always likes to talk about how overeating, i.e. gluttony, is the one acceptable vice among devout Christians.
Growing up as I did in a lower-middle class household governed by cheap parents, junk food was one of the few things we were allowed to indulge in. My mom would bring home bulging bags of Brachs Pick-a-Mix candy from the grocery store every week, along with crates of soda. (Since it was cheaper, many varieties of Shasta were always on hand.) My father loved pretzels and Fritos, and cracked open endless cartons of Whoppers. Once I was old enough to be drawing an allowance, I would go to the drug store across from my junior high and buy a handful of peppermint patties and mini-Reese's cups just about every day, without a shred of parental disapproval. My family is not alone in this. Junk food in this country is cheap, plentiful, and always at hand. As I mentioned before, our whole agricultural policy is centered around the proposition that a bag of Cheetos ought to cost as much as a bunch of spinach.
In the past thirty years, those of us who are not in the upper-strata in the taxpayers have been getting squeezed. College now means decades of debt, medical bills cause bankruptcy, and wages are stagnant. However, potato chips, candy bars, and Big Macs are still as cheap as ever. Having another frustrating day working your no security, shit-pay job where you have no voice? Just crack open a soda and chomp down on some chips and candy until your body warms up to the sugar and carbs and your troubles are forgotten.
We should be doing more to understand this country's consumption of junk food as a class-based phenomenon, and not of the "the proles are so dumb and uneducated and stupid they're eating themselves to death" variety I keep hearing from affluent urban liberals. I've changed my eating habits, but I understand why someone might be upset over losing the Big Gulp. What right does a billionaire like Bloomberg have to deny a simple, if unhealthy, pleasure to a regular person who has so little in life that they can afford to indulge in? Instead of just berating consumers of junk food, we ought to hold the people who make and market it more accountable, and to question the cruel, unequal economic system that has made the masses seek an opiate in junk food in the first place.
"If Karl Marx were alive and amongst us today, he would say that cheap junk food, not religion, is the opiate of the masses. People are willing to passively accept warrantless spying by their government, drug tests from their employers, and surveillance cameras on any corner, but will get up in arms if you dare restrict their right to giant containers of sugary soda."
The recent article in the New York Times Magazine about the science behind addictive junk food got me thinking about this fact again. Until recently, overconsumption of junk food was a cheap vice that was completely socially acceptable. Folks might frown at smoking or judge someone for drinking to excess, but chomping through a whole bag of Doritos and washing it down with a liter of Mountain Dew would hardly draw much notice. Not only that, this was something that I did as a child all the time while having parents who would have taken me to the woodshed if I drank or smoked. A friend of mine who grew up in a very religious, evangelical environment always likes to talk about how overeating, i.e. gluttony, is the one acceptable vice among devout Christians.
Growing up as I did in a lower-middle class household governed by cheap parents, junk food was one of the few things we were allowed to indulge in. My mom would bring home bulging bags of Brachs Pick-a-Mix candy from the grocery store every week, along with crates of soda. (Since it was cheaper, many varieties of Shasta were always on hand.) My father loved pretzels and Fritos, and cracked open endless cartons of Whoppers. Once I was old enough to be drawing an allowance, I would go to the drug store across from my junior high and buy a handful of peppermint patties and mini-Reese's cups just about every day, without a shred of parental disapproval. My family is not alone in this. Junk food in this country is cheap, plentiful, and always at hand. As I mentioned before, our whole agricultural policy is centered around the proposition that a bag of Cheetos ought to cost as much as a bunch of spinach.
In the past thirty years, those of us who are not in the upper-strata in the taxpayers have been getting squeezed. College now means decades of debt, medical bills cause bankruptcy, and wages are stagnant. However, potato chips, candy bars, and Big Macs are still as cheap as ever. Having another frustrating day working your no security, shit-pay job where you have no voice? Just crack open a soda and chomp down on some chips and candy until your body warms up to the sugar and carbs and your troubles are forgotten.
We should be doing more to understand this country's consumption of junk food as a class-based phenomenon, and not of the "the proles are so dumb and uneducated and stupid they're eating themselves to death" variety I keep hearing from affluent urban liberals. I've changed my eating habits, but I understand why someone might be upset over losing the Big Gulp. What right does a billionaire like Bloomberg have to deny a simple, if unhealthy, pleasure to a regular person who has so little in life that they can afford to indulge in? Instead of just berating consumers of junk food, we ought to hold the people who make and market it more accountable, and to question the cruel, unequal economic system that has made the masses seek an opiate in junk food in the first place.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
What JJ Abrams Should Retain, and Jettison, for the Star Wars Sequels
I am alternately elated and frightened regarding the announcement of upcoming Star Wars sequels directed by JJ Abrams. The elation is easy to explain, of course. I am a huge fan of the Star Wars films, and ever since I was a child I have been craving to know what happens to the galaxy once the emperor has been defeated. Back in the early 1990s, I intently devoured the Timothy Zahn-authored sequel novels, and even constructed my own imagined plot for a sequel trilogy.
My trepidations, in light of the letdown occasioned by the Lucas-helmed prequels, should be equally easy to understand. Of the three, only Revenge of the Sith was really worthy, with Phantom Menace lame and most of The Clone Wars all but unwatchable. The mediocrity of these films damages the bright luster of the originals, and cheapens them to an extent. (The fact that Lucas then put changes into the originals to make their plots more consistent with the prequels is even more galling.)
I do have some hope that JJ Abrams will do a good job. Everyone wants to see harbingers of his approach to the new trilogy in his reboot of Star Trek, but I think the excellent Super 8 provides more clues. I thought Super 8 was a highly underrated film, and that it combined art, pathos, adventure and comedy together in a masterful way. That same combination of factors is what made the original Star Wars trilogy so great. Here are some things from the prior Star Wars films that are kept, and some that ought to be let go.
Ambiguous Characters
People want to think of the Star Wars saga as a battle between good and evil, but many of the best characters are actually quite ambiguous, and they tend to keep proceedings from getting too moralistic and dour. For instance, Han Solo is a cut-throat smuggler who initially refuses to assist the Rebel Alliance in their Death Star assault, and on Hoth decides to abandon the cause simply because he's welched on a bet. Lando is extremely ambiguous, and the audience's trust and sympathy for him as a character swing wildly during his time in Empire. Even Obi Wan is not to be trusted, since he intentionally hides the truth from Luke for his own purposes. The new films need characters like these if they are to be interesting.
Non-Forced Comic Relief
Despite all the seriousness of The Force and Jedi training, many of the best moments in Star Wars films are the humoross kind, like Han being unfrozen at Jabba's palace, asking Luke how things are going, and Luke telling him just like the old times, and Han snarkily huffing, "that bad?" Han and the Droids tended to provide the best comic moments, but Luke and Leia had their share as well. The prequels suffered so much because the main characters had little sense of humor, and the comic relief was outsourced to the execrably unfunny Jar Jar Binks, whose brand of prat-falling physical humor went out with the Keystone Kops.
Droids
The droids added so much to the original sequel, and not just in terms of humor. They often commented on the actions of the human characters, and allowed the audience to see things from multiple perspectives. Much of the Ewok stuff in Jedi is completely tedious, but the elements involving C3PO are funny and endearing, especially in how his behavior does not always match wishes of his supposed human masters.
Grit
The Star Wars universe, as presented in the original sequel, grabs the viewer right away. I feel this is the case in large part because unlike other science-fiction universes, it is a gritty place where things are dented, stained and used up. It feels lived-in, and surprisingly organic. Very early on in Star Wars, the viewers are taken inside the Jawa trawler, which is a kind of rolling junk shop full of second-hand droids. The prequels, which I guess were supposed to reflect the galaxy before the destructive effects of war, showed a world that was glittery, gauzy, sparkly, and relatively clean. It was not inviting or homey, it was sterile and lifeless, despite the color. For the new sequels to work, they need the dirt, grit, dents, and wear and tear of the originals.
Dump Politics
I still don't understand the political plot of the prequels, beyond the fact that Palpatine takes power. I do not give a damn about the Trade Federation, or understand the machinations of the Senate. The original sequel contains just enough politics to drive the plot forward (Leia is on a "diplomatic mission" and the Senate's been dissolved) and that's it. I'd say that's all you need, even if there is potential for a political plot based on the need for the heroes of the originals to establish a new government in the wake of the Empire's collapse. The thing is, we go to Star Wars films for their epic mythos, not to contemplate the rigors of state building.
Dump Midochlorians
Making the Force a matter of biology enables an insidious, Social Darwinian view of society. Perhaps Abrams can have a little aside where the viewers learn that the "science" surrounding midochlorians was actually proven to be false.
My trepidations, in light of the letdown occasioned by the Lucas-helmed prequels, should be equally easy to understand. Of the three, only Revenge of the Sith was really worthy, with Phantom Menace lame and most of The Clone Wars all but unwatchable. The mediocrity of these films damages the bright luster of the originals, and cheapens them to an extent. (The fact that Lucas then put changes into the originals to make their plots more consistent with the prequels is even more galling.)
I do have some hope that JJ Abrams will do a good job. Everyone wants to see harbingers of his approach to the new trilogy in his reboot of Star Trek, but I think the excellent Super 8 provides more clues. I thought Super 8 was a highly underrated film, and that it combined art, pathos, adventure and comedy together in a masterful way. That same combination of factors is what made the original Star Wars trilogy so great. Here are some things from the prior Star Wars films that are kept, and some that ought to be let go.
Ambiguous Characters
People want to think of the Star Wars saga as a battle between good and evil, but many of the best characters are actually quite ambiguous, and they tend to keep proceedings from getting too moralistic and dour. For instance, Han Solo is a cut-throat smuggler who initially refuses to assist the Rebel Alliance in their Death Star assault, and on Hoth decides to abandon the cause simply because he's welched on a bet. Lando is extremely ambiguous, and the audience's trust and sympathy for him as a character swing wildly during his time in Empire. Even Obi Wan is not to be trusted, since he intentionally hides the truth from Luke for his own purposes. The new films need characters like these if they are to be interesting.
Non-Forced Comic Relief
Despite all the seriousness of The Force and Jedi training, many of the best moments in Star Wars films are the humoross kind, like Han being unfrozen at Jabba's palace, asking Luke how things are going, and Luke telling him just like the old times, and Han snarkily huffing, "that bad?" Han and the Droids tended to provide the best comic moments, but Luke and Leia had their share as well. The prequels suffered so much because the main characters had little sense of humor, and the comic relief was outsourced to the execrably unfunny Jar Jar Binks, whose brand of prat-falling physical humor went out with the Keystone Kops.
Droids
The droids added so much to the original sequel, and not just in terms of humor. They often commented on the actions of the human characters, and allowed the audience to see things from multiple perspectives. Much of the Ewok stuff in Jedi is completely tedious, but the elements involving C3PO are funny and endearing, especially in how his behavior does not always match wishes of his supposed human masters.
Grit
The Star Wars universe, as presented in the original sequel, grabs the viewer right away. I feel this is the case in large part because unlike other science-fiction universes, it is a gritty place where things are dented, stained and used up. It feels lived-in, and surprisingly organic. Very early on in Star Wars, the viewers are taken inside the Jawa trawler, which is a kind of rolling junk shop full of second-hand droids. The prequels, which I guess were supposed to reflect the galaxy before the destructive effects of war, showed a world that was glittery, gauzy, sparkly, and relatively clean. It was not inviting or homey, it was sterile and lifeless, despite the color. For the new sequels to work, they need the dirt, grit, dents, and wear and tear of the originals.
Dump Politics
I still don't understand the political plot of the prequels, beyond the fact that Palpatine takes power. I do not give a damn about the Trade Federation, or understand the machinations of the Senate. The original sequel contains just enough politics to drive the plot forward (Leia is on a "diplomatic mission" and the Senate's been dissolved) and that's it. I'd say that's all you need, even if there is potential for a political plot based on the need for the heroes of the originals to establish a new government in the wake of the Empire's collapse. The thing is, we go to Star Wars films for their epic mythos, not to contemplate the rigors of state building.
Dump Midochlorians
Making the Force a matter of biology enables an insidious, Social Darwinian view of society. Perhaps Abrams can have a little aside where the viewers learn that the "science" surrounding midochlorians was actually proven to be false.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Track of the Week: The Strokes, "Reptilia"
Sit down, kiddos, and old uncle Werner take you back to a distant time called the early 2000s. Y'see, in the late 1990s, American rock music hit its biggest trough since the days of shoulder pads and hairspray. The pioneers of grunge had shuffled off of the stage, and all we were left with were the likes of Creed, Sum 41, and Puddle of Mudd. Yeah sure, there were some good indie acts out there, and Radiohead put out some amazing records, but they were not the types to plug in the axe, crank up the amp and ROCK.
'Round November of 2001, when pretty much everyone was feeling rotten after the 9/11 attacks, your uncle Werner got at least a little satisfaction from the rise of what we called then the "the bands." Y'know, The Hives, The White Stripes, The Libertines, and The Strokes. These guys brought back the rock, and not the turgid, self-pitying grunge-lite that had been polluting the airwaves for years. The Strokes really kicked the whole thing off, and I must have listened to Is This It on a daily basis for awhile there. As much as I loved that record ("Someday" in particular), it wore out fast. The Strokes had a pretty set formula: shuffling up-tempo beat, basic post-punk riffs, and the singer opining decadent lyrics while laconically over-drawing his vocals. I also discovered that they were a bunch of trustafarian New York pretty boys, which made the hipsterized, blase attitude of the music hard to swallow.
Having given them up for The White Stripes, I happened to miss out on their best song, "Reptilia," which came out on their second record. It's got the same ole formula, but the beat's more insistent, the guitar lines more searing, and the vocals more vital. The part 2/3's of the way through, when the song just gallops off like an untamed stallion, still gets me every time. It's the closest anyone has come to matching New York punk greats Television on their own sonic turf, and for that the Strokes deserve a tip of an aging man's hat.
Monday, February 18, 2013
What's the Matter With Nebraska?
As regulars of this blog know, I grew up in south-central Nebraska. Over the last fifteen years of my life, I have resided outside of my home state, and have been viewing political developments there with increasing worry. Thomas Frank's flawed masterpiece, What's the Matter with Kansas? tried to explain conservatism's appeal to working-class whites in areas that were once politically progressive. To understand what has changed within political conservatism, I think my home state provides the perfect case study.
Nebraska has long been a bastion of conservatism, both politically and socially. When the Cornhuskers won their national titles, they did it with a running offense that was a throwback to the olden days of football. Growing up, the most subtle dig you could make at something or someone was that it/he/she was "different." My love of indie rock in high school didn't make me cool, it made me the subject of mockery. In terms of politics, Nebraska has gone for Republicans in every single presidential election since LBJ's landslide in 1964.
Despite the Cornhusker state's conservative ethos, it has not been, until recently, dominated by radical conservative ideology. It has been a state with a robust public sphere, including well-funded schools, low tuition at state universities, plentiful state parks, and the best damn interstate rest areas in the nation. (No joke!) Democrats used to be elected to major offices, including Ben Nelson as both governor and senator, Bob Kerry as governor and senator, Jim Exon as senator for almost twenty years, and Ed Zorinsky for two terms, all within my lifetime. The state's conservatism was based in more traditional sources, not in free-market worship or anti-tax hysteria.
That has changed. Last year, the state's Republicans nominated a Tea Party-backed candidate, Deb Fischer, who is now in Washington. The other current senator, Mike Johanns, a popular former governor and relatively moderate conservative, has just announced that he won't run in 2014. He has been willing to compromise with the Democrats, and has been critical of the far-Right fringe, who now has the power to prevent his reelection. I would not be surprised if another Tea Party-style Republican ends up with the nomination.
As far as the governor's mansion is concerned, the race to succeed Dave Heineman was thrown open when the current lieutenant governor was caught using his state-issued cell phone to have sexy time with multiple mistresses. The first new candidate to step forward, Charlie Janssen, is the author of a voter ID bill and has pushed for Arizona-style racial profiling laws. He spouts off terms like "individual liberty" in his campaign pronouncements despite his desire to suppress the vote and use the police to harass Latinos. The man is so zealous in his hatreds that he wants a law to ban unborn children of undocumented immigrants from getting pre-natal care. ("Pro-life" indeed.) My state hardly has a sterling record when it comes to racism, but I never knew of Nebraska politicians who so nakedly used racist resentment to appeal to white voters. In sum, Janssen represents the kind of hard-Right conservatism Nebraskans used to let places like Texas and Mississippi practice.
Heineman, the current governor, has hardly been less zealous. In fact, he was so furious over the state legislature's override of his vetoing a bill restoring the aforementioned prenatal care that he campaigned against giving the low-paid unicameral reps a pay raise. He also recently proposed eliminating Nebraska's income tax while expanding its sales tax (including extending it to food), an insanely regressive move. Evidently that move has foundered, but in doing so, Heineman is attempting a full frontal assault on the state's traditional social contract in favor of the type of brutally regressive schemes favored in states like Texas and Florida.
My home state was always conservative, now it is becoming radical. I guess decades of Fox News, talk radio, and massive bales of money from outside organizations have worked. Every time I come home I am more and more shocked that the fundamental generosity and public-mindedness of my homeland has been replaced with hatred, resentment, fundamentalist religiosity, and laissez-faire orthodoxy. Nebraska's fate has been shared by large swaths of this country, and the fact that radicals now control so much of the country makes it that much harder for positive change to happen in this country.
Nebraska has long been a bastion of conservatism, both politically and socially. When the Cornhuskers won their national titles, they did it with a running offense that was a throwback to the olden days of football. Growing up, the most subtle dig you could make at something or someone was that it/he/she was "different." My love of indie rock in high school didn't make me cool, it made me the subject of mockery. In terms of politics, Nebraska has gone for Republicans in every single presidential election since LBJ's landslide in 1964.
Despite the Cornhusker state's conservative ethos, it has not been, until recently, dominated by radical conservative ideology. It has been a state with a robust public sphere, including well-funded schools, low tuition at state universities, plentiful state parks, and the best damn interstate rest areas in the nation. (No joke!) Democrats used to be elected to major offices, including Ben Nelson as both governor and senator, Bob Kerry as governor and senator, Jim Exon as senator for almost twenty years, and Ed Zorinsky for two terms, all within my lifetime. The state's conservatism was based in more traditional sources, not in free-market worship or anti-tax hysteria.
That has changed. Last year, the state's Republicans nominated a Tea Party-backed candidate, Deb Fischer, who is now in Washington. The other current senator, Mike Johanns, a popular former governor and relatively moderate conservative, has just announced that he won't run in 2014. He has been willing to compromise with the Democrats, and has been critical of the far-Right fringe, who now has the power to prevent his reelection. I would not be surprised if another Tea Party-style Republican ends up with the nomination.
As far as the governor's mansion is concerned, the race to succeed Dave Heineman was thrown open when the current lieutenant governor was caught using his state-issued cell phone to have sexy time with multiple mistresses. The first new candidate to step forward, Charlie Janssen, is the author of a voter ID bill and has pushed for Arizona-style racial profiling laws. He spouts off terms like "individual liberty" in his campaign pronouncements despite his desire to suppress the vote and use the police to harass Latinos. The man is so zealous in his hatreds that he wants a law to ban unborn children of undocumented immigrants from getting pre-natal care. ("Pro-life" indeed.) My state hardly has a sterling record when it comes to racism, but I never knew of Nebraska politicians who so nakedly used racist resentment to appeal to white voters. In sum, Janssen represents the kind of hard-Right conservatism Nebraskans used to let places like Texas and Mississippi practice.
Heineman, the current governor, has hardly been less zealous. In fact, he was so furious over the state legislature's override of his vetoing a bill restoring the aforementioned prenatal care that he campaigned against giving the low-paid unicameral reps a pay raise. He also recently proposed eliminating Nebraska's income tax while expanding its sales tax (including extending it to food), an insanely regressive move. Evidently that move has foundered, but in doing so, Heineman is attempting a full frontal assault on the state's traditional social contract in favor of the type of brutally regressive schemes favored in states like Texas and Florida.
My home state was always conservative, now it is becoming radical. I guess decades of Fox News, talk radio, and massive bales of money from outside organizations have worked. Every time I come home I am more and more shocked that the fundamental generosity and public-mindedness of my homeland has been replaced with hatred, resentment, fundamentalist religiosity, and laissez-faire orthodoxy. Nebraska's fate has been shared by large swaths of this country, and the fact that radicals now control so much of the country makes it that much harder for positive change to happen in this country.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
The Real Reasons Behind the Roadblock of Chuck Hagel
As usual, our nation's fatuous news media is covering a major war over an important issue without actually talking about it. Republicans in the Senate are blocking the nomination of Chuck Hagel, who as a former conservative Republican senator from my home state of Nebraska, is hardly some kind of Leftist pacifist. Having served on the front lines in Vietnam and taken shrapnel for his troubles, he has a much more intimate relationship with war and the military than most other Secretaries of Defense. So why all the opposition, to the point of an unprecedented filibuster?
Most media sources either take the Republicans at face value, and see legitimate concerns over Hagel's past in their attacks, or portray this all as some kind of personal revenge for Hagel's criticisms of the way George W. Bush conducted the war in Iraq. Neither one of these interpretations is true.
They want to stop Hagel because the Republican party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the military industrial complex. The War on Terror has boosted military spending to old Cold War levels, and the big contractors have made out like bandits. Hagel is publicly in favor of president Obama's long-term plan to draw down the size of the military, and that's why he is considered such a danger.
For all of their talk about "small government" and cutting "waste," conservatives love dumping trillions of dollars into our war machine. They're even known for funding stuff that the military doesn't even want (but that those contractors do.) They attack welfare recipients as lazy, but are more than happy to give sweetheart, no-bid contracts worth billions to the likes of KBR, no matter how bad their performance.
For over the past decade, we really haven't had a debate in this country over whether our metastasized military ought to be maintained at its current, megasized level. Now that military cuts are in the offing after years of wild spending, Republicans want to do anything they can, including throwing themselves on the wheels of the democratic process, to stop any change from happening. That's what's really going on here, and it's a sign of their success in manipulating national media narratives that hardly anyone is talking about it.
Most media sources either take the Republicans at face value, and see legitimate concerns over Hagel's past in their attacks, or portray this all as some kind of personal revenge for Hagel's criticisms of the way George W. Bush conducted the war in Iraq. Neither one of these interpretations is true.
They want to stop Hagel because the Republican party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the military industrial complex. The War on Terror has boosted military spending to old Cold War levels, and the big contractors have made out like bandits. Hagel is publicly in favor of president Obama's long-term plan to draw down the size of the military, and that's why he is considered such a danger.
For all of their talk about "small government" and cutting "waste," conservatives love dumping trillions of dollars into our war machine. They're even known for funding stuff that the military doesn't even want (but that those contractors do.) They attack welfare recipients as lazy, but are more than happy to give sweetheart, no-bid contracts worth billions to the likes of KBR, no matter how bad their performance.
For over the past decade, we really haven't had a debate in this country over whether our metastasized military ought to be maintained at its current, megasized level. Now that military cuts are in the offing after years of wild spending, Republicans want to do anything they can, including throwing themselves on the wheels of the democratic process, to stop any change from happening. That's what's really going on here, and it's a sign of their success in manipulating national media narratives that hardly anyone is talking about it.
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