Excerpt from What's the Matter with Kansas?

This week I started reading a book called What's the Matter with Kansas?, by Thomas Frank, a book that has been in great demand following the election. It's an examination of what Mr. Frank refers to as "the Great Backlash," a political phenomenon of the last thirty years wherein social issues are used to mobilize middle class people to vote for pro-business economic policies. I'm not that far into it, but so far I like it very much (you probably wouldn't like it JTR, whoever you are). I wanted to share a paragraph.

From the air-conditioned heights of a suburban office complex this may look like a new age of reason, with Web sites singing each to each, with a mall down the way that every week has miraculously anticipated our subtly shifting tastes, with a global economy whose rich rewards just keep flowing, and with a long parade of rust-free Infinitis purring down the streets of beautifully manicured planned communities. But on closer inspection the country seems more like a panorama of madness and delusion worthy of Hieronymous Bosch (he was a painter, JTR): of sturdy blue-collar patriots reciting the Pledge while they strangle their own life chances; of small farmers proudly voting themselves off the land; of devoted family men carefully seeing to it that their children will never be able to afford college or proper health care; of working-class guys in midwestern cities cheering as they deliver up a landslide for a candidate whose policies will end their way of life, will transform their region into a "rust belt," will strike people like them blows from which they will never recover.

Two Post-Election Resolutions

On election night I heard Carlos Watson say that watching the returns come in had been "every bit as exciting as we'd hoped." I heard other CNN anchors say similar things about the "excitement" of the election and of what the next four years hold in store. So I have decided to never watch CNN again. I will stick to NPR, C-SPAN, the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and other forms of news that aren't watered-down trivial bullshit.

More importantly, the election has made me hate America. More specifically, the people who live here. This is not something that I take any pleasure in; I'd much rather go on thinking that America is primarily a force for good, or, barring that, go on thinking what I used to think:
"Man, it sure is a good thing the evangelical right-wing fruitcakes don't run things. What kind of crazy shit would they do? Yikes, good thing it will never happen."
CNN might call this a "November 1st Mentality."
The people I feel most isolated from are the Republicans I am friends with. There are a number of them, people who generally don't know much about politics, and just go along with what their parents think. In the past I have been able to look past our differences and have fun hanging out with them.
"Hey," I told myself, "It's too bad [insert name] has his head stuck so far up his ass, but he obviously doesn't feel THAT strongly about his beliefs. Maybe I can be friends with him, and we just won't bring it up. Or maybe I'll become more well-rounded and learn to understand a different point of view."
Again, "November 1st Mentality." Since the election, it has been extremely difficult for me to stop being angry at these people, and I have decided to take a break from them.
As of now, I am temporarily no longer friends with any Republicans. I will not take their phone calls (unless it's an emergency) and I will not hang out with them. This should last until the week of December 15th, when, in the spirit of the season, I will make a magnanimous offer of forgiveness and try to go back to how things were before.
But until December 15th let me say, Fuck you Republicans. Why don't you stop being so fucking dumb and self-centered and try to gain some kind of understanding of the world around you? Why don't you pray to whatever made-up, bullshit God your ignorant, backwards ass believes in that your stupidity hasn't doomed us all. I hope you get some really bad diarrhea.

Serving Four Years in the Prison of Public Ignorance

When George Bush was elected in 2000 it could be argued that the American people didn't know what they were voting for. That argument is no longer possible. We as a nation are now officially guilty, and when Osama bin Laden attacks us next I will be forced to take up the unpopular position that we deserve what we get. I regret that there isn't some way for such an attack to kill only Republicans.

Temporarily Rescued from Oblivion

When I think about the numerous memorial film montages I will surely see this week, there is only one song that I can imagine them being set to, and it makes me think that Christopher Reeve has done Our Lady Peace a big favor.

I Reject Humor and Originality in Favor of Reprinting the Serious Political Thought of Others

I like to read Noam Chomsky, but it's interesting to me how my reaction to him varies, based entirely on my mood. If I am happy and I read an interview with him, I become depressed and completely disgusted with the people around me.
"Why doesn't anyone care about the Nicaraguans?" I scream, scaring my father, or the cat, or the Barnes and Noble employees trying to eat their soup.
But when I am depressed and I read Noam Chomsky, then for some reason he becomes comforting. I don't know exactly why. It's not the favorable comparison of my problems to those of others; if that sort of comparison was comforting to me then I would be a dick. And it isn't that I get off on a feeling that I'm smarter than everyone else, in spite of what some people might think (ahem, Erin Ryan).
But (actually somewhat along that line of thought) it is possible that Noam Chomsky comforts me because, along with news of the slaughter and starvation of brown people around the world, he gives the assurance that the people around me are still good. Maybe they do give tacit approval to inhuman suffering, but that's the media's fault. To put it another way, it's not that my friend and neighbors like U.S. foreign policy, it's that they're too brainwashed to understand it.
So, keeping that in mind, here's an excerpt from a Noam Chomsky interview that recently cheered me up. If you don't like it that's okay. It doesn't mean you're a bad person; it means that, through no fault of your own, you have been rendered incapable of understanding the world around you.

How far do you believe will the U.S. sacrifice its basic civil liberties for a greater sense of security?
It is doubtful that the current attack on civil liberties has much to do with security. In general, one can expect the state to use any pretext to extend its power and impose obedience on the population. Rights are won, not granted, and power will seek any opportunity to reduce them.
The current incumbents in Washington are at an extreme of reactionary jingoism and contempt for democracy. The question we should ask, I think, is how far citizens will allow them to pursue their agendas. So far, they have been careful to target vulnerable populations, like immigrants, though the laws they have passed have much broader implications...the measures proposed and sometimes implemented generally have only limited relation to "protecting safety." Many of them probably harm safety.
Take the bombing of Afghanistan, for example. Whatever one thinks about it, did it increase security? U.S. Intelligence doesn't think so. They recently reported that by scattering al-Qaeda and spawning new terrorist networks, the bombing may have increased the threat of terror.
Does that matter? Not really, as far as state planners are concerned. When Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia came to the U.S. recently to urge the administration to pay more attention to the effect of his policies in the Arab world, he was told by high officials that "if he thought we were strong in Desert Storm, we're 10 times as strong today." This was to give him some idea of what Afghanistan demonstrated about our capabilities. In brief: Follow orders, or you'll be pulverized. That's what the bombing of Afghanistan was about.