A July the 4th Lament

Is it just me, or has July the 4^th lost its luster? The summer celebration of our Independence has come a long way since the days when my friends and I would stand around in bare feet holding sparklers in the backyard, taking turns spraying each other down with the garden hose, while the grownups sang patriotic songs. Occasionally, someone would break out a patriotic reading that would make me think that I lived in the most amazing country on the face of the earth.

I’m speaking of a period of time that covers the late 60’s and early 70’s. I was 12 years old or so and unaware of the complexities of international politics. It’s not like I’m recalling an era where we were united as a nation, far from it. This was a time filled with the Vietnam War, protests in the street, a time where beloved national leaders like Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and even villains like George Wallace were getting shot and killed. But despite all the internal fights, there was a feeling that these were family fights. As much as Americans might disagree about things, it was still very much “us” vs. the world. Those long-haired protesters in the streets may have been weirdoes but they were “our” weirdoes.

Today seems different somehow and I think I know why. When I look out across the country today, I see just as many divisions as there have ever been in American political life. We are fragmented into interest groups, divided by ideology and culture. But for me there isn’t one interest group in America today, be they blacks, Latinos, gays and lesbians, unions, or Tea Partiers that I distrust as much as I distrust my own government. Inside of me is the seed of an idea that has changed my notions of patriotism and cast a shadow over July the 4^th. It’s the realization that my government has been compromised by the governing class, an oligarchy of self interested politicians who care not for the ideal of America. They are united in their quest for power and control and view the citizenry as an obstacle to overcome. They hold us in contempt precisely because we aren’t them. We don’t know what’s best for us and therefore, it’s perfectly acceptable to spy on us, strip away our rights, and eviscerate our constitution.

Make no mistake; this is a bipartisan usurpation. President Obama and John Boehner have much more in common with each other than they do with any of us. The goals and aspirations of the ruling class are only rarely aligned with ours, and as long as they can keep us focused on fighting each other as Democrats and Republicans, we won’t have time to fight…them.

So, this July the 4^th, I will eat a hamburger and a hotdog. The yard will be decorated with flags and bunting. I will still be proud to be an American, and grateful for the accident of birth that placed me in this great land. But my pride will come from the power of blood and soil and the legacy of our great history, not from what it has become in 2013.

Why I Envy Liberals Part II...free speech edition

http://doug-thetempest.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-i-envy-liberals.html

 

In September of 2011 I wrote the above blog about political issues. In the context of events of the past couple of weeks I feel that a follow up is in order. This time it involves celebrities and free speech, more specifically, how some speech is freer than others.

Paula Deen is in many ways the quintessential southern woman, with her gawdy make-up, big hair and syrupy drawl. Watching her show is a hoot since she plays up so many stereotypes that non-southerners have of southerners. All of her recipes are slathered in “buddder” and her cackling laugh is enough to make even the most pretentious among us laugh or at least smile. Well, after it was discovered that Paula has used the “n” word on numerous occasions in her life, she lost everything faster than a New York minute, the judgment fairly dripping from members of the media who confessed shock and horror that a 60 something southern woman could possibly ever used such outrageous language. I couldn’t help but picture Captain Renault blowing his whistle and declaring to Rick that he was “shocked, SHOCKED to learn that there was gambling going on in here!” But such is life in the politically charged atmosphere of 2013 America…unless you happen to be a liberal celebrity like Alec Baldwin.

Baldwin’s career as an actor and political gadfly for all things Progressive has been littered with profane explosions, from degrading humiliations of his own daughter, infantile temper tantrums on airplanes, to sometimes violent exchanges with photographers, and now with the advent of Twitter, countless homophobic tirades and F-bomb laced eruptions. In our hyper sensitive world where any negative opinion expressed about homosexuality is greeted with almost unanimous indignation by the thought and speech police in the media, Alec Baldwin, by virtue of his lockstep liberal reliability always gets a pass. I see Mr. Baldwin pitching Capital One’s credit cards to me in commercial after commercial with the clever tagline, “What’s in your wallet?” Mr. Baldwin still makes movies and stars in the widely acclaimed TV show, 30Rock. His movies are not boycotted by the Rainbow Coalition and there aren’t streams of angry activists outside Rockefeller Center demanding that NBC cut ties with this unrepentant homophobe. Mr. Baldwin’s latest Twitter explosion was as follows:

“I’m gonna find you George Stark , you toxic little Queen and I’m gonna f*** you up…you lying little b****, I’m gonna f*** you up. I’d put my foot up your a** but I’m sure you would like it too much.”

How long would it take for any public conservative to lose everything if this sort of talk came from him or her? About as long as it took for Paula Deen to lose everything over a word she never said on her television show, only in private legal depositions and other private moments.

Liberalism is a “get out of jail free” card for hotheaded celebrities. Nice.

Top Ten Ironies of the Week

Maybe I’ll start a new Friday feature here at the Tempest…Top Ten Ironies of the Week. This past week has been chocked full, maybe not ten but why don’t I just start typing and see how far I get:

1.     One of the most enthusiastic responses to the Supreme Court decision to overturn DOMA came from former President Bill Clinton. Who signed DOMA into law in the first place? Bill Clinton.

2.     Paula Deen loses her television show because she used the “N” word in a private legal deposition. Meanwhile Jay-Z and Kanye West get a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Performance for their song, “Niggas In Paris” which contain this heartfelt lyrical masterpiece, “So I ball so hard muhfuckas wanna find me, first niggas gotta find me.”

3.     Although gay rights advocates have always cast their struggle as a civil rights issue, President Obama, after the DOMA ruling reassured nervous pastors and priests with this, “I won’t be forcing churches to perform gay marriages”. Imagine President Johnson coming out after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and saying, “Now, I’m not going to be forcing the local Waffle House to serve blacks”. No, not quite civil rights.

4.     On the same week as Paula Deen loses her television show and is publically shamed on the Today Show by Matt Lauer, Anthony Weiner, who less than a year ago shared pictures of his manhood to young women on the internet, surged ahead in polls for the Mayor’s race in New York City. Apparently a picture is worth a thousand votes in New York.

5.     How come a couple of years ago when Congressmen were humiliated by loud and sometimes rude questions in town hall style meetings with their constituents by Tea Party types over Obamacare, the Nancy Pelosi’s of the world called them an angry mob, but this week, when an equally loud and disruptive mob interrupted a vote on an abortion bill by the duly elected representatives of the State of Texas, the same Nancy Pelosi declared it “democracy in action”?

Ok, I only came up with 5, but its 7:30 in the morning and I have a physical therapy appointment in an hour. You’ll have to come up with the other 5 on your own.

Litter Rage

Last night I went over to church to see my wife do her yearly Vacation Bible School job. Every year she stands up in front of 400 screaming kids dressed up as some crazy character and teaches them about Jesus by demonstrating some Biblical truth with object lessons pulled from God knows where. This year she is a Queen in a castle and last night she used static electricity to separate pepper from salt. It was all quite amazing, and the kids were duly impressed. She is quite the performer, seems perfectly at ease, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to be wearing a red robe and golden crown, holding a scepter in her hand looking for all the world like Grace Kelly in front of a building full of sugared up 8 year olds. Despite the inevitable sound and technical glitches, she remained poised and in control throughout, and if I were one of those 8 year olds, I would have fallen in love.

But what I’ll remember most from the night was something that happened before I even got there. I was sitting at the stoplight of Ridge Road and Parham, right in front of the church when I noticed a young man walking south down Parham road. His back was to me so I never saw his face. He had the dress and gait of a teenager and was wearing a back pack. His left hand held a cell phone to his ear while his right hand held one of those giant energy drinks in the huge 20 oz. cans. He tilted the can skyward, polished off the last few drops and then suddenly, as casually as one might shoo away a fly, dropped the can at his feet. The can bounced off the pavement and bounded up into the overgrown grass at the side of the road. He continued on his way, unaware of anything but his cell phone conversation. Luckily for this young man, there were cars coming, because I had to fight off an angry impulse to swerve out of my lane, drive down Parham, cut in front of him, slam on the brakes, get out of my car and beat the tar out of him, then make him go pick up the can and eat it in front of me.

Yes, yes, I know, not a very Christian impulse, but it was just a flash of an idea that I had the good sense not to give in to. With age has come impulse control, I suppose. But seriously, it’s been a while since I’ve witnessed a litterer in action. You see the junk on the sides of the road but seldom see the self-absorbed knuckleheads who put it there, and I wasn’t ready for it. I haven’t been that instantly enraged since that time that an episode of 24 was preempted for that Presidential debate. I mean, the kid was wearing a back pack for heaven’s sake. Would it have killed him to put the can in there until he made it home?

I can put up with a lot, horrible music, terrible television, the designated hitter, but let me witness someone litter, and I contemplate assault. It’s the little outrages, I guess.

Bread and Circuses

Over the past month, the American people have been informed that the Internal Revenue Service has been targeting certain groups of their fellow citizens for special harassment because of their political views. Our Justice Department has been seizing phone records of reporters deemed hostile to the government's version of the truth. In addition, a low level contract employee at the National Security Agency named Edward Snowden leaked information to a British newspaper which revealed that the American people have been systematically spied upon in ways previously unimaginable,  ironically, all of this happening under an administration that promised to be the most transparent in history. So far, the reaction of the American people has been a collective yawn.

It has long been a fear of mine that my countrymen would one day, like the ancient Romans be satisfied with “bread and circuses” while everything fell apart around us. That day apparently has come. With our 500 cable channels, thumbs frantically tapping out minutia on ubiquitous cell phones, we seem blissfully unaware. We Americans take it for granted that our politicians are corrupted, so on almost every level we have tuned them out. As long as we have our Duck Dynasty, as long as the cable isn’t out, as long as we can score us some free health care, everything is fine. So, we hear something somewhere about the government seizing our phone records and we flip over to watch TMZ instead. A few cranky Libertarians get all freaked out, an assortment of hypocritical Republicans who couldn’t have cared less about this sort of thing when Bush was in the White House, and even a couple of Democrats warn that the government is getting too powerful, too entangled in what used to be considered our privacy, and all we can think to ask is, “Are Kim and Kanye going to get married?”

So, the various investigations in Washington will exhaust themselves and disappear with nothing having changed, and by inertia the government will grow stronger, more unstoppable by law, less and less answerable to its citizens. Then there will be another election and some idiot will promise the most transparent administration in history again and we won’t even know what the word means anymore. Meanwhile, 2 million people have taken to the streets in Brazil, fed up with their corrupt government’s incompetence, sparked by an increase in bus fare.

Bus fair!

First Paula Deen, Now Ree Drummond??

In a shocking story that has rocked the Food Network world, popular television chef, Ree Drummond was notified this afternoon that her contract would not be renewed next month after evidence was unearthed that she had once used the word, “Indian giver” in a conversation with her sister in law 14 years ago. Native American groups were outraged, but not surprised by revelations of racism coming from a middle aged white woman from Oklahoma.

George “Golden Eagle” Begay, spokesman for NARF(Native American Rights Fund), said that although he watched The Pioneer Woman all the time and really did kind of like some of her recipes, deep down, he knew she was a racist. “The chances of finding a 45 year old Oklahoman who doesn’t hate Indians is about as rare as finding a Peace Treaty where the American government didn’t screw us over.”

Most observers thought that Drummond might be able to survive the discovery of this ugly Indian slur, if she had immediately apologized to the Indian community. But when her husband Ladd sent out said apology with smoke signals, the end was near. “I thought I was honoring their ancient communication system,” he tried to explain, “but from the looks of it, I made it worse.”

The Food Network has been rocked by scandal ever since the revelation just last week that headliner Paula Deen admitted to using the “n” word on numerous occasions. Industry experts are divided on whether the network can survive losing two of its biggest stars to such horrific allegations, especially if rumors that Giada De Laurentiis once told a joke about lazy Greeks back in college, turn out to be true.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

It is one of the undeniable facts of life that teenagers do stupid things. It is equally undeniable that the cult of celebrity has the power to transform otherwise normal people into freaks, Michael Jackson and Lindsey Lohan serving as the most obvious examples. Because I’m not famous, never will be and don’t know anyone who is, it’s very difficult for me to fathom what it must be like. What would my world be like if from the time I was ten years old, everyone constantly told me that I was great? If I had super human talent at acting, or music or athletics, I suppose that over time, I would develop an entourage of devoted, fawning sycophants, none of whom would ever say “no” to me. These sycophants along with my adoring fans would most likely create in me an enormous ego. Then, I suppose I would do something like this:

                                                                

When Mr. James was just a teenager, Sports Illustrated famously declared him the “Chosen One”, the natural heir to Michael Jordan. Heady stuff. But it’s one thing for a magazine to over-hype an athlete to sell copy, it’s another thing entirely to go out and immortalize the hype across your back…for all eternity.

Lebron James is an amazing basketball player. Whether or not he actually proves to be better than Michael Jordan remains to be seen, and Mr. James is certainly not the only great athlete with an ego. But, at this point I shudder to think of what might happen to this guy if he does. If you’re the kind of person who would tattoo yourself with “Chosen 1” before accomplishing anything as a professional athlete, what on earth might you be capable of when you do? Transcendent talent, Grand Canyon-sized ego, what could possibly go wrong?