American Politics: It’s A Homeowners’ Association!

I’ve finally figured out American politics and why the people involved act as badly as they so often do. It hit me while driving in the car one day; I was listening to something on NPR, that Bolshevik, mind-rotting monument to liberal schemes (just ask that Alaska woman), and was struck by new examples of acrimonious playground shenanigans going on back and forth across the congressional and senatorial aisles. And I thought: who would want to go into politics these days? I can understand going into politics in 1776, when things were exciting and there were hardly any states– there was no Kansas, and no Mississippi– but today? Who would be crazy enough?

Then I realized: American politics is like one giant and unwieldy homeowners association, rife with the sort of people who post lists telling their neighbors when they are forbidden to use the communal pool. Politics attracts the same people, the types who roam neighborhoods on Saturday morning, making lists of trash receptacle infractions and citing those whose roofs are moldy. If you are even remotely involved with a homeowners’ association, you’ll recognize the type.

And, like our elected representatives, the officers running these associations are put into office by very few people. Just like at the polls, nobody much votes, but everybody feels entitled to complain.

Another similarity is that the association officers will often be at odds with one another, and will begin to pander to the homeowners in order to get their aims accomplished. For example, the extremely conservative association president may want the bushes that surround the pool cut back or removed entirely, as he has heard that teenagers have been caught using them to conceal illicit and soul-damaging sexual activity; the more liberal, progressive vice president of the association decries such a move, taking the position that privacy is being violated and purposely held up to public and governmental scrutiny. (Why don’t the conservatives ever bleat about that aspect? They often want things both ways, don’t they?)

A week later, the homeowners are at war with one another, posting anti-bushes and pro-bushes placards on mailboxes, fences, gates, and telephone poles. Since much of that sort of activity breaks association rules, the acrimony level escalates and things get heated. For once, people are actually involved with the association, and meetings are packed.

Well, one meeting, anyway. Once people see how things play out, they lose heart– and interest. And how often has that happened in American politics? Vast segments of the American electorate didn’t even bother to vote in the last Congressional elections, and look what happened. For better or worse, a lot of people are appalled who didn’t even bother to vote.

No governing board should be ignored, because vigilance is the key to preventing abuses. Whether it’s a homeowners’ association or the United States Congress, you have an obligation to get in there and ensure that your rights and opinions are being considered, not compromised or taken away completely. If our elected officials continue to abuse the electorate, we will have no choice but to resort to playground behavior ourselves– by administering a lot of well-aimed spankings.

Dead Gay Teens– I Accuse

Yeah, it’s the big front page story right now, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Sarah Palin or reality shows or Dancing with the freaking Stars.  It’s about the fact that gay teenagers are killing themselves because they can’t take the horrible pressure anymore. And they’re getting it from:

Their churches

Their elected officials

Their fellow students

Their parents

It’s reached critical mass, people. I mean, kids under sixteen are hanging themselves. HANGING themselves. I can’t imagine the feeling of despair that would lead to such an act.

MANY people in the above quarters can be named, most especially those in high places: Pope Benedict XVI with his medieval take on reality, seemingly able to overlook the fact that he is acting about as un-Christ like as one possibly could. Boyd Packer of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints– and that’s another laugh– came out mere days after Tyler Clementi’s suicide with a diatribe against gay people. How tactful was that, Mr. Packer? Is that sort of behavior going to get you through the Temple veil and onto your own planet at your glorified death, where you will be able to procreate throughout eternity with your countless wives? (It’s the biggest part of your dogma, sir.) And don’t forget the rest of the leaders of organized religion, who pander fear to their flocks so as to fill their collection baskets. Horrible, disgusting people.

And elected officials? Don’t get me started. To my eternal chagrin, I am living during a time of history when much of the political body of the United States has been hijacked by the insane religious types who think that SELECTIVE sections of the Old Testament should be used to govern the people. SELECTIVE. If they ever tried to apply the complete letter of the law, women would be scourged for wearing red and the rest of us would be sent to concentration camps for enjoying clams on the half shell. And the horrifying latest: a gay teenager at the Norman, Oklahoma city council session deciding whether or not to declare October as Gay History Month in town kills himself after witnessing many of his fellow citizens basically saying that he and his ilk didn’t deserve to live in America in pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Way to go! Nice Christians, eh? (Yet the measure passed… ) 

The “bullies” we hear so much about– have they been taught that this is WRONG? Where are the parents? What have had to teach their kids about basic decency? In many cases, apparently NOTHING. So many of these parents are intent on acting like eighteen-year-olds themselves… so I’m not surprised. I’m sorry, but everyone seems to want to pas the bully blame onto the schools. But kids go FROM home TO school. They should be better prepared in how to treat their fellow men! But yes, schools should be held 100% responsible when action is NOT taken, even after one complaint.

(And not that she was gay, but that poor dead girl in Ohio who was STILL made fun of in her coffin by the girls who bullied her to death– I hope, somehow, she will be able to watch as the lot of them are horse-whipped in the town square.)

And what of parents who decide to throw their gay children out into the streets? It happens, over and over. Rather than love their children, they succumb to some crackpot religious or political theory, and their kids end up lost in so many ways: lost, helpless, on drugs, perhaps even dead. THIS is parenting? These parents need to be 100% culpable– this is child abuse at its most heinous. Parents like this need to be hauled in and made accountable.

And the rest of us… how many of us just watch? I’m thankful for those of us who love unconditionally: the people, gay and straight, who build the help centers and march in the parades and reach out and try to LEARN. These people are COOL. Those little fundamentalist congregations marching against their OWN children? Not cool. Major religions swimming in their own decadence, yet loudly proclaiming who is or isn’t going to heaven or hell? Not cool. There’s so much NOT cool… yet there’s a lot that IS cool. There is hope.

 Personally, I’ve tried. I don’t hand myself medals, but I’ve helped the gay community in many ways over the years. But besides helping to establish a community center in Orlando, and donating a lot of volunteer man hours, I’m proudest that I was able to help two young men with issues as they were teenagers. And it wasn’t anything extraordinary that I did– but I listened, and I coached when asked, and I tried to comfort. And I need to do more. I applaud Dan Savage’s It Gets Better campaign, because that is exactly the line I used years ago with these young people. And did you see Fort Worth councilman Joel Burns’ plea? You should not miss this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax96cghOnY4

Gay teens need more role models like him. I am grateful for people like Joel’s parents, who loved him unconditionally. I’m grateful to my Mom and family, and I’m sure my Dad would have been just as cool had we ever talked about it. (That’s another story.) I just wish– I wish– that there were a lot more people to be grateful to, and that these people voted and drove the haters and the religious crazies from office.

Innocent kids are dying, and I’m angrier than I’ve ever been. I am truly sick and tired of the “gay issues” mire that has engulfed the people of this country, when the real crimes are being committed by the very people who profess to be in charge of our spiritual and political welfare.

Things HAVE TO CHANGE. It’s time. No more. Enough with the dead kids, and enough with the rest of us standing idly by in shock when it happens. It’s time to hold people accountable for the deaths that are caused due to abuses by the churches, the politicians, the bullies, and the parents.

Enough is enough. Now, what do we have to do to stop this?

http://www.suite101.com/content/are-you-the-parent-of-a-gay-child—save-their-lives–a294775

 

 

 

 

 

I Met Helen Thomas– A UPI Legend

Photo is From the KRUU-FM Website

  

This week I had the pleasure of doing an Urban Think! Bookstore  book sale for Helen Thomas and her co-author Craig Crawford. They’ve published Listen Up Mr. President: Everything You Always Wanted Your President to Know and Do. The title speaks for itself because, after decades of intense president-watching, Helen knows the score.  You’re familiar with Helen; but just in case you need a bit of help, she is the older lady who sat up front at White House press briefings, often causing the presidents to sweat by asking direct, informed, and often probing questions. It’s no small measure of the respect afforded her that she was the only member of the White House press corps to have her own chair in the press room. One might therefore conclude that she spoke ex cathedra, but she actually respected her fellow reporters as much as she respected the work she did for UPI starting in 1943. 1943– that’s the middle of World War II ! And she’s still with us, offering up pithy advice and no-nonsense observations based on how his constituency expects a president how to act.     

Even at eighty-nine, you can tell that she misses nothing. Those great, big, beautiful eyes sweep a room, taking in all its nuances and assessing the realm. Though I did not sit in during her face-to-face with the Tiger Bay networking group here in Orlando, I could hear the hundreds of people in attendance roaring at her comments. And, as befits an intelligent woman of the fourth estate, her steadily professional non-partisanship occasionally tipped over into jabs at our past Republican leaders. You can thank George W. Bush for that; his snubbing disrespect of her was based, I believe, in his unwillingness and inability to address the hard questions that Thomas posed, much like that Palin person’s fetching little way of dealing with reporters. Hey, can you imagine if  Helen Thomas had gotten to question Palin? The resigned Alaskan governor might have been reduced to a smoking ash heap on the carpet.     

Helen and Craig graciously signed many, many books for the attendees, and then I had them sign one for me; I introduced myself as their bookseller, and I tell you– you are drawn in instantly by Thomas’ warmth and generosity of spirit. I’ve worked with Craig previously on other events, and he never loses the smile. Afterwards, when she was being escorted out and toward their next gig, they detached themselves from their posse and made a point of thanking me for vending the book. Authors at these events rarely do that. That’s class !    

If you are so inclined, get yourselves a copy of this fascinating book. While presented as a series of object lessons for presidents, it’s also filled with anecdotes about all the presidents that Helen Thomas has had the opportunity of working with, and Craig’s incisive observations gleaned from working as one of the District’s most intuitive political commentators. It’s funny, yet smart and full of telling little barbs. And not once do the authors launch partisan attacks– they simply state the facts, as good reporters do. (Are you listening, FOX?) You can tell that Helen in particular is dismayed at the way the once-respectable GOP was handed over to the outermost fringes of the right wing by Ronald Reagan, and how that faction has a stranglehold on the party today, but you can also sense her urgent call for our current Democrat leaders to get to work.       

Still… I’m glad she’s a Progressive. I salute you, Helen Thomas!

Republicans vs. Democrats

 

WHAT a political climate we live in! I’ve never seen it so crazy, characterized as it is by a floundering Democratic party and a hijacked-by-teabaggers Republican party.  Everyone seems polarized, and everyone on both sides accuses the other of heinous positions: Republicans have all become experts at  defining the meanings of “communist” and “socialist,” all magically learned without the benefit of serious scholarship; and Democrats, when not crawling across Antarctica saving every creeping thing,  erroneously think that all Republicans are Sarah Palin supporters (when most thoughtful Republicans wouldn’t waste their time shaking a stick at her).

We’ve come to this “nyah nyah” level of politics after more than 200 years, mainly because not enough people are willing enough to want to form a demilitarized zone of discussion. Senators and Congress members stare stonily across the aisles, refusing to budge .

Perceptions of “the other side” have always existed, though not in such hateful measures. In yesteryears, we were blessed with educated observers spouting pithy, witty comments, and everybody laughed. Nobody demanded apologies; nobody cried and formed a support caucus in order to nurse wounded egos.

In that tradition, here is a list of differences between the two major parties as observed by the great Nancy Stahl back in 1979; Nancy’s “Jelly Side Down” column ran in many newspapers for years. In the excerpt from her book  If It’s Raining, It Must Be the Weekend  that I post below, the cultural references are hilarious as well. My apologies to no one.

1. When Republicans mention “my club,” they mean their country club. Democrats mean Book-of-the-Month Club.

2. Republicans get tennis elbow and ulcers. Democrats get heartburn and sties.

3. Democrats drive six-year-old green Pontiacs with roof racks. Republicans drive six-month-old Cadillacs with bumper stickers that say “I Like Ike.”

4. Republicans own horses. Democrats bet on them.

5. Republicans drink Drambuie and Cafe Capuchino after dinner. Democrats drink creme de menthe and Sanka.

6. Republicans get face lifts and hair transplants. Democrats get nose jobs and silicone transplants.

7. Republicans have nannies for their children. Democrats have grandmothers.

8. Republicans hire good cooks. Democrats marry them.

9. Republicans read Vogue and the National Review. Democrats read The New Republic and Photoplay.

10. Every three weeks, Democratic women make an appointment to have a manicure and get their hair shampooed, cut, and blown dry. So do Republican men.

11. Republicans play golf. Democrats bowl.

12. Republican men wear monogrammed silk pajamas. Democrats sleep nude.