Encore on "Unskilled Labor"

A story in yesterday’s news rekindled my interest in the ongoing struggle of underpaid service industry workers to demand better wages, and all around better treatment, from employers like WalMart and McDonald’s.  Seems an outfit called "OUR Walmart" is promoting one day wildcat strikes of Walmart workers. One was staged yesterday in Southern California, based upon the "conrete victories" resulting from a similar strike held in Florida on October 18th.  OUR Walmart plans to encourage Walmart workers to strike on Black Friday and throughout the holidays, in a quest for decent wages, decent schedules and decent raises for Walmart employees.  In short, they would like Walmart workers to be treated like worthwhile human beings, and they're going to make a lot of noise and inconvenience a lot of shoppers until that happens.  

Hey, I’m out here rooting for those Walmart stalwarts.  Walmart is no less the devil than McDonald’s when it comes to not only underpaying the help, but treating them like crap to boot.

And last weekend, Bill Moyers shared the story of the McDonald’s worker who called a Mc Donald’s employee help line looking for help getting more pay, only to have the operator point out which federal assistance programs she qualifies for and offer to help her apply for federal benefits. I spent several hours bandying comments back and forth on that story. 

I’m beyond shocked at how people are frothing at the mouth to disrespect the poor.  If poor people can’t/don’t work, but collect benefits anyway, they are moochers.  If they work full-time at a job that doesn’t pay them enough money to live, they’re too lazy to or too stupid to get a “better” job.

Here are some of the comments that have increased my blood pressure to the boiling point:

“why is this woman assuming that a job should provide for her and her entirely family? it is an entry level work position.... why aren't people aspiring for more?!”

“Nancy needs an education thats her problem.”

“If we start paying these guys higher wages it'll inflate everything... A quarter pounder will soon cost 12 dollars.. Tell them to go to school... These types of jobs were never meant to be supporting children and full families...”

“So call it what it is, she wants the easy, no responsibilities, job of working at McDonalds while earning enough money to live the consumerist american lifestyle.”

And here’s a REAL corker:

Front-line jobs running a cash register or a fry machine at places like McDonald's and Walmart are basically unskilled labor. They are not meant to be full-time jobs that support a family. These are jobs that are best left to teens, college kids, moms who just want to get out of the house a few days a week, and retirees looking for a little extra spending money. It's sad that there are many people doing these jobs and trying to support a family. It's also sad that many of these individuals made horrible life choices at a young age - like dropping out of school, getting pregnant as a teen, etc. - and are now paying for those poor decisions for the rest of their lives (just like their parents, teachers, etc. told them they would). Don't like the wages at McD's? Don't work there.

Basically, the arguments are that (1) “unskilled” service industry jobs were never meant to pay living wages…so these workers had no business taking the jobs to begin with, and absolutely have no business complaining about the wages NOW… And (2) all they have to do is go to school, get an education, and a living wage job can magically be theirs almost instantaneously!

I already said my piece about the level of skill required to perform these “unskilled” labor jobs.  The only people who call them unskilled are those who have never done and WOULD never condescend to doing them.  And I strongly suspect that whole attitude is a cop-out, because the fact is, these holier-than-thou types know they would never be able to cut the mustard in the industry.

But let’s look at the “they need to get an education” argument. 

Seriously, I could probably come up with ten examples of people I know personally who went to “get an education” in order to get a higher paying job.  Most of these either (1) got the certificate but are no longer doing the work for which they were educated, or (2) could not GET a job in the field because it’s flooded with applicants, or (3) washed out of a “fast-track” education program, are still working in the service industry, and now owe $10,000 to $15,000 for the “education” they never finished. 

And here’s a thing:  Many people who actually ENJOY the food industry are going to culinary school.  Do you have any idea how much culinary school COSTS?  Eight years ago, I looked into doing that very thing.  At that time, a three-year chef program was running over $40k.  The “patisserie” certificate in which I was interested was $20k.  Perhaps a four-year college degree in, say, engineering costs double or triple that, these days. Still, these are not insignificant figures.  People GET these certificates in hopes of landing one of those “living wage jobs” NOT in fast food. 

So what do they get for their money?

So glad you asked.  This brings me to the seed of this entire post. 

Once again, I was checking Craigslist for job listings the other day, and I picked another “favorite:”

Part-time Baker wanted (Vancouver)

We're seeking a baker for 20+ hours a week in our growing bakery. This position will likely grow into 30-40 hours per week as we grow and after full training.

MUST have minimum of 1 years bakery experience or a degree in culinary arts. Applicant must be flexible to work day, night or wing shift. We will better explain the hours and details about our products in the interview process.

Due to an expected high volume of applicants we will only be responding to those who we would like to interview.

·  Compensation: $10

So, say I HAD my $30-$60k culinary arts certificate.  Good deal!  It qualifies me for this great part-time baking position that pays ten bucks an hour!

Shaking My F**king Head…

On The Way It Is, And Was...

Last night we had dinner at our favorite local watering hole.  One of our regular servers waited on our table—a young man, probably early twenties.  When he approached the table to get our drink order, he overheard the husband and me talking politics—as we often do.  I believe I was making a point about how “news” stories should not be reported from a right- or a left-slanted viewpoint. And the kid said, “Exactly!  That’s the way it should be!”  We talked back and forth for a few minutes, about politics and the media and fact vs editorial; and then he asked, “Has it always been like this?  Has everyone always hated the government like they do now?”

I wanted to tell him something that would give him enough faith in the process to keep him engaged, but my mind presented me with an odd sort of empty hole.  I thought about it later.   I thought, “What COULD I have said?” that might have explained the stupidity in which we now wallow, that might have given the kid some assurance that somehow, somewhere in recent memory, all this stuff had made sense.  That people had once known how to respect opposing viewpoints and work together for the benefit of all. 

As I contemplated how to assure this young man that, no, people haven’t always hated the government, I thought back to when I was a youngster, and we baby boomers were full of piss and vinegar and the self-righteous fire of freedom coursed through our veins, and we marched and we demonstrated and we burned draft cards and bras and college campuses.  And we hated the establishment, and disdained the pigs, and called soldiers baby-killers.  And we embraced ‘free love” and birth control and atheism and ecology.  Anything that our parents had held sacred, we rejected.  At top volume and with all the violence and vehemence our young bodies and minds could muster.    

And I think of those days as the “good old days”?

Two streams of thought sprang forth from this ride in the Way-back Machine.

Stream Number One:  Were we right?  Were the windmills against which we tilted really the enemies we believed them to be?

Stream Number Two:  Does nothing ever really change, permanently, for good or ill?  Is it all a matter of the swing of the pendulum, whiplash and backlash,  leap forward,  leap back?  Was our generation the slingshot to the left that resulted from the extreme pull to the right of the McCarthy era ten years before our time?  And is the current situation the swing in the other direction after, arguably, twenty or thirty years of advancement of a liberal agenda? 

Do we ever learn a god-damned thing?

I so wanted to tell this kid that where we are politically, as a nation, right now, is not normal or right or anything we had ever seen before.  I so wanted to assure him that sanity and cooler heads really did prevail in the “old days.” 

But I had to bite my tongue before the words came out of my mouth.     

On Pointing And Giggling at the Kid Across the Aisle

Did anybody else watch NC Republican precinct chairman HenryMitchell interviewed on the Daily Show Wednesday night?  The aim of the interview was to impugn North Carolina’s new voter registration laws.  During the course of the discussion, Mitchell made some pretty outrageous statements; mostly stupid-ass racist remarks, but nothing we haven't heard before.  But the interview WAS manipulated, "cut and pasted," if you will, to make it look worse than it was.  (This IS Comedy Central after all, not the Ifill/Woodruff report on PBS)

What was more shocking (to ME) than the guy's racist comments was his uncensored assertion about exactly WHY North Carolina was instituting voter reform:  "The law is gonna kick the Democrats in the butt." (Due to the suppression of voting blocs most likely to VOTE Democrat.)  He was so comfortable with that idea, he had no issue with declaring it in no uncertain terms on national television.  I'm sure it never occurred to him that what he was saying was proof positive of the illegality and unconstitutionality of the law and its intent.

So it comes out yesterday that Mitchell resigned in the wake of the airing of the interview.  And the Republican officials with whom he was associated have thrown him under the bus, calling his statements "offensive, uninformed and unacceptable of any member within the Republican Party." 

What to think about this?  Honestly?  I kind of feel sorry for the guy.

I'm sure his views did not exist in a vacuum.  I do NOT believe he came up with these "renegade" statements all on his own, at the spur of the moment.  My feeling is that the world he lives in is heavily populated with folks who believe as he does and are neither afraid nor ashamed to verbalize their views at any time, in any place. Despite his protestations to the contrary, I don't think this man had any idea how this was going to play out on a national broadcast that "leaned to the political left."  

Mr. Mitchell lives in the Neverland created by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck--the world of which we got an intimate, disturbing view on election night 2012.  On that night, the nation witnessed the live meltdown of a news broadcast when the right-wing talking heads realized that their candidate was receiving a drubbing for which they were completely unprepared.  They had immersed themselves so deeply in their own press that they were utterly blind-sided when reality intruded into their universe.    

Politically slanted commentary disguised as news has become the norm, and it's the single biggest stake being plunged into the heart of America.  People can now spend their entire lives preaching to their own choir and choosing a reality that matches their personal fears and bigotries.  Our hopelessly polluted national news stream not only allows them to do this, it actively encourages it.  This is what persuades a man to go on national television and speak confidently from his personal reality, only to be made to look like an utter fool by the opposing political ideology that arranged the interview. 

Do I in any way condone Mitchell’s statements or comfortable state of home-boy bigotry?  No, I do not.

But I DO feel that this entire undertaking was a cheap shot that, when you really think about it, is more representative of the problem than the solution.  Mitchell and his ilk are not the primary villains here.  Partisan media ARE. 

Are we now forever condemned to be spoon-fed a steady diet of political satire--ENTERTAINMENT--when we hunger for news?  When we are literally dying for lack of untainted, untwisted, unspun information?  Is it too late to go back to the good old days of the “who, what, when and where,” of the golden age of journalism, without having to steer to the right or the left to obtain the “facts?”   I hope not.  Or things in this country are not going to get better soon.               

On "Unskilled" Labor

I spent virtually my whole working life in the food industry. 

My husband worked for Kmart for ten years, from 1974 to 1984, and held various middle management retail or food service positions for a decade after that.   

One of my sisters capped a fifteen-year retail “career” with a five-year stint at Sears.

I provide these facts as evidence of my intimate personal understanding of the retail and food service industries.  I know about hard work, crappy pay and no benefits.  I know about “salaried” retail positions (the ones where the annual salary looks pretty attractive, until you break it down by the number of hours you’re expected to work, and you realize you’re making less than $3 per hour…)  I know about being trapped working just under the number of hours per week required to qualify for benefits.  I know about being afraid to take time off because there’s a good chance your job won’t be there when you get back.  I know about the “full-time with benefits” carrot that is constantly held just beyond the reach of 90% of the work force in retail and fast food. 

Even back in the eighties, it took two full-time jobs—one in retail, one in food—to support just our family of two.  I suppose we were fortunate that I turned out to be infertile…because there was never any viable economic possibility of my taking time off to bear/raise children.  If the husband had not made the fortuitous transition out of retail management to something a little more white collar twenty years ago, I have no doubt we would both still be toiling in the trenches.  Though, realistically, I “aged out” of my chosen career about ten years ago.  There are only so many years you can expect the body and the will to withstand the sort of abuse handed out in the food service industry.     

Which is why I seethe to the point of near self-immolation when I read comments on articles about today’s retail and food-service employees, comments that loftily state that these folks have no right to complain, because they are the scum at the bottom of the employment food chain.  Retail and food service employees are lucky to have these jobs.  After all, they “have no skills.”

No skills?  Try your hand at manning the sales floor of a 100,000 square foot establishment that is purposely chronically under-staffed.  Try dealing daily with rude, abusive and even dangerous customers without putting yourself in a position that will give the company an excuse to fire you.  Try organizing your life around an income and working hours that can fluctuate wildly from week to week. 

Did you know that WalMart requires that applicants submit to psychological profile testing?  And that if your scores don’t reflect the requirements for employment, you won’t even get an interview?  Evidently you have to possess a certain set of (submissive?  masochistic?) character traits to be considered proper WalMart material.  So guess what?  WalMart really does NOT “hire anybody.”   And, unfortunately, in a lot of places, WalMart is the only gig around.

And then there’s food service.  I am currently in a position where it behooves me to keep my finger on the pulse of the type/quality of positions open locally in this industry.  And all I can do is read these ads and think, “You’ve got to be kidding!” once I get a sense of what a job entails and what the employer expects to pay.  Here’s one of my most recent favorites from Craigslist:

We seek pastry cooks for quality high-volume production for both catering and cafe service.

Qualified applicants will have some experience in production of plated and petite passable desserts (petit fours) for catering events. Familiarity with baking is also a must with an emphasis on quick breads, muffins, cookies and scones as well as classic french patisserie.

The ability to temper and control chocolate, to create custards, sauces, fillings and frostings and a basic understanding of gluten-free, dairy-free recipes are also all needed.

Candidates must be able to be punctual with a flexible schedule, have the ability to multitask, take initiative, and perform under pressure.

A clean work station, a sense of teamwork and the ability to laugh and have fun are also required and appreciated.  

Wow!  That’s an amazing conglomeration of highly specialized skills they’re asking for here!  And what would you expect the pay to be for someone possessing this skill set?

Compensation: $10-12 hr. DOE

Ten bucks an hour.  Less than $1 an hour above Oregon’s minimum wage (effective 1/1/14.)  And notice they don’t mention how many hours you can expect (any they happen to want to throw your way, depending on the business level), or what kind of benefits are available (none.) 

So I would invite any of the self-righteous jerks who scoff that retail and food are “unskilled” positions, the “I-Got-Mine” idiots who dare to pass judgment on those they believe to be a few rungs below them on the societal ladder, to take on one of these “non-skilled” positions for a week. 

Can you say, “Crash and burn?”

I thought you could. 

   

On Our Retreat from the Edge of the Cliff

It occurs to me that we are a society that has devolved to the point where average citizens cannot be emotionally moved by anything that is not brutal, bloody, terrifying or abusive, and we flock in great mindless hordes to any activity or spectacle that displays those characteristics in abundance.  We consider it entertaining to watch grown men in a hand-to-hand death struggle over an elliptical scrap of pigskin; we glue ourselves to a voyeuristic portal that allows us to gawk at the deepest, darkest secrets of folks who are purported to be “just like us.”  Bad behavior attracts us like a magnet, and we not only crave to watch it, but we then take it as a template for our own lives, and so, go forth and do likewise.

Entertainment has become the Swiss army knife of the ruling class, a multi-purpose tool designed to get and keep the money rolling in an upward direction.  The entertainment industry commands billions of dollars in and of itself, and it’s also a superb diversion.  Keep the masses “entertained” while you pick their pockets.  Those clueless dolts will jones for the adrenalin rush so hard that you can rob them into poverty while they cheer and boo and wager on the outcomes of meaningless contests.  And it doesn't hurt to liberally lace the "entertainment" with your message and the type of behavior you wish the public to emulate.   

Which is, I imagine, how it came to pass that our lawmakers, our leaders, became the greedy, unmannered, ruthless charlatans they have become, and we have hardly noticed.  In fact, maybe we have sat on the sidelines and cheered.  Maybe we got confused between entertainment and government.  Our national media have been heartily helpful in the blurring of that line.  Certainly we have completely forgotten that “fact” and “fiction” are not synonymous.  As surely as it has slipped our vacant minds that society is made up of ALL people, all colors, all genders, all ethnicities, all religions, all economic levels.  And our government is supposed to be about guaranteeing life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for ALL the people.  Not just the rich.  Not just the fortunate.  Not just the privileged.  Not just the “winners.”         

Have we had our fill yet?  Have we reached the point where the outrageousness of the behavior of our legislators has finally sunk in and stirred the reaction in us that it should have done months ago?  Do we feel disbelief, anger and revulsion?  Do we feel those to the point where we are now, as a nation, ready to DO something about it?

Time will tell.  But I think we do.  I don’t think I could get out of bed in the morning if I didn’t believe that…    

(West-)Winging Into the Future

I mentioned last Christmas that probably my favorite gift was a boxed set of West Wing DVD’s.  Sometime around mid-January, husband and I cracked open the box and waded into the 47 discs that comprised the seven-season series.  Last night, we watched the last three episodes.    Everything came to a satisfying conclusion: a vigorous young Democrat was duly installed in the White House to take over for the weary, scandal-worn and not altogether successful Jed Bartlett.  The changing of the surrounding guard mingled the mists of nostalgia with high-powered visions for the future.

The West Wing debuted in 1999.  Many of the writers and consultants were fresh from gigs in the Clinton Administration.  The events that would shape American politics for the first decade of the new millennium were still on the horizon.  The 2000 election debacle.  9/11.  Iraq and Afghanistan.  Filibusters.  Sarah Palin.  All the events that pushed many of us to the far left shoulder of the middle of the political road. 

But in 1999, the country was already well on its way to the paralyzing political polarization in place today.  Republicans, stung by Bill Clinton’s ability to emerge victorious in 1992 despite unceasing attacks on his character and business dealings, hounded Clinton throughout his presidency, seriously hampering his ability to govern.  This was especially true during his second term, when the single-minded refusal of congressional Republicans to bow to the will of the American people and play the hand the election had dealt them reached its crescendo in the sensational impeachment saga of 1998-99.

This was perhaps our first real experience of the “new” Republican modus operandi—the policy that  permanently elevated the promotion, the will and the good of the Republican Party over more trivial matters like forming a more perfect union, providing for the common defense, insuring domestic tranquility, and promoting the general welfare.  In those dismal months, government took an ignominious back seat to party politics.  And has remained there ever since.

So Aaron Sorkin had plenty of raw material to work with.   There was enough historical skullduggery and partisan maneuvering imprinted upon the political consciousness to provide us with a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the highest office in the land. 

What struck me most about those “old” West Wing episodes was the eerie recognition of the absolute topicality of the plotlines.  As if they were ripped right out of the headlines.  Because they were.   More than a decade ago.  The unfortunate truth is, they still are.  Twelve years, and this country is still tossing around the same political footballs.  Abortion.  Equality for women.  Gay marriage.  Medicare reform.  Judicial confirmations.  Gun control.  Budget turmoil.  Illegal immigration and border security. 

Honestly, if I did not KNOW that show was over ten years old, I would have thought it was written last night.  How shameful is it that we can gaze out over the political landscape and see the same legislative turd piles that have been littering the countryside for more than a decade?  Only now they’re bigger and smell a whole lot worse. 

Twelve years.  The Bush Administration managed to spend every minute after the 9/11 attacks, from 2001 to 2008, spinning the terrorist threat into justification to push an agenda that either covertly or blatantly advanced the interests of its deep-pocketed backers.  Leading to, among other things, the ship-wrecking of the American financial system just before GW abandoned ship.  Hard to know whether that was deliberate or accidental.  At any rate, the timing was off…because the economic death-drop seemed to be the determining factor in the Obama victory of 2008.  All the election-tampering and conservative-base-pandering in the world could not blind voters to the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression; not enough to entice them to sanction four more years of the same s**t,  different day.

As we were celebrating the Obama victory, anticipating the return to some version of normalcy in the federal government, Congressional Republicans dug in their heels and declared that their primary goal, the one directive that would form their every action from January 20, 2009 until the next presidential election cycle, was to make this president fail.  And another four years swirled down the toilet.    

So it appears our intrepid elected officials have devised a way to permanently derail the wheels of progress in America.  The issues of real importance, the problems that need to be solved, only get trotted out as hot-button issues at election time (which seems to be ALL the time, these days…) or any time it appears that calm and rationality might try for a serious comeback.  And of course, if we actually addressed these issues and solved the problems, what would be left to throw out there every two years to rile up the base?  No doubt about it.  Our government is Oh. So. Broken.

This is where I fervently wish that life could imitate art.  Because in those final episodes of the West Wing, two presidential candidates who embodied a return to the political center duked it out in the election of 2006 (the fictional election cycle was two years off of the actual…) The candidates actually agreed on many key issues.  Each honored a tacit agreement to reject negative campaigning.  They met in a televised debate that truly was a debate—(that meant-to-be-edgy “live” episode that showcased, among other things, the Democratic candidate’s vigorous defense of the word “liberal.”) 

What rather sappily played as “hopeful” and “visionary” seven years ago, comes off as pure laughable fantasy today—as embarrassingly simplistic as the “morality play” of any sixties sit-com.  We have left centrism so far behind that we couldn’t find our political center with a map and a sextant.

Government—actual legislation—has not been the focus in Washington for a long time.  Almost too long for many people to remember.  I know I’m older than dirt, but as I write this, I think to myself, “Who am I talking to here?  Everybody knows these things.  We all lived through the same past twelve years.”  In reality, if you pay attention to today’s political discourse, it’s as if the world began no more than a couple of years ago and anything prior to that is incomprehensible primordial muck.  The word on the streets is that everything was going along fine until Barack Obama came along with his deficits and his wars and his bailouts that have sent the country to the brink of ruin. 

Even so, at the end of last year, in spite of yet another ugly campaign designed to demonize the president coupled with concerted efforts to disenfranchise voters who might lean in his direction, Obama emerged victorious.  The Republican Party was handed its head in an election that was not nearly as close as they stubbornly broadcast up to the minute their candidate was declared the loser on national television.  For about ninety seconds, we cherished a glimmer of hope that this fact might actually inspire the party to put its failed obstructionist policies in the past and go back to the business of governing.

The first action of the Republican controlled House of Representatives was to trot out a budget plan that had been proposed (and rejected!) by the losing vice-presidential candidate.  “You have to show the people what you believe in!” they asserted, as they invested the first weeks of the tenure of the new Congress into an empty political gesture.  

The “Sequester” became fiscal reality after no compromise between the executive and legislative branches would be reached to circumvent it. 

The Senate recently returned from its Spring break so it can use the filibuster to prevent gun legislation from coming to a vote. 

Not looking too good, is it?

Governing?  Meh.  Bring back  Matt Santos and Arnie Vinick. 

Enough Already

My husband likes to talk about sports. Since I gave him an "e-book" computer for our anniversary in 2009, he makes use of his "library time" (I'll leave it to the reader to figure out which room in our home qualifies as his library) reading sports stories from all over the internet. He has, in fact, become somewhat of a walking sports encyclopedia in the course of the past sixteen months.

Absent a community of other men with whom to engage in analytical sports banter, he sometimes gets really desperate and starts spouting his facts and figures at ME. To my credit, I have enough residual interest in sports (I used to be a genuine fan) and just enough exposure to news outlets that I can generally engage in a moderately satisfying exchange on the subject.

We were sitting in a booth at one of our favorite eating spots—we call it "the sports bar" because from every booth, one has a clear view of no less than five television screens, each tuned to the sport du jour—when the husband began to wax encyclopedic about the latest big story. Seems there is a young man who plays baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals. A very talented young man, who has been with the team for the first ten years of his career. That's nice. Nowadays, the players tend to sell their services to the highest bidder, and never play for more than a couple of years for any one team.

Well, it seems this young man (Albert Pujols) is up for a new contract at the end of this year. And the negotiations, apparently, are no less complex than a trade treaty between international giants. Pujols sets a deadline. Deadline goes by—no contract. Rumors fly, but neither side will tip its hand. The team is said to have offered $200 million over eight years. Cardinals manager theorizes that Pujols is being pressured to "set the bar"—by demanding something exceeding the current fattest contract: Alex Rodriguez's $275 million over ten years. They think $300 million over ten years might properly set that bar.

Three hundred million dollars. Thirty million a year. To play a kids' game.

This young man would earn—well, not earn, exactly…let's say he would be paid—the equivalent of twenty-five years of my husband's current salary in slightly less than a month. We could live comfortably well into our retirement (husband will be 80 in twenty-five years) on what this kid will put in the bank in thirty days.

And the thought occurred to me: there's no shortage of money in this country.

It's simply that more and more of it is going to those who already have more than they could possibly need or use.

How much filet mignon and caviar can the guy eat? How many south sea islands can he own? How many designer drugs can he put up his nose?

Meanwhile, the price of meat and fish has us increasingly dining on…pasta. The price of gas has us vacationing in…our back yard. The price of health care and pharmaceuticals has us…taking aspirin for a heart attack.

And WE are the "middle" class. God help those below US on the food chain.

Enough.

Enough already.

Hindsight is 20/20

Like many Boomers—the original “Peter Pan” generation—I find it almost impossible to believe I’m over thirty-five, much less fifty. Unfortunately I am rudely reminded of that reality several times a day…particularly when dealing with the—what do they call them, now…generation “y”?—with whom I am in close contact every day. Oh, yes; there are times when I definitely feel like the moldy old relic I am. For the most part, though, I see myself as the same hip, anti-establishment almost-renegade I was thirty-five years ago. Plus a few pounds and a bit of perspective…

It’s funny how the accumulation of years upon the planet begins to impart a sense of history to those of us who are paying any attention at all. It starts when we begin to see our parents as human beings; we notice and understand the things they conquered, the mistakes they made, the hurdles they cleared. And we see how those things eventually became part of who WE are. That knowledge settles upon us like the stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and, eventually, acceptance—that we are, to a large extent, those people from whom we struggled so valiantly to break away and distinguish ourselves. Little do we know that, another decade or two down the road, as our parents pass on and all we have left of them is what we can see in the mirror, we will cling to that connection as if it were the last life ring thrown over the side of the Titanic.

That compilation of years has brought me another bone to chew, of late. I’m beginning to see how we Boomers have failed our children. How our mistakes—those things we did thirty or forty years ago when WE were in charge of writing history—became a less than exemplary model for the generations that have come after us. We were all about bucking the system. We were all about re-writing the rules to suit our own sensibilities. We were young and we were free—or we wanted to be. Our parents’ social mores were stifling, prejudicial and outdated. So we threw away their rules and wrote our own.

Granted, some of those rules cried out for rewriting. We understood that our parents’ rules criminalized behavior that was the sole business of parties engaging in it. We didn’t/don’t need Big Brother hiding under our beds or dictating a social order based on ethnicity or skin color. But we were not at all selective about which of our parents’ rules we flushed down the toilet. Down it all went. We didn’t understand that the kind of freedom for which we clamored carries a great burden—first of discernment, then of self-regulation. We didn’t take the time to discern what part of the social code to which our parents subscribed was valid, timeless and universal. Our governing philosophy became, “We should be able to do whatever we want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.”

And so, we have passed that watered-down, unspecific credo down to our children—who have proceeded to alter it even further. Today’s rule is, “We should be able to do anything we want.” Evidently, the “as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else” part of the rule was entirely too subjective—What does “hurt” mean? And who, exactly, is “anybody else”? And why should I care, anyway? So the next generation did away with that caveat completely.

In the end, what we thought was a leap toward great and necessary social liberation, turned out to be that...PLUS a step down the road to utter chaos. All because we didn’t understand that human beings are notoriously incapable of self-regulation. Because we didn’t understand that was why our parents’ rules—which were surely mutations of their parents’ rules—were developed in the first place. Now...NOW that we have managed to put a few decades under our belts and acquire some of that "historical perspective" I mentioned, we GET IT. But what can, what WILL we do about it? How can we rebuild what we tore down? Who will listen to us now?

And can we hope that our children will "get it" before their children, or their childrens' children, drag us down to complete anarchy?

On Taxes

I read an article today on the NPR website that talks about voters who want what tax dollars will provide (like repairs to the country's aging infrastructure) but have no interest in providing the funds to make it happen. Where do they think the money is going to come from? Heaven? Maybe that's why the far right agenda seems to be more focused on mollifying God than doing any actual governing…

Let's face it: Many of our living wage industries have been out-sourced to greener—cheaper—pastures. Or, as is the case here in the Pacific Northwest, the mills have pretty much cut down all the cheap, easily accessible lumber, so they, too, have upped sticks and moved on to the next lumber mother-lode (Canada? The Amazon?)

What's left for those of us who live here to DO for a living? What jobs/industries are impossible to send overseas or out-source? Well….there's government (don't forget this includes law enforcement and fire protection—your tax dollars at work), education (largely funded by tax dollars), infrastructure construction and repair (cha-ching—more tax dollars.) And we know they can't outsource health care…and what a gigantic money-machine that has become since all the other industries have gone away! And then there is the Service Industry—encompassing everything from WalMart to McDonald's to parcel delivery to garbage collection. Notoriously low-paying and high-turnover jobs, the ones nobody really wants to do.

So we would all do well not to think of our tax dollars as going to entitlements benevolently bestowed upon some undeserving (in our eyes) segment of the population. We need to think about our own livelihoods—or maybe that of the guy next door, or the family who sits next to us at church. If we did away with all taxes, would you still have a job? Would you be able to make use of our tremendously overblown and overpriced health care system? How many of those folks would then lose their jobs? And since discretionary income would be hard to come by, how would that affect the service industry? What if you couldn't even afford to eat out at McDonald's anymore?

Yes, it's very popular—and the politicians know it—to scream about government overspending and a budget deficit that will imperil our economy for decades to come. But in this consumer economy we've created by letting big business get away with sending huge portions of our industries overseas, we really need to understand where those "too many" tax dollars are going. How many of them actually make it back into your own pocket, in some way? How much is government investing in keeping this wrecked ship of an economy afloat? And what would our lives look like if we just…let it sink?

Think about it.

Insanity

I spend very little time watching, reading, or listening to the political discourse these days. For awhile, just after the 2008 election, I was under the mistaken impression that things would improve; that the inanity was somehow going to dissipate with the presence of an intelligent, well-spoken man behind the desk in the Oval Office. We all know that didn't happen, don't we?

We all know that, if anything, the right has become more shrill and more inane in its proclamations and accusations. Including taking every disastrous, unpopular result of eight years of Bush Administration policies and immediately projecting them on to President Obama. The Economic Crisis? Obama's fault. The Bail-out? Obama's idea (No one mentions the free bailout money the Bush Administration dished out shortly before Bush left office. It's like it never happened…) It's Obama's fault that he has been unable to wave a magic wand and create new jobs for everyone who lost theirs as a result of a runaway financial system left unregulated by the Bush Administration. The Gulf Oil Disaster has been characterized as "Obama's Katrina," even though it was most probably the result of at least eight years (prior to Obama's election) of rule by a Big-Oil Puppet King. Last week, Michael Steele decided to add the war in Afghanistan to the list of Obama's transgressions. (We are supposed to forget this war has been going on for eight years and Obama's only been in office for two…)

And then there's Sarah Palin.

If I let myself think about it, I would still have a nearly irresistible desire to put my house on the market, pack my bags and my animals and head for some remote backwoods in Canada to live out my life in blissful political ignorance (with better health care…)

But I don't let myself think about it. In fact, I just can't go there, because it's all so flagrant and hopeless, this hype/attack/demonize/destroy political method that has taken hold of our country. For the past two years, I've been (metaphorically) trying to function with my fingers in my ears and humming really loud. I almost get to the place where I can choose my own reality—that I'm actually living in a country (a world?) governed by grown-ups. And then something happens that rudely drags me out of that rarified space and douses me with a bucket of cold, green, slimy reality.

Something like that happened last week. I was behind the counter at the café, and an old gentleman walked up to the counter and asked where the offices for the phone company were. (In fact he asked for the wrong phone company…the one that covers most of the county but NOT our little town. Evidently, he finds it inconvenient to read the name at the top of his phone bill…) Maybe it will just be easier to relate the conversation:

LOG (Little Old Gentleman): Do you know where's the office for (wrong phone company) around here?

Me: We don't have (wrong phone company.) We have (right phone company.) And their offices are right across the street.

LOG: I went over there. But there's nobody there.

Me: I know. They don't have a customer service office over there anymore. You have to call the customer service number on your bill.

LOG: Well, I done that. And she keeps sayin' all these things that don't have nothin' to do with what I want. (I assumed this meant that he got lost in electronic phone menu land and didn't hear an option that appealed to him…)

Me: Yeah…sometimes those phone things can be kind of frustrating…

And then he launched into the story all about how his phone bill was fouled up and he got it fixed once, but he can't find the right people to help fix it this time. Went on and on for about five minutes, while I was politely trying to extricate myself from his tale of woe and get him to move on so I could wait on the customers in line behind him.

Me: Well, you just have to call that number and see if you can get to the right person.

LOG: Yeah… But ever since that Obama got in, ever'thin's been messed up…

That's right, folks. This Old Gentleman was going to blame Barack Obama for his woes with the local telephone company.

That's how far the poison has spread. How ingrained and integrated into our society this insane bullshit has become. That some little old guy in Nameless Small Town, USA believes that anything bad, anything negative that happens to him personally is the direct fault of the President of the United States. And, by god, he is going to cast his vote for the other side next time around…because the phone company messed up his bill.

I turned away from that suddenly insane exchange with the Little Old Gentleman, with my fists balled and an almost overwhelming desire to go and beat my head against the nearest wall…

Am I Supposed to Feel Sorry For This Guy?

Working as many hours as I do, I'm largely cut off from television news, and I wouldn't listen to a radio talk show if you chained a set of headphones to my ears and held a gun to my head. But I do get the opportunity to browse the headlines in the Oregonian when I pick it up off the sidewalk on my way in the door of the cafe in the morning.

I know newspapers are having a really hard time staying afloat these days. And I honestly think it's a terrible shame. It's possible that print media was the last place you could obtain actual news if you went looking for it. But since papers have decided to turn themselves into "news magazines" in an attempt to retain readers, there's nothing much besides a whole lot of fluff splattered between the first and last pages. And there's no such thing as a "news" piece written without a ton of very obvious editorial intent.

So the other day, I spied this story on the front page of the paper:

AT & T Customer Goes To Jail After Shooting At Thieves' Car

...in which some jack-ass with a concealed weapon permit and a loaded .38 in his pocket decided to play "NCIS" and shoot out the tires of the getaway car of some thieves who had run out of the local cel phone store with a couple of hot I-Phones.

He missed. God knows where those shots went, or could have gone. And since when does one resort to deadly force to recover $700 worth of electronic gadgets? The Gresham Police hauled his ass off to jail. And everyone is outraged, because this ballsy guy was "just trying to do the right thing."

I have to say, we live in a crazy world. Every time the police around here actually have to kill someone, there is a monstrous investigation, the cop gets suspended until the investigation is complete, editiorialists from every nook and cranny put in their two cents about how the police misuse deadly force. A cop can hardly taser or bean-bag someone without being painted as an accomplice to the Rodney King assault. But let some Joe Blow on the street with a concealed handgun and an over-developed fantasy life take pot-shots at a petty thief, and he's painted as some kind of folk hero.

I guess this qualifies as my

"WTF"

for this week...

Buyer's Remorse?

The increased shrillness of partisan rhetoric caused by the passage of the Health Care Bill has caused my blood to curdle to the "political rant" point. I haven't felt one coming on this strongly since the 2008 election…

Let's face it. Barack Obama was elected president in 2008 for two main reasons: First, he was NOT George W. Bush or anything even remotely associated with that infamous administration; and second, he had not chosen Sarah Palin as a running mate. It's utter folly to believe that a majority of American voters carefully scrutinized the platforms of all candidates and chose Barack Obama based on anything he said or promised or represented. Which is not to say there were not those who voted for Mr. Obama for reasons other than his non-Bush-ness. But those true believers alone would not have pushed him to victory. George W. Bush let his house of cards fall down around his Alfred E. Newman ears about six months too early to allow him to hand the mantle of power over to a successor of his own political ideology. The American people were fed up with Bush and everything he stood for. And they voted that frustration.

So when I hear about this "buyers' remorse" that all of us who voted for Obama are supposed to be suffering now, I beg to disagree. Mr. Obama is, after all, STILL not George W. Bush. And he did not clasp hands with Vice President Sarah Palin upon signing the Health Care Bill into law. If he is or accomplishes nothing else in the next three (or seven) years, he will remain exactly what I purchased with my vote sixteen months ago.

However, I am beset by a certain amount of remorse connected with the Obama presidency. When I cast my vote, I foolishly assumed that an Obama victory would put an end to the madness. That the presence of an articulate, educated, intelligent human being behind the desk in the Oval Office would raise the level of political discourse in this country to something at least a rung or two above the putrid, sniping rhetoric of hatred and fear propagated by the previous administration. What was I thinking? What made me believe that the party of "Daschellism" and swift-boating had any intention of abiding by the will of the people, dropping their delusions of national domination and getting down to the business of government?

Mr. Obama, for his part, tried to implement the gospel of inclusiveness he had preached before the election. He was all about bi-partisanship; he did everything but stand on his head trying to get Republicans to come to the table and pow-wow about the changes he had promised the American people (after he spent the first weeks of his presidency desperately trying to keep the country's head above the treacherous economic waters into which the Bush Administration had cast it…)

The newly-demoted minority party richly rewarded the President's outstretched hand. First, they cast aspersions on the bail-outs he was forced to offer to floundering financial institutions (as if he was simply throwing our hard-earned tax money at a bunch of spoiled rich kids for no reason, or for reasons of his own creation.) And then they banded together as a rock-hard block to oppose anything and everything that the President tried to accomplish—with the expressed intention by their own admission of causing this President to fail. No thought to the needs of the people. No thought to the challenges facing any government in 21^st century global politics. Their entire platform, all their energy was sunk into that single mission. Effectively solidifying the minority party into a giant turd clogging the pipes of our government. And, of course, blaming it all on the "other side."

Am I frustrated to near hysteria by what's going on? Of course. Do I blame President Obama? No, I do not.

I know who I believe in my heart is responsible for this entire mess. But I also know that, at this point, fixing blame is pointless. Our government is broken. Perhaps beyond redemption. The patient is dead. Will figuring out who's to blame bring it back to life?

How do you make them shut up? How do you make them care about anything but their own avarice, their personal delusions of power and control? I don't know. Obviously nobody knows. The country has gone completely mad and it appears there is no help for it. For the first time in my life, the thought of just getting the hell away from the madness, rather than working to calm or change it, looks tremendously appealing.

I've always wanted to travel…

Noise

I have been a tad out of touch since we bought the restaurant… We DO listen to the radio in the kitchen at the café. But after three years, the fact that every radio station we can pick up has a playlist of about ten songs that they crank out over and over again until you can’t stand it anymore led me to a dangerous decision. About a week ago, I rekindled my relationship with public radio. I decided, what the heck, I’d rather listen to “Talk of the Nation” than some pre-pubescent pop star whining through her latest smash hit for the umpteenth time. Now, I’m not so sure I’ve made the right choice. Because the political acid is starting to burn a hole in my gut right next to the cavity created by my job. Maybe not good for my health…

Seems there is a new book out there that has been stirring up the political scene: Game Change, by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. It is supposedly a minutely researched expose of the highlights, and lowlights (of which there are surely many) of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Now, I have not read the book, nor am I going to promise to, given that I finished exactly three books in all of 2009. But my observation isn’t about the book, it’s about the firestorm it has created.

We on the left are still wondering what the hell qualified Sarah Palin for the attention she received as a candidate in 2008; and why the hell anyone still cares about her now, a year past her ignominious and well-deserved defeat. So, when additional tales of her incompetence and ignorance come to light, we can’t help but yuk it up a little at her expense. Game Change first hit the shelves a few weeks ago, and left-wingers took the opportunity to use it to poke fun at Sarah Palin. And of course it wasn’t all light-hearted, good-natured joshing. There are those who are aware that someone needs to make every effort to make Sarah Palin go away for good.

We hardly finish tittering over Palin’s miscues when we are assailed by a barrage of smear over Harry Reid’s comments as quoted by the authors of this same book. “Harry Reid is a racist!” “Harry Reid insulted the (not-yet) President!” “Harry Reid should apologize!” “Harry Reid should resign!” Note, please, that as far as I know NONE of these calls for Harry Reid’s head came from members of the black community (with the exception of RNC Chairman Michael Steele, and we all know where his loyalties lie…) and certainly not from the President himself. Everyone is mystified, even the authors of the book, that this particular aspect of Harry Reid’s involvement in President Obama’s campaign is the one that everyone has chosen to focus upon. After all, the point of the story was to illustrate Reid’s contribution to Mr. Obama’s victory.

What’s not to get, here? Let us not forget that across the aisle sits the party, not of “equal and opposite reaction,” but of “insane and hyperbolic over-reaction.” The party for whom the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are two of the more (in)famous mouthpieces. The party that, after years of practice, has honed “smear” to a stiletto point; and can—and does—launch it with the deadliest accuracy.

We snicker behind our hands about Sarah Palin, and they launch a full-scale “Daschellism” against Harry Reid. And no one gets the connection?

There are two morals to this story: First: Sarah Palin is the right wing’s Sacred Cow. (Love that imagery, don’t you?) Frighteningly enough, she represents redemption to many in the Republican Party, certainly to the rightest and shrillest wing thereof, and she will be defended with every weapon at the party’s disposal.

Lesson the second: We can't out-smear the Republican party. Democrats are so far behind in this particular arms race that it doesn’t do for them to even attempt to engage the enemy on this field. This is one game at which we can not beat them. And, in my opinion, trying to do so only raises the snarky political noise to a pitch that will surely turn all our brains to mush. If it hasn’t already.

So, here’s an idea for the Democratic Party:

Why not DO something? Why not accomplish something for which history, and possibly even the voting public, will reward you? Why not earn the public’s trust, instead of trying to out-yell the other guy for it?

Just a thought…

On The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

I’m sure everyone thought the resident Obama fan would have some comment about the President being selected to win the Nobel Peace Prize. So here are my two cents:

Do I think Mr. Obama’s selection for that lofty prize may have been a bit premature? Yes, I do. Do I think President Obama has had an opportunity to implement his world-peace-enhancing policies? No, I do not. Do I believe that our Congress/electorate/national media will even allow him to implement those policies? Hard to say.

But what I think is not important. In fact, what we as a nation think isn’t important. The Nobel Prize is awarded by a committee that represents, arguably, global interests. And that is key.

What we don’t, as a nation, see—what we refused to allow ourselves to believe for eight years—was how far, under the hand of the Bush Administration, the United States of America had fallen from the ideals that had made her the great nation she was. After the September 11th attacks, the US turned cowardly. Fear made her retract the great wings of freedom and protection with which she traditionally attempted to enfold the world. Fear made her stretch her sharp talons in the direction of any threat, real or imagined. Fear made her claw and snap and growl. A world that had depended upon a strong, brave, free and generous America saw the US turn into a very large, very wounded animal, with the Bush Administration continuously chewing upon the sores to keep them open and to keep her fearful and angry and half-crazed with pain. And the world became afraid—of us.

Finally, We the People regained our senses and drove the party responsible for our loss of respect on the world stage out of the White House. Sure, we elected a man who got the job pretty much because he was as far from the person and policies of the previous Administration as you could get. President Obama was elected because he was NOT George W. Bush, and as far as the rest of the world is concerned, that (obviously) carries a tremendous amount of weight. Mr. Obama has at the very least talked the talk of a complete about-face from the previous administration’s policies. That was enough to impress the Nobel Committee, to inspire them to award the Peace Prize to the man who personifies the restoration of the United States of America to her rightful place in the world—that of Uniter, not Divider.

I look at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize as having been awarded more to the people of the United States than to the new President. We kicked the bad guys out, and demanded the change that the Obama Administration represents. Let’s just hope that, now, we go forward and implement that change the world so desperately needs to see in us.

Choosing Anger over Fear

I’m convinced that our intrepid media are more than marginally responsible for the economy’s continuing downward spiral. They delight in imparting everything, down to the tiniest, goriest detail; confident that we, the sensation-starved public, will gobble down every poisonous morsel and beg for more. And we do.

With that in mind, I’ve had to limit my exposure to those tainted offerings, lest I simply give up, lock the doors of the café, walk away and go live in my car—the one that has been paid for since 1985. Business is down, but we haven’t gone broke yet. Customers come in, food goes out, and the bills get paid on time. So it’s no good for me to start obsessing about all the gloom and doom the media are spreading around. Not yet, anyway.

And yet, despite my best efforts, one of those deadly stories will get to me every couple of days. And my best defense…is a good offense. I refuse to get scared. I choose to get pissed instead.

So, what did I choose to get pissed at this time? Well, I read the news about AIG using the second infusion of federal bailout money to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars in “bonuses.” I came upon this information via a long, involved story in the New York Times. Wherein I learned that AIG claims, and independent lawyers seem to confirm, that they “have no choice” but to pay out these bonuses.

Have no choice? Excuse me? On how many levels is this absolute horse puckey?

“We promised these bonuses back in 2008, before the economy tanked.” First of all, it has always been my understanding that bonuses are paid for good performance. Bonuses are paid to employees who have contributed above and beyond the call to increase a company’s profits. It can’t be news to you that not only has your company tanked, but it has taken a good portion of the American economy with it. Exactly what, then, have these guys done to rate a “bonus?” To the tune of several hundred million dollars? The very fact that the government has HAD to pump billions into AIG’s coffers should summarily disqualify any employee from receiving a “bonus.”

And if that federal bailout money did not have some kind of clear directives attached to it as to how it could be used, somebody REALLY screwed the pooch.

“We need to pay out these bonuses in order to retain our best employees.” Hello! Your “best” employees are responsible for one of the biggest economic disasters in the history of…economy. I personally would be telling them not to let the door hit them in the ass… And, by the by, where are they going to go? There’s a recession on, dipshits. No one is hiring. Bonuses or not, you’re very likely stuck with them. FIRE their butts. Or let them sue. DON’T GIVE THEM THE MONEY.

All I could think when I read that stupid article was, if someone is so convinced that this money HAS to go out, and they, in turn, have convinced the government that there is nothing they can do to stop it, we have bigger problems than just a broken economy. The rich (and don't insult me by claiming that someone who receives a million dollar bonus is not rich) WILL have their money, if they have to snatch the last dollar out of the hands of a starving family to get it. Something is so fundamentally broken here that it’s going to take generations to fix. If it can be fixed at all.

And that…

THAT scares the hell out of me.

Go Ahead...Give It Back!

First, we heard certain Republican governors whining that they “didn’t need” federal bailout money and planned on either giving it back or refusing it altogether. It seems one of the big sticking points was that in order to accept certain moneys, the states would have to amend their unemployment policies to include part-time workers. Oh, by all means…we can’t extend benefits to part-timers. We’ll just overlook the fact that some people have to work two or three part-time jobs in order to make ends meet, because our 21st century service-based economy does not have an adequate number of full-time, living wage jobs available. Those jobs—along with the factories and the mills—are all in Asia now…supporting the Chinese and Indian middle class.

The situation kind of reminds me of the joke about the drowning man who refused a life ring, a boat, and a helicopter because “God was going to save him.” When he ultimately drowned and arrived at the Pearly Gates, he asked God, “Why didn’t you save me?” And God said, “What do you mean? I sent you a life preserver, a boat and a helicopter…”

Now that we’ve got that bit of insanity out of our system, the banks have decided to get into the act. Today, I spied an article at The New York Times about banks—big and small—contriving to refuse or send back bailout money. It seems that the Obama administration has put “onerous” conditions on banks accepting federal bailout funds. Things like suspending evictions and offering distressed homeowners the opportunity to refinance. Things like requiring banks to allow shareholders to vote on executive compensation packages. Terrible, awful, reprehensible things to require of a bunch of rich ***holes standing in line with one hand out and the other with fingers crossed behind their backs.

The banks have become so enamored of their unencumbered, unrestricted, unregulated status that they just can’t allow themselves to be controlled in any way. They were all in favor of the “Give us the money and we’ll figure out how to use it” style of bailout. They were overjoyed to stand in line with their stack of bags at the ready to fill up and then stash somewhere that no one would ever see it again (probably in the Swiss bank accounts of their highest executives…)

But now…what? We’re going to try to tell them what they can do with the money? We’re going to try to hold them responsible? We’re going to try to coerce them into some kind of social accountability? Well, then they’ll just have to sputter and turn all red in the face and cry “Socialism! Government control! Ack! Ack!”

All this crap about “socialism” that’s being bandied about these days… I have to ask: Why is it that any time government steps in to try to benefit the poor—or, god forbid, the over-burdened, under-appreciated middle class—the right-wing blares the “S” word like an air-raid siren? What is so wrong with the idea of the government “of the people by the people” making sure the people get a fare shake from time to time? Why does it so infuriate the “haves” when the “have-nots” steal a tiny, cap-gun-sized pop of their thunder?

In the end, I have to wonder: if all these banks are standing in line to give the bailout money back, how much did they need it in the first place? Because I really can’t believe that they’re willing to face certain doom rather than accept money with “onerous” conditions attached to it, just on principle. How does the saying go? Fool me once ($800 billion in unregulated bailout money from the Bush Administration), shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me...

Cross-posted from Women On...

Remember When Freedom Wasn't Free?

I read last week that Dan Rather is suing CBS news for $70 million, seeking retribution for the debacle following his story on Bush's military record that cost him his job just before election 2004.

You remember that story, right? The one where Rather's team acquired documents that indicated that our illustrious War President had received preferential treatment to avoid serving in Viet Nam during the war, and in fact had been allowed to duck out of the military without fulfilling all his obligations? The story that resulted in Rather's "Swift-boating" by nefarious factions of the Right Wing Media Noise Machine?

I was fascinated to discover, in reading about Rather's current lawsuit, that those documents that were deafeningly decried as forgeries by conservative bloggers (they claimed to have evidence that the type faces and fonts used on the documents did not exist in the military in the 1960's) were never actually proven to be anything but authentic. And that neither Bush nor his team ever denied the contents of the records.

More than anything, this story brought back memories of the Bad Old Days: those months in the wake of 9/11 when George W. Bush was allowed—no, not merely allowed…begged—to ride rough-shod over the American public's freedoms in the name of gathering us all, trembling and wetting ourselves—under his great, fearless, protective wings. Those were dark days, indeed; days when an ambiguous administration, and a man who struggled to attain mediocrity on his best days, were elevated to Knights of the Right and Protectors of All Things Sacred. Days when we traded our rights to privacy, due process, dissent and a free press for a security to which citizens of a free nation should never condescend to aspire.

But that was years ago, wasn't it? The Bush Administration is gasping its last breath, and Barack Obama is waiting in the wings to take over and initiate course corrections to our ship of state. Right? So why is Dan Rather suing now? Why keep beating a dead horse? Why not just…get over it?

I don't know. Bleeding-heart liberal that I am, I was never a Dan Rather fan. Sure, we share many of the same political opinions…but that's the point. Opinions do not have a place behind the anchor desk. At least, they didn't twenty-five years ago. I was never comfortable with the in-your-face liberal slant with which Rather branded his "news" broadcasts. Invariably, I could watch him for about five minutes before I would tune him out in disgust. He always came off as way too "holier than thou." "Just report the news, Dan," I would chide him in my mind. "Don't tell me how to think about it."

Little did I know then that Rather was blazing the trail of the future of journalism. The future where the boundaries between news and editorialism completely evaporated; the future where the public would be bombarded with so much skewed and often contradicting "information," put out there by factions with varying agendas, that they would ultimately be forced to choose a reality.

That future that is NOW.

So, it is true that, in some respects, Rather was hoist on his own petard. He was one of the original polluters of the information stream; eventually, he was forced to drink his own poison. I feel bad for him; I think he got a raw deal. And I think he wants vindication. And if he can get it, though it's too late for it to free us from one more minute of Bush Administration bungling, I think he deserves it.

But more importantly, we as a nation need to watch Dan Rather reopen this can of worms. We need to be reminded of where we were four short years ago. Remember when the president was so revered, almost sanctified, that any whisper of negative press about him was called un-American and punished as severely as law—or society outside the law—would tolerate? Remember when you refrained from voicing political opinions at your local watering hole, lest you meet with some embarrassing or violent incident? Remember when you were afraid that a petty fight with a neighbor might result in him imagining a terrorist plot and ratting you out to the FBI? Remember when one of the nation's pre-eminent journalists was discredited, disgraced, and ridden out of town on a rail on the basis of a story that was, in all likelihood, true?

Remember not feeling very free in the land of the free and home of the brave?

We absolutely need to remember these things. Because we absolutely need to make sure they never happen again.

(Cross-posted from "Women On...")