Provocateur
Driving north from Cuba, New Mexico, one enters the most beautiful country on earth. The road winds up through Regina and Galinas, from high sage desert to pine forests, and then it turns a corner and the striking visage of Pedernales mountain is framed between the trees like a magical mountain in a fairytale. Then the road plunges down into canyons of deep reds and bright white limestone that glows like a collection of ghostly faces in the dusk. The waters of a reservoir appear on the left and then one crosses the Abiquiu Dam to plunge again through canyons of singing stones and up toward the Sangre de Christos and Espanola.
It does me so good to get away from the daily depressing barrage of political emails. LIke a frustrating war of attrition. Every morning one side advances a couple of points in the polls or scores a couple of political points, only to loose ground tomorrow. There is almost no honest dialogue going on between the sides, only accusations and frustration hurled beneath a hanging cloud of apprehension.
Out there on the open range I had a revelation. Suddenly I 'got it' in terms of the Republican position. Out here there is a totally different sense of space than there is in the east and in the cities. Out here the horizons appear almost without limit, and the myth of personal freedom holds sway. Governments are only a nuisance at worst, and at best they perform their only proper function, to protect us from the 'bad' things 'over there.' Whenever government exceeds that role it becomes obnoxious. While we work our to support our selves and our families in this natural paradise the government takes a third of what we make and sends it off to help a bunch of people in places we can't even pronounce. The only role of government is to keep us safe so that we can prosper. Otherwise it should leave us all be.
I saw in an instant why these people don't care about what's 'out there,' except when it's perceived as a threat. They don't want to know about the world. They aren't interested in history or other countries or why people do the things they do. They just want to be left alone to pursue their 'dream' of independence and freedom and the great outdoors.
A recent article in Salon by John Kenneth Galbraith breaks down the map of America into areas that are steeply polarized between rich and poor and other areas that have sort of reached a 'middle.' The Democratic Party brings together the very rich in coalitions with the very poor. A little bit of guilt perhaps, married to a morsel of resentment. This formula exists primarily in urban areas of highly concentrated populations or in states that include prominent areas of both rich and poor, urban and rural. The Republicans on the other hand posses the kingdom of the suburbs, where people strive and struggle to meet the demands of the consumer society and have little time for much besides the long commute.
Galbraith comments:
"To a very large extent, economic geography is political destiny. Or, in other words, our politics now resemble World War I. It's total war on a fixed front, fought endlessly over a few hundred yards of ground. Democrats should realize that, to a considerable extent, the Republican base lies behind their lines. It lives in a simplified world, cut off effectively and even voluntarily from outside information. For this reason, basing the campaign on the character defects and early history of Bush just won't work. This war isn't going to be decided by records from the Texas Air National Guard. Those who might care know already. And if they don't, they will never find out."
The most bewildering and frustrating thing about the right, from the point of view of most of the people I associate with in this liberal oasis of vision and guilt called Santa Fe, is the seemingly willful ignorance of those on the right. Facts don't seem to matter to them. Reason is hardly relevant. For thinking they substitute the 'talking points' they found on the web or picked up from watching the 'state' propaganda broadcasts on Fox News or talk radio. They will never pay attention to anything even faintly critical of their point of view. That would make them uncomfortable. They won't change until they are made to bleed by the circumstances they themselves create.
They certainly don't care that George Bush is stupid. They don't care that he lies. What they care about is that he obstinately rejects any point of view other than his own. In the face of all kinds of 'moral relativism' he stands his ground even if it means holding the whole world at bay. All foreigners. queers, atheists and colored folk better stand back, because George is the MAN. We know what he stands for. He's one of us.
The left despairs, because for some reason they've had a glimpse of themselves through the eyes of the other people in this world. Somehow they've encountered a world made up of every kind of person and for some reason have not found that to be threatening. Liberals have a sense of urgency about problems that effect everyone, even those they will never meet, while Republicans tend to see everything as serving a single point of view. And then there's their Fucking Word Of God. While liberals are eager to go forward and unravel the world's complex problems, Republicans by and large are impatient with complexity, seeing everything in terms of it's relationship with the familiar.
The sad thing about the raving right is given away by the stridency they voice in all of their blind obstruction. Their frantic raving and fear mongering indicates to me that in the end they have a deep sense that they are going to ultimately lose the big battle. This is where all of their apocalyptic religious madness comes in, because in the face of a world 'out there' that's always changing and always threatening to close in, the only ultimate answer is Jehovah and his angelic wrecking squad.
The other day I told my son that we needed to leave Borders bookstore before I committed violence. I was feeling a bit depressed and vulnerable, and standing in front of a display of books by ugly Republicans was sorely tempted to kick the thing over. When it comes down to it I don't really like these people, even a little bit, and although, being a 'liberal' I can understand and even empathize with them to an extent I kind of resent the fact that I have to share a country with them.
When I got home I read some of the recent exploits of Michael Moore and that cheered me up. I watched a video of John McCain accusing him of being "disengenuous" at the RNC, causing all of the creeping zombies in the audience to start screeching "four more years!" while Michael made the signs for "two more months" and the "L" sign for Loser in return. He looked down upon their frantic mass and grinned. Like Michael I know that ultimately we will win, even if John Kerry throws this particular election. We are change after all, and we ain't never going away. Thankfully the real work continues under the radar and beneath the fog of war, in small groups and communities who serve others no matter what is placed in their path.
All that our political enemies have to defend themselves against change is their fear of losing their possessions an property backed up by their pathetic concept of a vengeful god. While they're still waiting for the Rapture the universe will pass them by.
5:41:45 PM 
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