Of Recalls, Rebates, Rituals And Right-Wings

I am so glad everyone finally knows that Condoleeza Rice's staff cooked up a bunch of yellowcake rumors for our dear Resident last January. I'd heard about it on Pacifica's Democracy Now program so long ago that I'm wondering what took the regular media so long. I guess yellowcake takes awhile to digest.

I don't really feel like writing about that though. You know, I'm starting to get really far way from my original premise in this column, that is, answering philosophical questions like What is Reality? Or why does Windows still take 5 minutes to load when the computers are at least 20 times faster than they were a few years ago? Rather I've been talking more and more about politics instead. That's not really so strange I guess, politically these are very interesting and unprecedented times.

Politics and philosophy are related of course. Politics needs some sort of guiding philosophy to be successful, some sort of set of values to sell itself. Ever since 9-11 our current administration's philosophy has been one of America First and little else. At least that's the philosophy they keep in the display window. The actual conservative values they operate by can be summed up as Power First.

By the way, I've decided it's time to make "conservative" a dirty word, just like they did to "liberal" a few years ago. Especially if they use "compassionate" next to it. What a joke! Today's right-wingers are simply NOT conservative in any sense of the word. When it comes to the environment they are against any sort of conservation. In the fiscal matters, they are ready to give out truckloads of cash to their buddies in corporate welfare, stage expensive wars, all the while cutting tax revenue to pay for it -- nothing conservative there either. They aren't even conservative when it comes to the size of government - witness the giant new bureaucracy of Homeland Security they've created - which pursues all manner of wrongdoing relentlessly, except those Crawford Ranch Cronies who are creating paper companies offshore to avoid taxes. Maybe the real dirty word is "neo-conservative" because these venal power junkies give decent conservatives, people who can debate and give logical reasons for their positions, people who have a true respect for American traditions and people who can even get behind a charitable government initiative from time to time, a bad name. These neo-con types are only conservative about their own status quo; they believe in nothing except enriching those who already hold Power. Never mind any consistency or logic in what they do, anything goes as long as it is in service of Power. They will say anything that serves their purpose, even if it contradicts something they said five minutes ago, let alone during the election campaign.

Consider the latest brouhaha here in California - the upcoming recall election against Governor Gray Davis. The recall was bankrolled by a Republican congressman, Darrell Issa, who's upset that our state is $38 Billion in the red and that Davis never told us to expect that during last year's campaign against Bill Simon. Fine, that's the one thing I share with Issa, a sense of outrage at the fiscal mismanagement. I can't lay all of the blame at Davis's feet however. There is a general downturn in the economy and lots of unfunded mandates being handed down from the Federal level that have added to our budget problems, plus in his first term Davis inherited a de-regulated power industry, created by our legislature doing the bidding of Enron back in the Wilson years. Still, the mess didn't have to be this bad. $38 Billion is a damn big chunk of change even for the seventh largest economy in the world. OK, so let's stipulate there's a massive problem. Now, do I have any faith that Republicans like Darrell Issa or Arnold Schwarzenegger can solve it? Hell no! THEY LOVE DEFICITS!

That's right! When it comes to Bush's FEDERAL deficit, every neo-con Republican thinks his truly monumental amount of red ink is a perfectly TERRIFIC IDEA. Remember less than three years ago we were running a surplus under Clinton? Now we're projected to be behind $450 Billion this year alone, dwarfing California's problem. Remind me again, who are you gonna recall?

Too bad there's no Federal Recall. No matter, say the right-wingers, just keep repeating this mantra: California deficits bad, Federal deficits good. How can these kleptocratic neo-cons have it both ways? Well they can't, but they think that if they shout long and loudly enough they can do anything they want regardless of the consequences.

Their forced recall election probably won't solve any of California's fiscal problems, but lately I've been thinking that it might break the two party stranglehold on politics. The strange thing about a recall in California is that if Davis loses, his replacement is immediately elected from a group of declared candidates, by a simple tally of the highest number of votes. In other words, there's no primary! Davis needs 50% of the recall votes to stay in, but his replacement may get in with only, say, 15% out of a field of all the candidates. Since registering is relatively cheap, the candidates are already legion; 344 of them have declared as I write this.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is out to prove that notoriety is all you need. His only political calling card is that he sponsored an initiative to set up after school sports programs last year. Sounds great, I voted for it, except that Arnie forgot one minor detail, IT HAS NO FUNDING. He wanted the state to fund it out of thin air. If he's such a great leader that he will solve the state fiscal crisis, I wonder what program's going to be first on the chopping block? Besides the funding for enough teachers to show the schoolkids how to spell his name correctly. I'd much rather have him up there than a staunch neo-con like Tom McClintock though; in fact Arnie doesn't even seem like a Republican at all, he's pro choice, pro-gay rights and pro-gun control. Strangely, Schwarzenegger could end up splitting the vote with other Republicans, leaving someone like a Green Party candidate, Arianna Huffington or even Larry Flynt (yes, the publisher of Hustler) to win the governorship instead. The next two months should be very interesting.

By the way, Larry and I have a lot in common. We're both from Cincinnati and we both have been the targets of anti-smut prosecution by the former Hamilton County Prosecutor, Simon Leis. That's good enough for me! I loved it when he investigated all the Republicans who impeached Clinton and made a book of all their many dalliances back in '99. I know Larry will stand up for civil rights because he knows what it's like when someone tries to take them away.

And speaking of dalliances, another favorite tactic of the Republicans is to talk loudly about something else, anything else, to get bothersome topics off the evening news. Our latest case in point is demonstrated by Resident Bush weighing in on the terribly serious topic of GAY MARRIAGE.

Whooooo! Didn't you just get a cold shiver running down your back at the very mention of gay marriage? WELL I DIDN'T because it's NOT A PROBLEM! I'm married; I don't feel threatened by anyone else's marriage in the slightest. But no! The news media has taken up the beat, trumpeting polls claiming that 55% of Americans think that gay marriage is Capital-W-Wrong! Suddenly we have a full blown tempest in a teapot.

It galls me that gay marriage is considered worthy of public debate, what with all the other problems in the world. There is no threat to public safety, no danger of societal collapse posed by it in spite of all the shouting. It's just one of those old Judeo-Christian hot button issues that gets everyone talking. Like jizz on an intern's dress, you don't need an economics or political science degree to have an opinion; everyone understands sex and loves to talk about it. The neo-cons love it too, it makes a great smoke screen while they pursue the agenda of Power.

They hardly ever follow through on their promises though, even ones to their own voter base. Take abortion for example. They like that it's still around because it's an automatic rallying point for their most ardent supporters. If they actually made it illegal, the fait accompli would make their base drift away. At the same time their opposition would become far stiffer. And whatever happened to all their rhetoric about smaller government? George loves to talk about that in most of his set speeches, but there he was, saying there needed to be a law, even a constitutional amendment, banning gay marriage. So who in your smaller, deficit-ridden government is going to enforce your new gay marriage laws, Dubya?

This should not be a governmental issue. Hell, I've already wasted too much virtual ink on it myself, suffice it to say that this raging controversy is nothing in comparison to the decidedly unsexy issues of our upside down finances and a steady stream of body bags from Iraq. Beyond gay marriage the neo-con's penchant for...

What? Oh, you want to hear my take on gay marriage to understand exactly why I think it's no big deal?

Hmm, I guess this topic could be stretched into a philosophical treatise, and I was just complaining about the lack of philosophical subjects, wasn't I. Do you really have to have sex in these columns just to keep reading? No, don't leave! OK, I guess I should fill you in on the reasons.

Our Judeo-Christian culture has been responsible for centuries of general anti-sexual programming. Not only has regular sex been made shameful, our culture has been made largely misogynistic and profoundly anti-gay. Why should this be? Some lay this anti-gay bias at the feet of Saint Paul, who seems to be wrestling with homosexual desires in some of his epistles. (You should read Gore Vidal's Live From Golgotha for a hilarious fictionalized account of Paul's adventures and the time traveling film crew that came to witness them, all supposedly authored by his contemporary, Saint Timothy. You'll learn a lot too, but I digress.) Others stress that this homophobia was a Jewish reaction against the pervasive Greek influence after the Middle East was conquered by Alexander. The Greeks had a strong tradition of boy-on-boy love, even encouraging it before eventual marriage and family. Jews in Israel, at least officially, never played the game that way. Perhaps our general anti-sexual bias goes all the way back to the rivalry of Abraham's One God versus the ancient gods of Canaan like Baal and Marduk. These were fertility gods and ritual worship often involved a sex act. At least it wasn't human sacrifice like some cultures, but no sex in worship was definitely one of the things that was different about the Hebrew rituals versus their neighbors'. (For a scholarly but very readable review of how our ideas about God have changed from those times to now, I recommend Karen Armstrong's A History Of God. Sorry, it's not at all a comedy like Vidal's work.)

In any case, most Americans have been brought up with the Puritanically anti-sexual descendants of that culture's attitudes. Never mind that most registered sex offenders are hetero, homophobia has been standard upbringing for many of us. We are emotionally charged to think of homosexuals as a danger, in spite of the fact that most gays are the most considerate, non-violent people you could meet. So what's to fear? At least the general opening up of societal attitudes in the 60's has helped loosen up everyone's sexuality in the last few decades. It helps that most every family has a gay member, declared or not. More people are living in openly gay, long-term relationships now and they want the societal benefits accorded to male-female marriages.

Traditionally both church and state have a hand in sanctioning marriage, but rest assured it's the anti-sexual, reactionary old Calvinist church speaking when Dubya voices his condemnation of gay marriage. Actually I think the whole controversy can be resolved if you think of it as a practical matter. I haven't done any polls, but I believe the root reason straight-laced straight people fear gays is that they are worried gays will debauch their kids, making them gay. Ok, let's for a moment forget any genetic cause and entertain the notion that there is some amount of conversional debauchery going on, regardless of facts. Who then among the gay population would be the LEAST LIKELY to cause this problem? It's the gays that are in committed, monogamous relationships - the very ones that want to be able to marry! So where's the danger in gay marriage? Let each church condemn it if they want, but the state should be ENCOURAGING this, not actively seeking to ban it. Maybe it's the label "marriage" that causes the problem. If so, compromise -- call it a life contract, an amalgam, a legal bind, a more perfect union, a dove tail joint, fly paper, anything you want, but banning it doesn't do anybody any good.

Phew, I hope you're happy to know all of that! I'm sure glad we got all that sexual philosophy out of our system. And oh yes, gay marriages will be good for business too! I deejay weddings, so let me know if you need any music; I can play anything from Glen Miller to Moby and back again. I'm cheap too, about the same amount most people are getting on that rebate check. Let's party!

Actually, I still feel guilty about that tax rebate, like I'm contributing to the problems Bush's neo-cons have created. Maybe I should just sign the check over to California. Maybe if we all gave it back it might just pay down the deficit to a reasonable level, after all, we lived with the higher tax rate for years and most of us still managed to gain weight. And a lot of weight at that. But we all know how selfish we are once there's a hot check in our hands...

Damn, I feel weak and I'm getting hungry. Right now I think I need to go back into the Closet -- no, not that kind of Closet -- to find my recipe for yellowcake. I'm sure it will make the tax rebate parties and gay wedding receptions a glowing success. But no throwing rice. Unless it's Condoleeza and the direction is out, of course.

Thanks for reading and until next month the Closet is closed.

(C) 2003 - Rusty Pipes

Official Disclaimer: The Publisher and Editors of Cosmik Debris would tell you that Rusty Pipes' opinions are his and his alone if they were around to do so, but they are currently out, either protesting the latest moves by the Bush Administration or cashing their tax rebate checks and buying cool stuff. I'd like to say they all struggled with the moral conflict, but actually they just all clawed over one another to get the checks and then raced out of the parking garage at breakneck speeds. It was terrifying to those of us in the steno pool.