I have been writing on a small blog in southern New Mexico for several years now. This is my first foray on Kos and it means two things: One is that I will be embarrassed in front of more people and two, that in the race between consciousness and catastrophe, catastrophe is winning. I can't have that. My money's on consciousness. In the first.
If you think of everything south of I-40 as CD 2 you’d almost be right. In more ways than one, we’re at the bottom of the state. Hidalgo, Luna, and Grant Counties struggle to keep from hitting the bottom of all the economic lists that compete with Louisiana. The land wears a harsh beauty that bears the emotional and physical scars of years (sometimes, hundreds of years) of the homey but criminal triad of mining, ranching, and logging. As far as future survival goes, that’s 0 for 3.
But the real corporate monster that dominates has to be oil and gas, and if you’re going to put a face on that monster, it would look unsurprisingly like Rep. Steve Pearce. His re-election here in the district is a safe bet, even if he’s clearly a sock puppet for Yates Petroleum and every other petro interest in the state. Folks in the South don’t care. If Freeport/McMoran asked every resident in Grant County to suck down a gallon of heap leach water, the clear majority of the population would run and get a glass. And one extra for the kids!
But that’s not to say that there isn’t a great deal of clear headed resistance to this profitable but murderous nonsense. They’re here all right, at all the Pearce Town Hall meetings. They’re just scared of being shot by the wolf hating gun nuts in attendance. The IRA angels all attend for their ‘Come To Jesus’ moment and to voice their regret that Gabby didn’t get popped twice. They come to these meetings because they know Pearce is One of Them. He is there when attendees cry out for the slaughter of IRS agents, the dismantling of the EPA and the ATF, and the proverbial drowning of the American government in some sort of superhuman bathtub. He is there with little graphs he has downloaded from the Heritage Foundation website that detail how socialism causes cancer and how the $78 million dollars in the agriculture budget dedicated to animal predator extermination (‘control’) may appear costly but its money well spent in the defense of the livestock industry. It only adds to the deficit if he says it does. And it doesn’t. Your dying grandma adds to the deficit. Perks for the livestock industry do not.
Pearce supporters here in CD 2 wear blinders when it comes to the US Constitution. They love an unchecked 2nd Amendment, but that free speech thing should have some limits when the discourse is about gay marriage, legal Mexicans, unemployment checks, climate change, yada yada. The nasty stuff you don’t want children to hear about. They would just as soon have some ‘controls’ on those discussions before they get out of hand. And the 10th? They love that one. The 14th? Not so much.
For Pearce supporters, it is personal/political blinders, pure and simple, with a dash of unbowed hypocrisy for a chaser. And its New Mexico politics and government at its most embarrassingly stupid.
From my back porch I can see the Burro Mountains slowly disappear. They are being eaten for copper. The gray wolf, that sacrificial totem, has the entire population of Catron County amorously sleeping with rifles. If you have any love for the raw beauty of the earth, for the dignity and divinity of untrammeled wilderness, you live in CD 2 like you are walking on glass, every step filled with potential danger and harm. And Steve Pearce, as well as many other well oiled Republicans that share his particular sensitivities, is extremely comfortable with the corruption of the planet for unlimited (even untaxed) profit, and he is equally comfortable with making me uncomfortable for having beliefs and opinions in opposition to his own.
Ultimately, he will only feel unindebted to his keepers and sleep well at night when there is an oil slick from sea to shining sea.
Rep. Pearce has this shtick that he does when he’s asked an uncomfortable question at a Town Hall. It’s as endearing as a snake bite. You ask him, “Hey Steve, have you seen Deb Anderson’s film on ‘fracking’ in New Mexico called Split Estate?” With that, he cups his hand behind his ear and says “What’s that? I can’t hear so well after flying all those fighter jets in Viet Nam.” What never gets said next is that Steve-O is still at war with women (their reproductive rights) and children (seeking food at school when there’s none at home). He’s just not napalming them in their huts.
And sadly, Rep. Pearce never learned that ultimate lesson from his years in military service in Viet Nam or from parading on the House floor in advocacy for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That lesson, in bold print behind the eyelids of the dead and burned into the hearts of the severely wounded is as follows: If you love your country and if you honor your veterans, then please, please, please stop creating them.
Happy Fourth.
R. Earnheart