For Welshman- on baseball and Pelosi
Wed Nov 07, 2007 at 11:47:55 AM PDT
I was just skimming through diaries to see what happened whilst (I do so love that word) I was off preserving democracy at the polls yesterday. Please know that my thoughts are with you, and Psycho Sally. Hopefully, you will not have to wear the Elizabethan dog-collar during your own treatment. Thanks to your profound diary, my thoughts are also with Nancy Pelosi and the leadership today.
I am happy to report from beeyootiful central Ohio that I helped 42 citizens to vote yesterday. I also encouraged one angry would-be voter to contact her party's national voting hotline and the Department of Justice if she felt that her rights had been unfairly compromised. We have been reduced to that now, suggesting fruitless political action, in lieu of providing real statutory solutions to citizens trying to exercise their basic rights. But perhaps I am being negative, despite Markos and the other online poo-bahs having declared yet another grand Ohio victory.
[Heavy sigh as I gird my loins- don't look!]
As a native Clevelander and longtime Indians fan, I can't help but have similar feelings as those you expressed about the utility of expecting modern day miracles from Pelosi. She's walking the halls of government, after all, not strolling across the water to Bethsaida. Does the Speakership come with a wand now, so that she can simply wish change and with a tinkle of fairy dust it happens before our eyes? Maybe Dennis Kucinich is our Tinkerbell? I don't think so, even though I have a soft spot for anyone who rattles cages with such enthusiasm.
In my professional life, daily I have to accept the fact that despite my own commitment to the preservation of the built environment, there are very few people who share my belief in that idea. It is the difference, perhaps, between sharing a belief and advocating an opinion. My beliefs brought me to preservation, but my professional opinions are limited to the legal options to which our collective society has consented. For me, those options are very few. Unless Ms. Pelosi wants to see political carnage wreaked by the modern day Vandals and Visigoths we elected to lead us, her options are very few as well.
The sad fact for us here is that our government has been broken. The compact that drew us into this democratic experiment has been shattered beyond repair. From Shottle's persective, the milk has been well and truly spilled into the dirt. Is the mended milk jug ever going to be the same?
I'm fairly sure that Gore's retreat into his philosophical bat cave yielded much the same conclusion. Under law, he had options that could have yielded different results for that election. However, facing those opponents at that juncture, he ultimately concluded that preserving a battered democratic republic was more important than winning an election, then watching that same republic crumble under the scorched earth politics that would have ensued. He faced the horrific reality of what was to come from this administration much sooner than most and was solidly mocked for it. Being a past critic of his actions, I know that it's too late to offer an apology, but I do regret the anger I held towards him.
Scampering even further into non-dairy metaphor, it's still useful to consider that even though our current emperor has no clothes, we can all agree that the next one will. Collectively, we can all pretend this whole nightmare never happened and try to return to the glowing place where we once lived. That's the America where immigrants wanted to come, not because they were escaping horrific conditions that we helped bring about, but because it offered a breath of hope to people who simply hoped for something better. I want to live in that place again. I think Pelosi does, too. You don't take on a job like hers if there isn't an underlying commitment to principle. The benefits just aren't that good.
The temptations that are dangling before us for flamboyant political action just have to be passed by. Yes, I read things like the constitutional convention diaries, just like I compulsively eat Cheetohs. It's important to remember that we are still the country that really liked the looks of "Normalcy" when Harding waved it around as an alternative to all the commotion of Wilson. Despite the intellectual appeal of ideas like the League of Nations, in the end it was threats like domestic terrorism that lured the country back to a more placid frame of mind. They just pretended the whole thing never happened.
I can resent the appeal of "politics as usual" and still accept its benefits, knowing full well how much farther into political depravity we could still sink if our federal boat were to be overturned in the next 12 months. Perhaps I am just another Quisling to the cult of Progressivism, but in the honored tradition of online commentary, I can only offer a hearty "bite me" to that accusation. The real lesson Bush taught me- it could be much, much worse.
Every day I walk the walk, dealing with the deep chasms we have carved into the structure of our government. They're going to be there for years, no matter who takes the White House, because it's not just Bush. It never was. We live in a community that thought all of the regressive rhetoric that was pumped into the public arena sounded mighty fine. The nice neighbor who shovels my sidewalk would probably push the button on another country in a heartbeat, if he was whipped into a patriotic frenzy, but secretly I'm still glad he has a snowblower. That's not unlike the compromise we make when we agree to live in a democratic system. As a party, we still need people like that in the Big Tent in order to achieve better objectives. It's okay to temporarily accept notions we don't agree with if it furthers other important goals. Isn't that what politics is about, after all?
Of course, as I sat in the stands at Jacobs Field for the great Bug Game of 2007, I also really wanted to live in a community that capered and frolicked into the World Series, but that didn't happen either. The new holiday of Yankee Elimination Day does have its own seductive appeal. In the end, it would take a Welshman to link the perennial agony of fandom to our current national nightmare. Perhaps, after all, only another Indians fan could truly appreciate the karmic irony of the whole thing.
Should you feel the need to drink from the magic waters of Lake Erie this spring, my good friend, please let me know. I would be honored to introduce you to one of the finest traditions of your adopted homeland- heckling the visiting outfielders from the bleacher seats. You would feel right at home.
With Cheers and Jeers-
Histo
PS Update- I can't help but think that Carlyle might be a bit heavy for recreational reading. How about some Fitzgerald instead?
Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry
I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy-—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.
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