Frederick Pollack wrote:
>
> If I really believed that hope, including political hope, were a
> childish parlor game I wouldn't have said so in a poem. I wouldn't
> write . I'd be dead.
I'm not dead but I stopped writing. It wasn't a choice. The well ran
dry. Not politically related at all.
> To vote this year could make a difference. I have no illusions about
> Clinton or Obama. But McCain would mean a big step closer to a the
> nationalist and overtly imperialist police- state we have not yet
> quite become. As well as the end of legal abortion, and other things
> you could name as well as I. I'm not claiming any moral high ground
> here. I'm a parlor Red. I've always been too timid, reclusive,
> mistrustful, and lazy to ACT on my convictions. I tell myself that
> writing poetry about my times, rather than - like the groups I despise
> - about emotional trivia or nothing whatever - is a political act, but
> I know this excuse is doubtful and self-serving. I know that
> democracy in our lifetime has become a narrow choice between evils,
> both of which get worse. But I also know that opting out serves only
> the stronger evil. I know students who are working for Obama because
> they think he'll make a difference in their lives, and in the lives of
> people who know only need. If they're defeated, or betrayed - as you
> and I have been so often - some of them will try again. If I can feel
> no other solidarity, I can with them. Qui tacet consentit. Hold your
> nose and vote.
I'm not sure I can do the last but I can at least consider it. Your
argument is as persuasive as it gets, and I don't like the thought of
opting out. Voting at least affords me the illusion of some degree of
power. But I am simply sickened by what my country has become. I'm
turning 64 on Saturday and the thoughts that are in my head would have
the FBI at my front door if there truly were a Thought Police. Shit, I'd
be the one getting waterboarded. McCain strikes me as a thoroughly
stupid and unanchored man, another Dubya even if he went to war. I am
still not sure what McCain believes. Huckabee at least is the evil I
know. So was Fred Thompson, aka Foghorn Leghorn. What's a McCain?
Same as What is an Obama? This is going to sound terrible, but oh well:
I once heard a union delegate in a place I worked 40 years ago referred
to as a Black Telephone Pole for his utter nebulousness and
do-nothingism. But he has *presence*. So again: what's an Obama? I
would like to feel SOMEthing positive for him. I don't--except he talks
pretty and he's not Hillary Clinton who touts her administrative and
managerial experience as one of the prize fuck-ups of her husband's
administration. And anyone who wants something that much probably is
entirely unsuited to have it.
I wanted John Edwards. Yeah, slip-and-fall lawyer, Lego-man hair,
blah-blah-blah. And someone who pointed his finger at who the enemies
were and remain. Yet I also was relieved when he quit because if he'd
stayed in and actually gathered some support, I am all but certain that
he would have been assassinated, and the hidden funding would have come
from a pharma or insurance company right here in little old New Jersey.
Right, I am paranoid.
Edwards' drop-out is for me where The Process hit the pavement and
splattered. I am tired of a defensive game where the pawns are being
run off the board. But indeed, it's all I've got, isn't it? So we go
back to whatever drawing or chessboard there is.
ken
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Kenneth Wolman bestiaire.typepad.com
Abuse of power comes as no surprise--Jenny Holzer
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