Sober Gay Poz Ex-Con

First and foremost, it is impossible for me not to be hyperaware that today, after a decade, Steven gets out of prison. This is like the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. For him, walking in them, for me, watching them. He's probably just now getting on a bus to a halfway house in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Wow.

Like many of us, I am entranced by Obama's trip abroad, thrilled by how well it's going. I loved the cheers of the troops as he sunk that three-pointer--I'm sure Dick Cheney had to adjust his pacemaker to "apoplectic" that Bush-friendly troops were not pre-chosen to guarantee a stony instead of an obviously warm reception to the other "O." (Who'd have thought she'd have competition?) I loved loved loved when McCain, the supposed one with foreign policy expertise, talked about the non-existent "Iraq/Pakistan" border (they are 750 miles apart, separated by Iran), especially as I imagined Dumbya being told by Condi that McCain had made a mistake, because he still can't find Afghanistan on a map.

I am of course dismayed by the continued tenacity of the "radical muslim" perception that seems firmly entrenched in the minds of the the under and miseducated. I have a theory about that, particularly when it comes to the elderly.

One of the reasons it was so nice to be an American in the 40s and 50s was that it wasn't an illusion that we were "the good guys."  The Fascist ideologies we fought really were evil, and we really were liberators who could be trusted not to torture. By the 60s, things got a bit more ambiguous, but it was still relatively easy to feel like whatever our flaws, the Russians were worse--as any Hungarian, Czech or Ukrainian who got out from under the Soviet boot could tell you.  If you'd made it into your 60s or 70s, you were used to 4 decades of good guyism, but probably just a tad disoriented by century's end that there was no clear, monolithic enemy to reinforce your sense of contrast.

Then comes 9/11.   A tragedy to be sure, but there's the comfortable feeling of certainty you had after Pearl Harbor that you are the wounded and righteous party. But these bad guys, who are they? Senators couldn't tell the difference between Sunni and Shia--or is it Shiite? Oh, it was Saddam Hussein? Well, there you go. Oh but it wasn't?  Finally, you throw up you hands, settling on the idea that our enemy are Radical Muslim Extremists.  True, Bush is not Einstein, but at least when you look at him, he seems to be without any doubt as to the basic certainty that we are the good guys. You need to believe that about your country, about yourself. Children can turn against you, spouses can die, businesses can go belly up, life can be cruel and uncertain. But if America isn't the good guy, what does that make you?

Barack Obama represents a nuanced view of the world that makes you uncomfortable. He asks America to take responsiblity for its foreign policy mistakes, to understand that if so many hate us it may be related to how we operate in the world.  If you agree with that, then you may have to question whether you have something to do with why your daugher never visits, why your husband or wife divorced you, why you have to live on $1800 a month even though you worked non-stop since the depression.  (The equivalent scenario can be painted with working class whites whose patriotism also gets all tied up with compensating for poor self-esteem.)

Casting Obama as a muslim extremist, as ridiculous as that is, represents a need for a clear and defined bad guy, like the good old days of the Nazis and the Russians. Killing Saddam didn't fix terrorism, and who can keep all these Arabs straight? McCain is 72, an ex- POW, unambigous.  Obama is mixed race, his middle name is Hussein, he even looks like an Arab. Most of all, he's unfamiliar in a time where familiarity is craved.

They fear Obama, because he represents a new world where being American is not an automatic grant of moral superiority, in which the survival of the world may actually depend on some hard long stocktaking in the mirror. To them, Obama's a Pandora's Box of guilt and self-questioning that must not be opened. Better to slap a simplistic label on him and play some mah-jong.

MCO 2008 

P.S. The Hy-Art is Reni/Fidler. Can't say it's much related to the blog entry, but it's what created itself last night.