Where I Fail As a Liberal...

I have always identified myself as a political liberal. Not "progressive", which is a cravenly concession to conservatives that they have succeeded in defining "liberal" is a pejorative word. I am a liberal. As such, unlike conservatives, the viewpoints I embrace have been on the right side of most social movements for the past couple of centuries--civil rights, women's suffrage, social security--I could go on and on.

 I am not talking about Republicans and Democrats, whose party philosophies underwent a magnetic reversal of the poles back in the late 19th century. When the Repubs were created, they were the radical, liberal party, opposed to slavery, while the Democrats were conservative, all about state's rights, which was code then and now for the suppression or reversal of personal rights and the law of the land. By the end of the 19th century, the Repubs were the party of the monied classes, and the Dems were the party of the people. So, enough with party affiliation...as someone once said, they ain't but a dime's worth of difference between them. I f you don't believe that,  look up how few the differences are between the Obama Administration and the previous Bush Administration. But do it on your own time--I am talking about other things here.

I am a liberal. Not progressive. And not that " social liberal, fiscal conservative" sort of hedge you hear a lot people call themselves. If anything, I am the opposite--I tend to be socially conservative, and fiscally liberal. There are many aspects to our social culture that I don't care for at all, or am uncomfortable with, or look upon with disdain. The difference between me and a conservative is that I am ok with those aspects of society existing and being protected by law, and conservatives aren't. And as far as fiscal matters, I think most of you have too much money and the government needs to relieve you of some of it. I think the government knows better than you what to do with your money, because you'll just keep it, or buy 4 wheelers, or pass it to your useless children, whereas the government will repurpose it to medical research, defense, infrastructure, schools, the poor.

So there we are. I can see some of my conservative friends and family--if they managed to make it this far--turning purple with apoplexy...

But there are some areas where my lib credentials kind of fail:

Environment:

Sorry, my brothers and sisters, I really don't care. No that's too harsh--I care, but not enough to do anything about it. And before you bombard me with stats, and pics of drowning polar bears, let me say again, I stipulate that all of it may be true. I believe the climate is changing, I believe man is causing a large part of it...it's just that if it's a choice between a documentary on the melting of the polar ice caps and a Reds game, it's strike three for the docu. We just got a blue recycling bin from the city. Unless Dani fills it, that thing is just gonna take up space in my garage...maybe I can use it to store the pesticides and weed killers that are cluttering up my shelves.

Food:

The bullshit about "organic" and "natural" and "slow food" and "eating locally" makes my ass tired. Literally. My ass hangs about six inches lower whenever I hear someone drool about the glories of their local veggie co-op. If I want an orange, and it's January, I am buying one. If I am looking for some ground beef, and the package I want states the animal was genetically altered, it's going in the cart. I hate politicizing food. I know the arguments for politicizing it, and they aren't persuasive to me. I think of the ancient days, when food was just food. You ate what you could get, and moved on. The world advanced to a global market for food, where out of the way exotic foods were available 24/7/365, and that, people,is a good thing. I know nothing can replace the smug feeling you get when you eat something grown within your county, but I'll stack up against it the smugness I feel eating Spanish grapes, Japanese beef, and Brazil nuts  all in the same day.

Crime and Punishment:

I get that society is to blame in many ways for a person's misdeeds. Our environment shapes, or misshapes, us. How else do you explain the massive number of bank robbers that came out of Charlestown, Mass., or the large percentage of smartasses that came from the Mann household back in the 60s? It's the environment.

I know that a person who murders another person is a complex mix of social and familial pressures, and these things culminate in an act of unspeakable rage. Maybe that person had a horrific childhood, and an adulthood of brutality and privation. Very sad. And it's something we should address as we strap him onto the gurney, and pump his arm full. I know, who among us is qualified to play God? Well...me. I volunteer. I'll play God. Bring me files, and I'll sentence to death the ones who need it. Because, even though I am not southern, I do adhere to the southern creed that "they is some folks need killin'"

NPR
I know, Pravda to the left wing. I listen to it every day. And every day, I laugh at it's pretentiousness, and grind my teeth at its...pretentiousness. Why? Jeez, where to I start?

Ok, style...these hosts reeeaallly wish they on the BBC. Why else do they say someone is "on holiday?" No one goes on holiday, not in America they don't. We go on a vacation. No one is "in hospital" or sitting "at table", either. Not here. Hospitals and tables are not states of being in America. They are things.  Here, we are "in A hospital" and we sit " at A table." If I ever hear Robert Siegel say he's goes to the 6th floor on a lift, I am gonna drive right to DC and kick his pretentious  ass. Also, NPR hosts, like their heroes on the BBC, ask questions the same way, prefacing it with " I wonder..." as in " I wonder, have you always been this pretentious and idiotic?" 

Another thing. Dead jazz musicians. Do you know how many jazz music stations there left in this country? 6. To cover the whole country. 6.

Ok, that's not true, I don't really know how many jazz stations there are in America, but if Columbus is any indicator, 6 can't be too far off. So...why does NPR feel the need to cover the death of every sideman who ever played a gig with someone who formed his own group after being a sideman for Charlie Parker? Or even live dead jazz musicians--the other day Terry Gross did an interview with a Dutch jazz drummer. DUTCH??? Not even American?

Why not cover the death of Shakespearean actors? There's a lot of them, in theatres all around the country. Surely some of them have died. But you never hear about that. Only dead jazz musicians. Why? Because it is assumed (wrongly) that an inside knowledge of jazz makes you seem cool. How else could these bespectacled, balding, sparse-bearded, early middle-aged liberals feel cool, unless talking about Coltrane's "incendiary and seminal" riffs on his Live at the Blue Spot bootlegged recordings? Reflected cool isn't very cool, guys.

Anyway, other than that, I say down with the rich and powerful, "bite me" to the privileged, and " I pity you" to the poor and average who have been conned by the fat cat Republicans to be their pawns on the front lines. Someday, you will all be re-educated...