Looking for a Diagnosis

Behaviors that mystify and depress me:

A few days ago, the news carried a poignant story about an Ohio man named John Arthur. Arthur is in the terminal stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease, and is dying.  He and his partner of twenty-plus years recently flew to Maryland together, in a specially-equipped aircraft, in order to be legally married before Arthur died, something their home state of Ohio would not permit.  According to news reports, Arthur was unable to rise from his hospice bed.

When they returned to Ohio, they won a court decision that allowed Arthur to fulfill his dying wish. As Think Progress reported:

In his final days, Arthur wants to honor his commitment to his husband. He wants his own death certificate to list Obergefell as his “surviving spouse.” And he wants to die knowing that his partner of 20 years can someday be buried next to him in a family plot bound by a directive that only permits his lawfully wedded spouse to be interred alongside him. And, on Monday, a federal judge ruled that Arthur should indeed have the dignity of dying alongside a man that Ohio will recognize as his husband.

And now, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) wants to take that dignity away from Mr. Arthur. The day after a judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring Ohio to list Arthur’s husband as his “surviving spouse” on his death certificate, DeWine announced that he would appeal this decision and try to strip a dying man of his final wish.

The judge’s order is limited exclusively to Arthur and Obergefell. Indeed, as the judge explains, “there is absolutely no evidence that the State of Ohio or its citizens will be harmed by the issuance” of an order requiring Ohio to acknowledge the two men’s marriage. “No one beyond Plaintiffs themselves will be affected by such a limited order at all.”

Closer to home, a relative I dearly love has been in a same-sex relationship for 5 1/2  years. From all indications, the relationship was mutually-supportive and loving. The only issue that has troubled them has been the refusal of her partner’s parents to accept the fact that their daughter is gay. When it appeared that she would not “grow out” of “this phase,” they issued an ultimatum: renounce what you are and terminate this relationship, or we will no longer consider you our daughter.  She acquiesced.

My relative is heartbroken, and I ache for her, but I know she will eventually find someone less conflicted. My deeper sympathies are for the girl torn between her family and her identity–the girl without the inner strength to be who she is in the face of her family’s twisted and selfish “love.”

I don’t understand people like these. I don’t know what it is that makes them so vicious and judgmental, so willing to hurt other human beings who are just trying to live their lives. I don’t understand politicians who define success by how well they can marginalize and demonize other people.   I especially don’t understand parents who would reject an accomplished and dutiful child simply because she loves differently–parents who would consign a child to a life of pretense and loneliness rather than reconsider beliefs that are already headed for the dustbin of history.

There must be a psychiatric diagnosis that explains these poor excuses for human beings, but I don’t know what it is.

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Reminding Us of the Obvious

President Obama made an important speech yesterday, focusing on economic policy.

Much of the coverage has focused upon his insistence that a robust economy grows “from the middle out” and not from crumbs “trickling down” from the 1%–that when the middle class lacks disposable income, otherwise known as the wherewithal to buy things, the economy stalls.

That should be obvious.

It was another “should be obvious even to an idiot” part of the speech, however, that most resonated with me.

We’ve got ports that aren’t ready for the new supertankers that will begin passing through the new Panama Canal in two years’ time. We’ve got more than 100,000 bridges that are old enough to qualify for Medicare. Businesses depend on our transportation systems, our power grids, our communications networks – and rebuilding them creates good-paying jobs that can’t be outsourced. And yet, as a share of our economy, we invest less in our infrastructure than we did two decades ago. That’s inefficient at a time when it’s as cheap as it’s been since the 1950s. It’s inexcusable at a time when so many of the workers who do this for a living sit idle. The longer we put this off, the more expensive it will be, and the less competitive we will be. The businesses of tomorrow won’t locate near old roads and outdated ports; they’ll relocate to places with high-speed internet; high-tech schools; systems that move air and auto traffic faster, not to mention get parents home to their kids faster. We can watch that happen in other countries, or we can choose to make it happen right here, in America.

Given the choice of representatives they have sent to Washington, I can only conclude that a significant number of voters are less concerned about crossing those aging bridges or driving on those crumbling roads than they are about what I do with my uterus. Despite the jingoism and “We’re number one” protestations, they really don’t care that wireless access,  citizens’ health and children’s education in other countries  far exceed ours.

Those of us who do care about such things–those of us who were raised to believe that part of our obligation as human beings is to leave a better world for our children and grandchildren–look helplessly at a Congress controlled by childish buffoons who seem to have only one goal: say no to anything this President wants.

We can debate forever whether this behavior is rooted in excessive partisanship, fear of change or the color of the President’s skin, but those who insist that they just have “policy differences” with the administration cannot cite “policies” that justify allowing America to disintegrate. I can attribute opposition to healthcare reform to policy differences (but not 39 useless votes to repeal it–votes taken in lieu of doing the nation’s business.) I can  understand different approaches to education reform. But what “policy” argument is there for allowing our roads and bridges to crumble? What “policy” prevents us from putting people to work repairing and updating our aging electrical grid?

Recessions cause all kinds of pain, but they also offer us an opportunity to fix things “on the cheap.” We will lose that opportunity because–thanks to gerrymandering and political gamesmanship– we have sent a group of bratty children  to Congress instead of thoughtful representatives who are willing to work for the good of this country’s future.

A genuine opposition party picks its battles. It doesn’t throw a tantrum and scream “no” no matter what is put before it. It doesn’t block administration nominees or initiatives simply because it can, without regard for their merits.

We are at a crossroads. We can emerge from this toxic time a better, more mature America, or–as seems increasingly likely–we can go the way of other empires. Down.

Wherever we go, we evidently won’t be able to take our roads and bridges to get there.

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And Now a Word from Our Sponsor…

As you can see, my website/blog has been updated. (I would say I’d updated it, but that would be inaccurate–my tech whiz son, who does this for a living, did the work.)

This may be a good time to explain my approach to this whole blogging thing.

You may have noticed that I rarely weigh in to the sometimes lively conversations taking place in the comments section. There are several reasons for that: unless the discussion turns on a totally erroneous read–a clue that I’ve not been as clear as I’d hoped–my preference is to allow commenters to “talk amongst yourselves.” Plus, I have a day job that doesn’t leave me a lot of time to engage in lengthy discussions.

I am grateful to commenters who point out factual errors, or provide missing context to a discussion. And I try to resist the temptation to block the folks who are unpleasant when they disagree with me. (I do wonder about people who consistently visit and comment on a blog written by someone with which they vehemently disagree–do they think angry ripostes will change my political perspective? But hey–whatever floats your boat!)

The one rule, which I fortunately have had to invoke very few times, is no name-calling. Arguments and disagreements are fine, even when somewhat less than polite, but when people post invective, especially invective aimed at other commenters, I will block those posts.

I have really enjoyed the back-and-forth, the illuminating information, and the thoughtfulness that most of my commenters display. I’m delighted when my often snarky observations can spark a real conversation. I hope you all like the new format–and I especially hope you will all continue to visit.

Now, back to our program…..

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Stop the World I Want to Get Off…Political Edition

If at first you don’t secede…..

Apparently, according to a report from CBS, folks in Northern Colorado are so unhappy with the elitist pinko liberals in Denver, that they are seriously .talking about seceding. They propose to create a 51st state, and are inviting like-minded folk in Nebraska and maybe Kansas to join them.

Readers of this blog know that I frequently pontificate about the dangers of an “us-versus-them” worldview, but it’s increasingly obvious that Americans come in (at least) two very different flavors: oh-my-god terrified and reality-based. The OMG terrified folks wake up each morning to a world that is increasingly multicultural, increasingly technological, increasingly complex, and they want off. This wasn’t what they bargained for, they don’t want to understand it, they don’t like it, and they definitely don’t like the people who seem to accept, deal with and even welcome the scary changes.

They want out.

These are the people most disoriented by the presence of a black guy in the White House….not necessarily because they’re racists (although many are), but because Obama is a symbol of a “new world order,” a symbol of the immensity and rapidity of the hated change. These are the people who were most vicious about Nancy Pelosi when she was Speaker–a woman running the House? Unnatural! These are the people who find “illegals” from south of the border immensely more threatening than those from Canada because they’re brown and speak a different language.

While the rest of us are just trying to cope with a changing world–trying to figure out how to live together on a planet getting smaller every day (and not incidentally, trying to figure out how to save that planet for our children and grandchildren), they are frantically looking for a way back to a simpler past and a world they can understand.

It’s not going to happen. And that makes them crazy.

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Political Kudzu

Recently, as we drove through North and South Carolina on our way to the beach, we were struck by the relative absence of the Kudzu we usually see climbing over telephone poles and fences, and generally taking over large swathes of the landscape. My husband wondered if agricultural researchers have finally found something to control it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the saga of kudzu, it was originally brought to the US south from Asia–thought to be a low-maintenance plant that could be used along highways–an attractive plant requiring less mowing and less expense. To say that things didn’t quite work out that way would be a considerable understatement; as Wikipedia notes, kudzu

 is a serious invasive plant in the United States. It has been spreading in the southern U.S. at the rate of 150,000 acres (61,000 ha) annually, “easily outpacing the use of herbicide spraying and mowing, as well increasing the costs of these controls by $6 million annually.”[1] Its introduction has produced devastating environmental consequences.[2] This has earned it the nickname, “The vine that ate the South.“

Kudzu is the poster child for unintended consequences.

Kudzu makes me think of gerrymandering. No kidding.

The Republican Party, as everyone sentient knows, owes its majority in the House of Representatives to aggressive gerrymandering.(And yes, before commenters weigh in, I know that Democrats would engage in gerrymandering too, if they were in control of those statehouses.) But here’s the dilemma–by creating deep red districts safe from even the remotest Democratic threat, the GOP has created a party image that places recapture of the Presidency pretty much out of reach.

The problem is that these “safe” districts tend to elect the most extreme partisans–the crazies that embarrass the national party and turn off reasonable voters. If polls are to be believed, their antics have come to characterize the party in the popular imagination. For Democrats, they are the gift that keeps on giving–supplying fodder for campaign ads,  endless discussions by the television punditry and blog posts. Their presence–and lack of vulnerability–undercuts the efforts of the few adults left in the party to move the GOP at least slightly back toward the middle. As we have seen repeatedly (Farm Bill, immigration), Boehner cannot control them. Why should they listen to party leadership? They’re invulnerable.

These Representatives from the reddest of red districts can thwart responsible legislative efforts. They can bring Congress to a halt. Like Kudzu, they are incredibly destructive. But–also like kudzu–that destruction is indiscriminate. To the consternation of the grown-ups, they have become the Republican brand.

I don’t know whether agronomists have finally found a herbicide that controls kudzu. But unless the GOP figures out how to extricate itself from the unintended consequences of its own gerrymandering, even expanded voter suppression efforts won’t win it back the Presidency.

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