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Cynical
The comments which follow are about sociopolitical issues. Those who have a limited tolerance for such things should go read something smooth, cheery, and pleasant. Elsewhere.
I believe I have said this before: I am either way too cynical or not cynical enough. I can't tell which.
For example, when I read this year's Project Censored list, about stories which were underreported in the news, I was like, "But ... but ... none of this is news."
I mean, duh: Drug companies are greedy; corporations are greedy and do nasty things besides; the U.S. sells arms to anyone who trots out the cash with no discrimination; and wars are fought these days to protect someone's private economic interests, not for any higher moral goals (although an appropriate villain can always be trumped up). Is any of this any surprise to you?
What? It is? Well, that's what I mean - I'm either too cynical or not cynical enough.
I was so glad to see an article in Mother Jones agreeing with me on all particulars. (Thanks, Beth! Brightened my day.) This is what I would have said if I were more lucid:
Perhaps the greatest indicator that Project Censored has passed its prime is how high on the "no shit" scale most of this year's honorees will rank with even marginally informed readers. For example, the sixth most "censored" story: "NATO Defends Private Economic Interests in The Balkans." Or how about number five: "Turkey Destroys Kurdish Villages with US Weapons." No kidding ... Clinton acknowledged that in 1995, as Project Censored's Web site itself notes. Or my personal favorite, number two: "Pharmaceutical Companies Put Profits Before Need." Thank God someone told us.
These days I don't just get irate at the subjects that don't inspire public outrage. I get irate about the subjects that do.
Consider Elian Gonzalez. Beth has obviously been spending time inside my head - on the subway this morning, brooding over the newspaper, I planned what I was going to write, and it was nearly word-for-word the same as hers:
I'm as sick of the Elian Gonzalez story as the rest of you are, but if you want to know my opinion, it's slightly harsher than this brief, barbed summary in Salon.
Here's what I think: if any other family disobeyed a court order to turn over a child after a court had determined that he ought to be with his father, the federal government would not be "negotiating" for a transfer. The sheriff would just go get the poor kid and give him to his dad. Politics make me sick.
Dean Wallace told me months ago that the Cuban expatriate community in Miami had the U.S. government wrapped around its collective finger. Dean, the publisher of Editorial Humor, has some wacky theories and I shrugged this one off. Now it seems like he's right. What is the government so scared of?
Mind you, I understand how difficult it is to send the kid back to Cuba. A newspaper columnist pointed out a while back that the big factor in Elian's loyalties isn't his dad, or his Miami relatives, both of which he scarcely knows. Elian's loyalties are to Playstations and Nintendos. Stuff. You know, capitalist goodies. Cubans don't see much of that.
I could go into a long spiel about whether wealth really is a zero-sum game and how much immigration can the U.S. hold and whether there is a more equitable system for all, but that's a mighty big topic and it'll wait for another day. Suffice to say that this is a microcosm of our national issues over immigration, and it's a lot harder for everyone to be analytical when only a single human is involved. Large groups are just numbers on a page. A single child is a child.
Meanwhile on the same front page of the newspaper I see an article about a class which is teaching college students good civil disobedience tactics, with an eye toward upcoming demonstrations against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Arrgh!
I don't have a problem with learning how to protest properly - it keeps people from getting hurt and is in general a good thing for all - it's purely the choice of target that bothers me. The WTO is not the enemy. The World Bank is not the enemy. The IMF is not the enemy. Don't any of you people read Jim Hightower's books? The bulk of the damage being done to us is by large corporations, who by and large have been writing their own laws and buying their own governments, so that they'll be legally entitled to rape us and the ground we stand on. The enemy is people like George W. Bush, who has taken Texas to a new low in pollution because his only devotion is to the corporate interests that fund him. Go read Shrub. Read how there is not a single unpolluted major river in Texas. Read how the air quality in Texas is the worst in the nation. Read how even Los Angeles has cleaned up its act, while in Houston there are days you can't even see, let alone breathe. Read how Bush's primary campaign plank when running for governor was "tort reform," a code word for making it harder for consumers to obtain recompensation for damages from large companies.
Pant. Pant. Pant.
The problem is, no one will seriously protest any large industry in this country because that'll actually affect your lives - it may affect your jobs, it may affect the price of goods you depend upon. It's like that gasoline thing. I'm prepared to spend three dollars a gallon to conserve our limited supply of fossil fuels. And I only drive to get groceries anyway. How about you?
But, hey, we don't have a problem protesting Nike. Good to know that some Americans are willing to do without their running shoes! What a sense of hope I get from that!
Too cynical, or not cynical enough. Too cynical because I distrust every moneyed interest on the planet. Not cynical enough because I actually believe that other people spend any time at all worrying about this stuff, in the most self-involved nation in the world.
© Columbine
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