McCain suspends debate and small town values.

I live in a small town. We have 20,000 residents on a good day. Our chamber of commerce keeps chain retailers out of our downtown district; we only got fast food restaurants in the nineties. We have a small but thriving local economy, with several boutiques, antique shops, and a famous local bookstore that has prospered in spite of the emergence of huge national retailers. Everyone knows everyone, and we do our best to preserve our community and take care of each other.

This small town is Oxford, Mississippi.

Over the past several months, our community and the university at its center have gone through enormous effort and great expense to ensure that the upcoming presidential debate runs smoothly and that the campus and downtown area are conveniently accessible. Senior citizens have mobilized to volunteer as foot-traffic coordinators, to make sure that the media and campaigners can find their way around our historic downtown Square. Students, academic departments, and prominent citizens have organized town activities around the debate. Our police officers have been working tirelessly to implement security measures and curb DUI's, so that all of the visitors will be safe.

Our university has spent $5 million.

It was to be a historic moment for all of us, regardless of political affiliation--the first African-American presidential candidate on a major party ticket in the first presidential debate of the race. It was something we could all be proud of--to shed the burden of our past mistakes, while embracing the legacy that James Meredith began here forty-six years ago, in pursuit of equality and civil rights.

Some say that McCain is avoiding the debate as a political stunt; some say that he is abandoning politics to pursue an epic national goal. Right now, I think that question is irrelevant to most of us here, in small town, Oxford, U.S.A.

My question--what I think is our question--is how are you standing up for small towns today, Senator McCain? How are you standing up for ours?

Did the University of Mississippi administration learn of this from you, or did they hear about it on CNN?

Do you have any concern for how this will affect our local economy, after we laid out so much money for an event that likely won't happen?

Do you have any concern for the frantic, upset, and demoralized local citizens who have worked so hard over the past few months to facilitate this event, to set up tents, to clean up our campus, to volunteer as guides, to patrol our streets?

Will you talk to us? Will you address us? Will you ever mention us by name?

"Yes, we can!" and, the Culture War sucks.

I haven't posted in a few days because I am actually getting sick of the election coverage--or, to be more precise, the lack of coverage of anything real, and the abundance of coverage on Sarah Palin even though she has not given a single interview so far. So I am to believe that this candidate can stand toe-to-toe with Ahmadinejad and Putin, but cannot face Matthews or Blitzer? I call foul. Even more offensive is that any remark made about her regarding her record as a governor or mayor is "hitting below the belt," according to the McCain campaign; excuse me, it's not. As a feminist, I despise this rhetoric; she's a "barracuda," but she can't give interviews yet and no one can remark on her record as a politician? This is clearly an example of sexism in action. And instead of standing up for herself and saying, "Yes, I WILL give interviews; yes, my record IS up for debate," she is taking advantage of the fact that some people expect special priveleges for her because she's a woman. That is no feminist, my friends; that is taking advantage of one's sex and typical attitudes about it ("She's just too weak to deal with the media!" *massive eyeroll*).

And by the way, each candidate in this race has a family. Each candidate in this race, both at the top of the ticket and the bottom, has multiple children. It does not make you more special to have a family simply because you have an additional X chromosome.

My greatest agitation in this race so far, though, is the aggravation of the Culture War on the Republicans' side of the aisle. Yes, Obama said that Southerners were bitter, and that they clung to their guns and their religion; and yes, that was off-putting. But I could understand that he was making commentary on the Culture War rather than deliberately insulting Southerners. He did not phrase it as aptly as he could have; but it was a candid remark, and I can forgive that. He also apologized.

What were not candid remarks were those at the Republican National Convention. Guliani and Palin both insulted the people of the northeastern states and the residents of San Fransisco, and they have NOT issued apologies. This is so reprehensible to me that I actually lack the words to express it. Recently, as a Southerner, and as a (white) Mississippian, I have been accused of being ignorant; I have been accused of being a bigot; I have been accused of being racist. (Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth.) How is it any different to insult people from the Northeast or the West by virtue of their birthplace? How is it any different to insult people from large cities, as opposed to those from small towns? It isn't.

And while the Republican ticket is throwing diesel fuel on the fires of the Culture War, the Democratic ticket isn't. As Barack Obama says, "there are people who coach Little League in the blue states; and yes, we have gay friends in the red states!"

And as Barack Obama says: "We are not red states and blue states. We are the United States." Yes, we are. And yes, we can!

Palin, Earmarks, and the "Bridge to Nowhere."

The vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, touted as a "reformer" by the Republican party, does not deserve the reputation that John McCain has enjoyed as an opponent of congressional pork. That much most people already know (I hope). Being a "numbers" person, I decided to investigate exactly how much pork is associated with Palin. It's a lot.

According to this associated press article, Alaska is currently the largest recipient of earmarks per person at $295. The average amount per person for all states is $34 per person. That means that Alaska's pork per resident is over 8 times the national average of all states.

However, Alaska's amount of pork has been reduced under Palin's governance. Her pork requests are still higher than any other state's, though.

Far more provocative is the story of Palin's tenure as mayor. While mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a law firm to secure earmarks for the town at a cost of $24,000 to taxpayers, an amount that later increased to $36,000. This firm secured $27,000,000 in congressional pork for Wasilla, a town of about 7,000 residents. (This data was provided by the organization Taxpayers for Common Sense.)

This totals to more than $3,800 per person, or over 113 times the national average for all states per capita.

(Some of you might be wondering at this point: how much did Barack Obama secure in earmarks for the state of Illinois during his term as senator? It was $311,000,000, about $24 per resident. This is about 70% of the national average, or about 0.7 times the national average.)

Palin supported the "Bridge to Nowhere," a bridge costing almost $400 million, from the mainland of Alaska to a small island with an airport and fewer than 100 residents, during her gubernatorial race. Palin made campaign stops on the island and wore a t-shirt that said "Nowhere, Alaska," with the island's zip code. While governor, she buckled in the face of national public opinion, and referred to "the inaccurate portrayal of the projects here" as the reason for that opinion. She later spent the funding secured for the bridge on roads.

John McCain has been quoted as criticizing pet bridge projects in 2007, pointing to a collapsed bridge in MN that resulted in 13 deaths. He connected this to the Alaskan bridge project, stating "Maybe the 200,000 people who cross that bridge every day would have been safer than spending $233 million of your tax dollars on a bridge in Alaska to an island with 50 people on it."

One has to wonder why McCain selected Palin as his running mate. She certainly does not seem to share his values--that is, unless it is politically expedient to do so.

(Sources: "'Bridge to Nowhere' Abandoned," "Palin's Pork Requests Confound Reformer Image," both Associated Press.)

Toeing the party line.

Recently, an influx of people have stepped into my social circle. Some are friendly acquaintances of the past that developed into friendships this summer. One is my and my husband's roommate's boyfriend, which we inevitably spend a lot of time with since he's at our house a lot. Of these four people, one is completely conservative; two are conservative with socially liberal leanings, and one is liberal with libertarian leanings. Sound confusing? It's not, not around here. I don't know how other places have been affected by the politics of identity, and whether the extreme polarization of parties is mostly relegated to the blogsphere or not. I can only speak about the place that I live.

And in this place, the people I spend time with--who are mostly graduate students or college instructors of English and history, but a few students of geology, archeology, and business--have complex and diverse opinions that do not fit conveniently into one party's structure or another. That is, they used to be. This one guy, who as you might guess is my roommate's boyfriend, is completely conservative, 100%.

Perhaps my own social group is so diverse in thought because I actively seek out non-conformists, as their thinking is more interesting than the "us versus them," "good guys and bad guys," "traditionalist or secularist" rhetoric of the modern political forum. These are people who have actually examined their beliefs rather than adhering to a particular political identity based on what their parents thought or what aspects of culture they personally identify with. So maybe my own experience is actually the peculiar one.

Whichever is the case, people who espouse a party line all the time, in each and every circumstance, freak me out. They are little dogma-spouting automatons, and I haven't spent time around them in so long that I forgot how much they annoy me. I don't think that they are free-thinking people, and I despise the removal of thought from discourse, because at that point it is no longer "discourse"; it is professional wrestling with words.

I believe every person should have one bone of contention with their party, and if they don't have one, they should find one. It's easy, with a bit of self-examination and rational thought. Mine is the issue of gun control.

Gun control is the one issue that I take serious issue with in regards to the Democratic party. I say this not because I like guns--I don't. At all.* They make me nervous and I don't like being around them. It's not even a violence thing; it's a fear of accidental-death-by-shooting thing, and probably irrational. On the other hand, I love swords and maces (they pierce and bludgeon at the same time!), especially when they are wielded by skirt-wearing men in historical films.

Anyway, the reason I do not support gun control, in any way whatsoever, is that it is unconstitutional. Period. It is in our Bill of Rights. And while I acknowledge that guns present more of a potential threat in some regions than in mine, the 2nd amendment is there for a reason, which is the protection of our lives and liberty.** And because of the Equal Protection clause, state and local governments cannot infringe upon our constitutional rights any more than the federal government can. That's the argument for Roe v. Wade, and that's the argument against gun control for individual cities.

The 2nd amendment is not the one that is most important to me personally. If I had to rank all of the Bill of Rights on a scale of importance, it'd probably hover in the bottom four or so, well after the 1st, the 4th, and the 5th. But that doesn't matter. Whether you like guns or not is a cultural difference,*** but it has no place in policy. I believe we should separate culture from policy, and that the real reason most Democrats like the idea of gun control is that they dislike the culture that guns represent, just like the real reason that Republicans dislike the idea of rights for gays is that they dislike the culture that gays represent (and the same goes for abortion most of the time). I get it; I don't like it when people are obsessed with guns, either. It's disturbing. Some of my friends are, and I think they should probably seek therapy, just like my friends who are obsessed with swords.

But once you start restricting some of our constitutional rights, don't you put them all in jeopardy? We Democrats (as well as many wise Republicans) are furious at Bush for his suspension of habeas corpus and violation of the 4th amendment's search and siezure clause. How does annihilating the 2nd amendment make us any different from him?

*I do, however, love BB guns; three are currently in my "fun drawer." (No, not that kind of fun drawer! It's got Monopoly and Scrabble and stuff.) Also, I am hoping for a BB shotgun for my birthday. It'll make a MESS!

**And most pertinent in the constitutional guarantee of arms is the protection against a military, whether present by a coup d'etat or a foreign occupying force. This entry was actually inspired by a perusal of Camille Paglia's column archives, in which she responds to a reader who was arguing in favor of semi-automatic weapons so that his wife could defend herself against six hypothetical attackers hell bent on raping her. I wasn't sure if it was a valid concern or a perverse and elaborate sexual fantasy. Why six rapists? At once? Really? Has anyone ever heard of this happening? Rape with that large a number of involved parties includes Rohypnol, beer, and a pool table, doesn't it?

***Which is what Obama was referring to with the "guns and God" comment. He was saying that Southerners cling to their culture during bad times. And since we actually have slow economies period, that's pretty much all the time. I get it. I see it. Many people here see liberals as culturally hostile towards them by their nature, and vice versa. This culture war has got to stop, y'all. It is not intelligent in any way whatsoever.

What it means to be a "middle American."

In the past dozen or two years, certain Republican strategists--we can call them the predecessors of Karl Rove--have convinced America that a certain gross generalization is a true and actual fact. They have contrived a peculiar image of liberalism that “belongs” in exactly two places: San Fransisco and Boston. The idea is that these two cities are far out of touch with “mainstream” American values. My point is not to disparage these places, because stereotyping the entire population of even a small town is wrong and inevitably factually incorrect. My point is rather that the generalization of roughly a third of Americans is absurd.

The image that the Republican party invented for the liberal is twofold. First, there is the western version: the unwashed hippie who wears Birkenstocks, is homosexual and wants to teach your children to be homosexual as well, and hates Christianity. Second, there is the northeastern version: the elitist Ivy League-educated metro-sexual city dweller, who is an atheist and who also hates Christianity, and who wants to indoctrinate your children into the same beliefs.

Firstly, this stereotyping of entire regions of people--the Pacific Northwest, and the Northeast--is offensive and silly. People have created stereotypes of Southerners, too: that we are racist and bigoted; that we don’t wear shoes or have air conditioning or paved roads; that we have less than the requisite number of teeth; that we all have children by the time we are old enough to receive our driver’s licenses. I’m sure there are also stereotypes of Midwesterners, ones that include some of those same characteristics. Does it offend those of us in the South? Hell, yes, it does. And it is patently untrue, as anyone who lives here or has visited here knows.

Secondly, this caricature of liberals is as ludicrous as a similar one for conservatives would be. There are liberals in every part of this country and from all types of backgrounds; many attend church and PTA meetings. There are conservatives in every part of this country and from all types of backgrounds as well; many are atheists and single with no kids.

Thirdly, the “values of middle America” are not more or less significant than the “values of coastal America,” even if we could generalize all those values into one singular definition of a region (which we can’t). Why would they be? What right do any of us have to say that our regions are more important than others? Who gets to be “mainstream” and who doesn’t? And why would "mainstream values" be more important than "fringe values" anyway? Why shouldn't people with "fringe values" have the same freedom to practice those values as anyone else, provided that they don't harm others? Isn't that what our great nation is all about? Did abolitionists and advocates of women's suffrage not hold values that were "outside the mainstream" at one point? Should we have dismissed them for this reason?

Fourthly, the values that Americans share are far more numerous than the values that distinguish us from one another. These include values like accountability, the drive for success, and the love of freedom. These values inform our identities much more than how we personally feel about abortion.

Lastly, the reason for my blog in the first place. I live in Mississippi, and don‘t plan on living anywhere else. I am no transplant; my great-great-great-great-great grandfather also lived in Mississippi. I’m married, an Ole Miss graduate, a dog-lover, and a cook. I live in a town of about 25,000 people. I know all the words to “Dixie.” My personal goal is to have my own successful small business one day, either a furniture boutique or a small firm for providing services to other small businesses, such as tax advice and marketing. My family consists of cops, nurses, engineers, farmers, teachers, high school principals, football coaches, and accountants. I think I’m about as middle-American as they come.

And I’m casting my ballot for Barack Obama in November.