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posted by BCM at 10:04 AM

The Lileks Olive Garden Screed

Originally published February 27th, 2002.
NOTES FROM THE OLIVE GARDEN

I thought this would be quick - another Guardian column taking some snide swipes at the rude Colonials. But it’s more than that. It’s a Big Sweeping On-Location piece, an attempt to parse the yawp of deep dark America and find the source of Washington’s new chilliness towards its European allies. It subscribes to the laziest sort of parachute journalism: find a Symbol of America, talk to a guy eating supper, and discern the Pulse of the Culture. It’s like the greenhorn Yank reporter who visits an English pub, interviews one toothless old punter bent over his Newcastle Ale, and extrapolates the desires of a nation. (“England may be physically toothless, but when it comes to Irish Nationalism, it still has molars, incisors and the spine to back them up. ‘Kill ‘em all,’ said Liam McSodden, an unemployed shipbuilder who was sacked while still in the womb, but regards himself as part of his city’s proud shipbuilding tradition. ‘We all ‘ate the Irish,’ he added, a nod perhaps to Swift’s modest proposal. His sentiments are echoed by many whose quotes I’ll now take from this stack of papers I got at the tobacconists.”)


Here’s the full horror.
Here’s the Screedly annotated version:

The Olive Garden Italian restaurant looks a little more promising than the dozens of other eating places along the strip mall just off Interstate 20 in Birmingham, Alabama. The discreet hint of Tuscan decor and the passable wine list disguise the fact that there are 476 other Olive Gardens across North America, all with precisely the same menu.

That’s right. It’s called “standardization,” and it makes it logistically possible to run chains that span three thousand miles and simultaneously depend on local suppliers and national ad campaigns. It has its emotional cost, as the European keenly notes. Diners in Maine often put down their Olive Garden menus, stare into the middle distance, haunted by the suspicion that the exact same alignment of foodstuffs is also offered in San Diego. They shake it off and get back to ordering, but the feeling that their veal’s seasoning has been predetermined in a far-off corporate office gives the meal a false and hollow taste.

On the other hand, screw it; you get as many breadsticks as you want. The hot soft kind, too. I mean, if you ask for ten, you get ten. What a country.

This means, presumably, that everyone ordering scaloppine marsala anywhere in this vast continent will receive the same perfectly decent cut of veal served in a subtle mixture of malt vinegar and sump oil. The diner on the next table turns out to be friendlier -

Than who? The host who cold-cocked you when you walked in and demanded a fookin’ Newcastle?

and indeed more cosmopolitan, than the food.

So the veal is decent, but unfriendly. Downright European, then.

His name is Steve Mitchell and he's in the satellite TV business. "You're from England?" he says. "My mother's father came from over there. Well, Denmark, actually. My grandmother's from the Finland side. And my half-sister lives in France." "Have you been over to see her?" I ask. "Hell, no," he replies. "I don't like flying." "What do you think of Europeans?" "Well," he says, "they were good to us after September 11." He pauses. "You know, it's a long way away."

The incoherence of this exchange makes me wonder who’s been hitting the passable wine. If it’s meant to castigate poor Steve for geographical errancy, well, it’s clear what he meant by “there”: Europe. As for Steve’s remark “They were good to us after September 11,” that’s a kind way of saying “and they’ve been miserable shits since Oct. 27.”

And from the Olive Garden it does seem very distant. Indeed, the whole messy and diverse concept of Europe seems very distant.
Around Birmingham, there is nothing but miles and miles of Alabama.

Apparently around Birmingham England, there is nothing but miles and miles of Belgium, Thailand and the Antarctic Ice Shelf.

Beyond that, there is only Georgia, Tennessee or Mississippi, where the speed limit, the price of petrol or the sales tax might vary by a percentage point or two but in essence everything would be entirely familiar to an Alabamian, even down to the (huge) size of the portions in the local Olive Garden.

An Alabamian walks into a Nashville Olive Garden, shaking. The waiter hastens over, alarmed at this white-faced fellow. What’s the matter, friend? Ah’ve been to your gas station, the man stammers. The gas is ten cents higher - ten cents! And there’s no sales tax on bakery goods! ‘S like a whole different world - y’all bring me the lasagna so’s ah can git mah bearings.

"Where do most people round here come from?" I ask Steve. "Round here, I guess." And he's right. Mass European immigration to the US ceased almost two generations ago. In Birmingham, there is as little to remind the white population of its European roots as the black population has to remind it of Africa: European Hair and Nails, the Parisian department store and La Paree Steaks and Seafood, where each table has a miniature stars and stripes nestling between the ketchup and the mustard. That's about it.

Imagine that: immigrants have adopted the civic culture of their new home, and don’t cling to the very tribal distinctions Grandpa left behind in disgust. Traitors.

Of course, Birmingham has an elite who travel all over Europe. But only one-sixth of all Americans possess a passport,

That’s because our nation is HUGE, pal; of course Belgians all have passports;their country is the size of an average American rumpus room. They've burned out every available domestic vacation option by the time the kids are six - whereas this joint is so big our senior citizens retire, buy moving houses, and devote themselves to visiting each of the fifty states. Plus, we don’t need passports to go to Mexico, which one could spend another lifetime exploring. Europe’s wonderful, but sometimes when you think “vacation” you’re not in the mood for rain and indifference, no matter how much aristocratically-commissioned beauty you have.


. . . and in Alabama the proportion is much lower. One suspects the European geography of many people here goes no further than the playground rhyme:

"I see London, I see France

I see ------- in her underpants."

Let’s recap: our correspondent is sitting in an Olive Garden chain restaurant - a successful chain devoted to celebrating the cuisine of another country, a chain whose menu is full of references to old Italia. He has deduced that the food is generous, filling, and does not vary from outlet to outlet. From his window seat, he concludes that Alabama stretches in all directions, and when it bleeds into another state, there is no significant rupture in the taxation structure or rules of the road. The one chap he has engaged has been able to name three European countries, and has a job piping satellite TV (According to the home page for the Birmingham Dish TV affiliate, the first upgrade package includes the BBC channel). His conclusion: “one suspects” that they know nothing more of Europe than a children’s ditty. One suspects that poor Steve will be the only local cited in this story - especially since the night clerk at the Holiday Inn turned out to be an International Relations major at the local college, is writing his thesis on Chamberlain and Disraeli, and engaged the correspondent at length the other night until the correspondent wanted to shout I don’t know, okay? Just because I’m English doesn’t mean I know what Gladstone would have done in a postcolonial diplomatic construct! Christ!

That morning, the Birmingham News has one paragraph from Europe.

Today, as I write, the UK Birmingham newspaper website has zero (0) paragraphs from anywhere else on its front page, but does have headlines like “New heart for Katie” and “Rover tries to curry favor.” Then there are seven sport-story links.

Indeed, major disasters aside, foreign news generally consists solely of the US's interactions with other countries. And Birmingham is a chunky-sized city, far more worldly than the other towns along Interstate 20, such as Leeds, Lincoln and Oxford. In all of them, a European visitor can expect a warm welcome, because Alabama is like that. But the locals might be just as charming to a visitor from outer space, who would be only a fraction more exotic.

The difference being that a visitor from outer space might unleash onna them death-rays, so we’ll keep our hand right here on our holster until we check you for scales and antennae. If ‘n you don’t mind.

Is this just how it is in the hinterland, far removed from the more sophisticated dinner tables of Washington DC? Not necessarily, when Washington is run by George Bush of Texas, Dick Cheney of Wyoming, Donald Rumsfeld of Illinois, not to mention Condoleezza Rice, from Alabama herself, and Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy, who is sometimes suspected of coming from outer space. You may not feel comfortable with the fact that the future of the planet should be decided by the representatives of voters who know so little about it. A good many senior European politicians share that concern.

Of course they do; that’s their job. Concern-sharing. They’re chauffeured around to meetings in palaces, where concerns are shared, and sometimes merely aired. Then again, maybe Pres. Bush learned a little about China from his pop, and maybe Rumsfeld learned a little about the world when he was evac'd out of Beirut in the bad old days - but of course Rummy probably asked his driver to take him to the Olive Garden before the helicopter arrived.


At times over the past few weeks, Washington has seemed almost like an enemy capital, certainly less comfortable for a European than Birmingham, where people do not follow the nuances of international diplomacy.

Waaaait a minute, pal - that’s it? That’s the extent of your Birmingham-based insight? You ground all the gears on that transition, and don’t think we didn’t hear the teeth ping all over the place. Again, to recap; from a suburban restaurant, a British reporter deduces that America is not particularly interested in Europe - quel horror! - but this willful stupidity has an upside, because the people who DO pay attention - the sophisticates in Washington, culled from the strange and varied-named, yet culturally uniform states - are acting like the enemy.

And why might that be? Hmmm? Could it be a flood of pissy hissing from professional concern-sharers, like the official who call Israel “a shitty little country”, or the diplomats who tore themselves asunder like Rumplestiltskin because America didn’t stop bombing during Ramadan?

Last month, the president coined the phrase "axis of evil" for his unholy trinity of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The Birmingham papers may not have fully reported the reaction of Europe's foreign ministers.

They also did not report what the weather was like on Mars, or whether Winona’s legal troubles are impacting her complexion.

Hubert Vedrine of France said it was "simplism"; Joschka Fischer of Germany said alliance partners would not be reduced to obedient satellites; Britain's own Jack Straw said the speech had more to do with the mid-term elections than international politics; Chris Patten, the European external affairs commissioner, called it "absolutist" as well as simplistic.

Waiter? Another passable bottle, I’m really on a roll. I’m sitting here in this comfy chair, looking at this fabulous bird at the bar with just a great set of knockers, really, just American knockers y’know, and my old pal Steve’s gone - god, I loved him, what a great guy - anyway, I’m here with my laptop channeling the brave words of EU concern-swappers, and none of these laughing bumpkins have no idea what I’m doing. Jack Straw has your number! You got that, you wobbly sacks stuffed full of Murdocky fat, television sugar and Hollywood shite? Jack! Straw! Has! Your! Number!

Whadda mean, you’re going to get the manager? I wuzn’t loud. ‘S just talking to m’self.

And bring me a fooking Newcastle!

(Many long paragraphs of non-Olive Garden Euroweenie quotes snipped.)

Washington politicians are especially conscious that their armies had to come across the Atlantic twice in the 20th century to settle Europe's quarrels.

Yes, that’s what we call the wars over here: The Quarrels. Lost me dad in the Quarrels. Grandpappy was gassed in the Quarrels. I know a woman who gave up three sons to the Quarrels. My great-great grandfather fought in the Debate Between the States, and family history says we had a distant relative who fought in the Revolutionary Argument.

If more than 100 million had died, perhaps he’d have called it “Europe’s dust-ups.”

Europeans are inclined to think that the Americans, having been late for the last two world wars, are determined to be early for the next one.

Damned witty, Wilde. Damned witty! Deuce it all! Look: we were “late” for the last world wars like a policeman is usually late for a murder. One could easily say that Europeans are determined to be late for the next world war because they’re still feeling guilty about the last time some nutcases wanted to slaughter all the Jews. Except, of course, they’re not guilty at all. That was all Hitler’s fault. He had that big shiny hypnotism coin from the novelty catalog, and everyone just fell in his power.

In Alabama, Europe might seem like a distant fairyland.

You said it. Steve Mitchell didn’t, because he wouldn’t have been able to keep from snickering, and he’s a nice guy. He’ll call it that when he’s talking to the boys back in the installer shop, though. Guar-an-teed.

Europeans in Washington, even the Brits, are inclined to see the notion of European unity more positively than they might at home; exile, however benign, breeds a sense of solidarity. And perhaps no single group of people outside Brussels has been as enthusiastic about the idea of European unity as the traditional liberal-minded Washington elite clustered round the state department and restaurants a great deal fancier than the Olive Garden.

Closure looms; the circle is nearly complete; the travel expense account surely justified by now.

(Three more great blocky chunks of obviousness snipped)

I talked to some (students) the other day and asked them to play word association.

They responded very readily to Britain and the British: "Tea... proper... trousers... Monty Python... Jane Eyre... Austin Powers... soccer hooligans... Prince William... dry and witty... educated... not huggy..." They were just as quick shouting out about France and the French: "Wine... good food... smokers... nationalism... cultural snobs... closed society... proud... hairy". But they seemed almost Alabama-vague when asked about Europe and Europeans as a whole: "Culture... old... small... snobby... castles". Someone added, "They enjoy life more," then the answers petered out.

They might be likewise unable to come up for phrases about the solar system. “Cold . . . punctuated by the occasional rocky sphere . . . asteroid belt . . . comets.”


(Two more paragraphs, each of which feels as though you are being struck weakly by a wet baguette, snipped)


It is, however, easier to claim that Europe does not matter than to claim that Britain or France or Germany don't matter. America may not care about Europe. But the parts of Europe are still greater than the whole. When it comes to it, would they really launch a full-blooded assault without Powell holding hands with Hubert, Joschka and Jack?

Thus the importance of Europe revealed: When it comes time for war, we will send someone to hold their hands and explain that the thunder they hear on the CNN Baghdad feed is just the angels bowling.

Militarily, the US can now take on whomever it chooses. But the psychology is different. One influential senator (not from Alabama) was musing the other day: "Sure, we can invade Iraq without at least British support. But people still think of Winston Churchill. I think it would be politically difficult and perhaps impossible." It might, in short, go down badly at all 477 branches of the Olive Garden.

One of these branches is in my home town of Fargo, North Dakota. It’s packed every time we go there, and we go there because my family likes it, because the salad comes in bowls the size of Jayne Mansfield’s bra cups, and the portions will satisfy you for the rest of the night. There’s one dish I like - an angel-hair pasta with olive oil, diced tomato and seasoned chicken. Nothing special - I can make it at home, but whenever I find myself at an Olive Garden I know there’s one dish I’ll enjoy. Most of these restaurants have bar, outfitted in Italian - i.e., European - motifs. There’s often a TV. Should war with Iraq come, the TV will be turned to the news.

As much as it may pain the souls at the Guardian, not a single North Dakotan watching the war begin would wonder what Europe, let alone England, thinks. And if Tony Blair appeared to condemn the war, he would be booed, if anyone was paying attention to what he said. Oh, it would go down badly, all right.

Here’s the deal: we don’t need your support. But understand that if Iraqis had flown planes into Big Ben, we’d take out Saddam, because we understand that an attack on you is an attack on us. The West is not defined by Belgian edicts on acceptable levels of tomato sauce viscosity. The West is a set of ideas that need defending. Forgive us our passable wines; forgive our standardized veal. Forgive us our simple-mindedness, for we - from Alabama on outward to outer, distant Alabama and beyond - have a gut feeling that “quarrels” usually boil down to two sides. Forgive us our simple-mindedness, for we - from Alabama on outward to outer, distant Alabama and beyond - have a gut feeling that “quarrels” usually boil down to two sides. Forgive us for believing that fascism's side ought to lose.


And if we seem arrogant when it comes to beating fascism, forgive us once more, for we have something you don’t.


Practice.


posted by BCM at 9:45 AM

Centered
Orignally posted on The Blogs Of War, Friday Feb 22nd, 2002

My friend Tristin is the publicist at Lookout Records and the smartest person
I know. One of her dearest and oldest friends was on American Airlines
Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center on
September 11th. In the intensely grief-stricken aftermath, the indecent
posturing of many spokesmen for the Left in America led her to embark on a
serious self-examination and re-evaluation of her politics. She wrote a
powerful and heartfelt letter about it, which she sent to all her friends and
associates, and which got forwarded all over the place.

A punk rock magazine, Punk Planet, asked to her to expand it into an article
that they planned to run in their upcoming War on Terror issue. As it
happens, the editors of Punk Planet killed the article, saying it was no longer
"timely." That is their right, of course; but I'm skeptical about their
explanation. Most likely they chickened out, worried that this "alternative"
view would not sit well with their usual crowd and its generally Michael
Moore-ish view of the world. (Yes, folks: we're through the looking glass in
punk rock world, as in Berkeley-- support for the war is heresy out here.)
The cover of the issue in question depicts a bomber and the word "why?"
Tristin's essay is as solid and eloquent an answer as any of these people
would be likely to come across and it's a shame that most of them won't.

It's long for a blog post, but I'm putting it up here because I think the punk
kids who read this blog at least ought to have a chance to see it; and it's
well worth reading even if you're not a punk kid.


Moving Towards The Center
Our Losses in the Wake of 9/11
by Tristin Laughter

It's hard to write an article about the events of 9/11 and the aftermath of
those events. It's hard because the current political landscape seems to
shift daily, with new speeches and interviews and military actions. It's also
hard because one of my oldest and dearest friends was murdered on 9/11,
and my own grief, though it comes in waves, is overwhelming. My friend
Karleton Fyfe was killed when his airplane, American Airlines Flight 11, was
hijacked and crashed into the north tower of the world trade center. He has
been my friend since I was 17 years old. His widow is my lifelong best friend,
Haven. They have a son, Jackson, who is 18 months old. This article is the
story of my own gradual shift in political consciousness, which has been
crystallized by the events of 9/11, as well as being about my personal loss.
The humanity of each victim of 9/11 is an enormous story, too detailed,
meaningful, and rich to even begin to be covered in a 2000 word article. To
celebrate each life that was lost welds our politics to morality and to our
humanity. I think any contemplation of the meaning of the events of 9/11
must begin with the recognition of the life lost, its preciousness, meaning,
and beauty.

The morning of Sept.. 11th, I woke up when my cell phone rang. I didn't get
to it in time. The caller ID said it was Christopher, who owns the company I
work for. Oh, I will see him 45 minutes I thought lazily as I made coffee and
turned on CNN, like I always do. CNN featured LAX airport which had been
shut down. "Hmm, some kind of incident or crash," I thought. I couldn't
figure out what the story was. I was running late so I turned off the tv,
threw on my clothes and got in my car to drive to Lookout! Records, where I
work. On the radio I heard the news that planes had been hijacked and
crashed into the world trade towers and the pentagon. I was driving on San
Pablo between San Marin and Gilman when I remembered that I had spoken
to my friend Karleton the previous day, and that he had been planning to
travel from Boston, where he lives, to California. "I'd better call them," I
thought, "just to make sure he's ok." When I spoke to Karleton the day
before, we had finalized my plans to come to Boston for Thanksgiving. It was
our tradition to spend it together. He made the bird, Haven made the pies
(yes, *multiple* pies for 3 people), I did the stuffing. I had said to Karleton,
"I was thinking about maybe staying a week...would that be too long? Be
honest." He had replied wryly "I don't know what you mean." It made me
laugh. We had all gone to the beach together in July, and we had a running
joke the whole time, Karleton and I, that he just couldn't understand what I
meant whenever I tried to pay for anything or apologize for anything or ask
if they wanted me to stay out of anything. "I don't know what you mean,"
he would say in the deadpannest of ways. Sheepishly I dialed the number
they have had the entire 8 years they have been in Boston, knowing I was
being a worrywart and bothering them needlessly. Haven's mother,
Suzanne, answered. "Hi Suzanne," I said, "It's Tris." "Hi, " she said back. "I
was just calling to make sure that everything is all right. I know that
Karleton was supposed to have travelled today." There was a pause.
"Everything is not all right, Tris." Suzanne said "Karleton was on that plane.
He is gone."

In college, I declared myself a socialist. I read Trotsky and Chomsky and
endured endless crates of half spoiled cauliflower being delivered to my
house for Food Not Bombs. I even attended a conference in Detroit for
young socialists, where we learned about identity politics and union
organizing. I was committed. The only problem was that I was studying
Chinese history and coming into daily contradiction between the romantic
idealism of Marxism and earnest study of the atrocities its realization in
China wrought upon the people. The total destruction of their personal
freedom was noble, I attempted to reason, because it was in the name of
ideals higher than the individual, namely, equality between the classes and
sexes, the highest goal there is. The phrases "freedom" and "democracy"
had become meaningless Republican-appropriated catchphrases to me,
devoid of impact or content. Although I could never have articulated it then,
my entire political philosophy could be summarized in two horribly false
truisms: Individualism is wrong, and Morality is relative. When Haven and
Karleton came to visit me at college, we had never been more different. I
always think of friendship as these two strands of something, like reeds,
that are growing, parallel, but are flexible. As each person grows and
changes the reeds can bend away from each other, towards each other.
Sometimes when you are lucky, you can stay relatively close to the same
person in the long run, no matter how you both change. Even at our farthest
point of distance, I still loved them. They were going to UNC, and planning
for careers in business and psychology with their college studies. At the
time, I judged them as apolitical materialists. I didn't find out until Karleton's
funeral that while I was working at a rape crisis center in Portland, Karleton
was organizing all his friends to join the UNC safe walk program, to make
sure women were safe on campus. He never told me that once, even though
I am sure he knew it would have impressed me. Karleton's morality and
commitment to right went much deeper than any political posture or identity.
I wouldn't have understood then anyway.

When Suzanne told me that Karleton was gone, I started crying right away,
screaming, sobbing, shaking, all while driving. I immediately called my friend
Frank, but it took me a long time to able to even tell him what happened. He
told me to pull over so I did, and I just held the phone and cried. He asked if
I was closer to work or home, and when I said work he said to go there and
to concentrate on driving, not talking or crying, so I would be safe, and that
I should call him back from work. I said ok, but then I couldn't stop crying.
When I got to Lookout!, everyone was very loving and supportive, in their
own shock and sadness. I made a few phone calls before going home,
where 4 of my closest friends met me and stayed there continuously until I
went to sleep. We sat around my little apartment, eating grapes and
drinking tea. A contingent was sent to Albertson's to get junk food. I pulled
out old photos, Karleton at our high school graduation. Beach vacations we
had taken at 20, 25, 30. Me looking ridiculous as maid of honor at their
wedding after all my hair fell out from bleaching. The first time I met their son
when he was only 2 weeks old. I finally reached Haven. "Tris, " she said, in
the same quiet voice she has used when she was sad since were 14 years
old, "I was gonna call you today anyway. I'm pregnant again." she said, as
we both cried and cried on the phone, 3000 miles apart.

The first crack in my connection to the kind of Leftism that most punks
embrace came in the form of Nafta, right after I graduated from college.
Nafta raised important issues about environment, capitalism, the role of the
wealthy nations in regard to the development of the poorest ones, the
legacies of colonialism and imperialism, the power of multinationals. I
understood what I was "supposed" to think: US multinationals, like the US
Government vis a vis the CIA, were only capable of bringing cultural
destruction and economic enslavement to the people wherever they went,
that they would chop down the rain forests and pay the people a penny and
overthrow the government if it dared oppose US interests. The examples
were plentiful, Guatemala, many others. I was *almost* on board, except for
one thing, the part about employment opportunities being dismissible
because they would necessarily be exploitive rather than fair. From what I
understood about poverty in the third world, especially in the countries to
our immediate south, the opportunities of employment that free trade could
offer would be the difference between starving and eating, between medical
care and no medical care, between children living and children dying. A job is
a life, and I could not advocate depriving the poorest places in our
hemisphere of employment
opportunities. It just wasn't in keeping with my other politics. Especially
when I considered that the climate of American intellectualism is so different
now than it was in the CIA's heyday of atrocities. The left has done a lot of
good in bringing its critique to bear, so much so that now it is more difficult
for the US to engage in foreign engagement of any type, overt or covert. We
have become, in the post-Vietnam years, a profoundly isolationist nation,
whose vision of our own role in the world is to avoid or minimize conflict, and
especially avoid American lives lost, (anyone remember the pre-9/11 Powell
Doctrine?). American intellectuals, Leftists in particular, see themselves first
and foremost as critics of the state. In the post 9/11 era, this, obviously, is a
problem.

Karleton loved being a father. He was really good at taking care of people,
very loyal, very supportive, and someone who had the power to inexplicably
make you feel more capable and confident due to his unshakable belief in
you. Karleton was the kind of person who is so good at being good that he
is almost invisible. He was funny and warm and extremely smart. I realized
how profoundly I had taken him for granted for the last 13 years of my life. I
watched the footage of the planes over and over. I tried not to think about
what it was like for him on the plane. Mostly I tried not to think about his 2
children, born and unborn, who would never know how much he loved being
their father. It is still the saddest and hardest part. At my house, for the
next few days, all my friends figured out what I needed and did it. Molly
called the airlines to confirm his name for me, because I couldn't bring myself
to ask Haven which of the flights he had been on. Haven called and asked
me to start making arrangements to come to Boston. American Airlines had
assigned a "care team" to help fly the entire family to Boston to be together
and so I flew as her sister. I finally got to Boston on Friday, after flying all
over the country as airports closed and opened, eventually driving there
from Albany in a Cadillac that American Airlines rented me. American's rep at
the Albany airport had handed me $20 from her own pocket in case I
needed snacks on the drive, with tears in her eyes. As I drove across
Massachusetts, America was holding a moment of national silence at 7 p.m.,
and I could see rows of candles flickering by the Pike. I still hated
Massachusetts.

After my internal conflict about Nafta, I watched my punk acquaintances
develop the anti-Nafta strain into a whole new core raison d'etre with the
No WTO protests and the candidacy of Nader. I could not support either. I
could not oppose trade because I believe that the poverty of the third world
requires immediate relief which only employment can afford. I also believe
that the vague idea of "fighting globalism" is meaningless. Corporations are
already global and have been for decades. It is not a matter that "the
people" have any control over, or ever could. It is a rallying cry of futility. And
if offers no alternative to the impoverished, unemployed people of the
developing world who, frankly, need that 5 cents an hour much more than
the white elite protesters could ever know. Monitoring environmental and
employment issues is the correct approach. In Nader I found no discernible
real politick. His views appeared to be an amalgamation of various laudable
causes like environmentalism & women's rights, but with a central
philosophy of "fighting globalism" which he appeared to have no real plan to
do. Nader certainly did not have the background in economics to blithely
write new policies, preventing trade and doubling the minimum wage
without causing disastrous results. I went to his green party website and
saw that he was advocating a $14 per hour minimum wage. With
unemployment at its lowest, I could not believe he could advocate a move
that would likely create depression-era levels of unemployment and small
business bankruptcy. And if Nader was an unqualified economist, he was
totally unacceptably inexperienced in the realm of foreign policy. He
proposed shutting down most of our military. While many progressive people
say that they would want this to happen, it is only the luxury of knowing it
never will that allows them to feel this way. His candidacy was not based on
anything real or substantive, and I watched in awe as so many of my friends
embraced it feverishly. To support a set of ideas that you like but would not
actually want enacted is the worst kind of political posturing. It is amoral.
When you vote, you must consider the good of all people, not be charmed
by radical chic. Nader's claims that there was no difference between the
candidates and the punks and hippies buying it have cost this country and
especially our environment a great deal.

I got to Boston in a daze, and I stayed in a daze for the several weeks I
was there. I couldn't eat or sleep, and I would go on these walks for hours
in the night, walk to Fenway, walk to downtown, walk through Brighton. I
got blisters under blisters under blisters and I could not stop wanting to see
Karleton. Spending the days in his house, looking at his UNC baseball cap on
the knob of his closet door, holding his baby who has his same smile, I spent
my evenings reading the newspapers and watching the news at a
neighbor's and my nights wandering around. I felt totally helpless and
useless. Coming all this way to help my best friend, I couldn't help her at all.
She was enveloped in her own darkness and sadness and I couldn't reach
through to her. Jackson wandered the house calling out for his daddy. We all
needed each other yet could not quite reach each other. The darkness of
the grief around us was so profound that it completely isolated us all.
Haven, her mother, father, their partners, Karleton's parents and sister and
brother in law, me, we were each completely alone in our grief, sitting
together around the table, in the kitchen, on the couch. After the funeral, I
went home to California, convinced that my presence was no longer helping.
Since then, I have called and written very frequently, and plan to return to
Boston over the holidays. If you are wondering how they are doing, I can
only say, they are surviving, even though, at times, they do not want to be.

Immediately after Sept. 11 I started reading outrageous statements from
prominent leftists that shocked and saddened me. The Left does not speak
for me on this issue. I find Michael Moore, Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky,
Katha Politt, Susan Sontag et al's attempts to blame the U.S. for this mass
murder ideologically weak and morally absurd. I have never felt more clearly
my alienation from political movements in this country than I do now. To
analyze the causation of the terrorists' actions is to accept their violence as
a legitimate political expression. I do not. I feel the Left grasping at the idea
of anti-Americanism which is its only core now that Marxism has been
discredited by history. But this Anti-Americanism is not an appropriate
reaction to the murder of 5000 Americans on Sept. 11. It is clear to me that
the cornerstone of the American Intellectual's entire identity is dependent on
his position of "critic of the state." In a situation of moral absolutism, of mass
murder, as my friend Frank says, terrorism, not "terrorism", it is
heartbreaking and deeply disillusioning to see Leftist political leaders
attempt to justify and explain that which the human heart is not meant to be
able to comprehend. Searching U.S foreign policy for the reason that 19 men
hijacked jumbo jets and crashed them into public buildings is madness. Moral
relativism in the face of mass murder is sickening. And I guess, even more to
the point, bin Laden's Leftist apologists, like the Nation, and all the Leftists I
have already namechecked, Moore, Chomsky et al , who would like to lay
blame for his actions ultimately on US support of Israel & sanctions against
Iraq, have the wrong analysis. Bin Laden is ambivalent about the
Palestinians, and about Hussein. In fact he offered to send his men to Saudi
Arabia to defend them against Iraq when Hussein invaded Kuwait. His real
agenda relates to politics of the U.S's regional presence, first within his
home country of Saudi Arabia. He wants the Muslim world free of
non-Muslims. He is just an ethnic cleanser. So much for tolerance, diversity
and the Rainbow Coalition.

My friend's murder has snapped me out of my dogmatic view that the U.S is
evil, and all our political opponents must be good, must be right, must stand
for justice and the deserving third world people, and tolerance and diversity.
It has brought my years of thought into a crystallized place. The people who
killed Karleton are not my people. I can't and won't listen to their concerns
and beliefs. I won't condemn the U.S as responsible for their actions. I won't
pretend that if the U.S. fights the supporters of this terrorist act, it's only for
control of resources, or an articulation of American racism. Now I know, in a
visceral, human way, that the United States has enemies in the global
arena, enemies capable of a brutality and a barbarism which marks their
depravity. If being an American Leftist today means being defending that,
then, I can't be a Leftist. Fortunately, outside of youth culture, outside of
punk rock world and aging baby boomers, there is a stabler and smarter Left
which recognizes and contains the complexity of a truer vision of the U.S. I
hope the appalling rhetoric of the Left's culture heroes in the wake of Sept.
11 gives other politicized young people pause, even if they did not lose a
friend.

I support the war in Afghanistan because I believe the Al Qua'eda network
is an enemy that must be eliminated. I stand almost alone in my community
and in my family in this belief. I do not write this to attempt to persuade any
readers to share my beliefs, but to illuminate that a life a of political
engagement and thought can engender change, and clarity. A dynamic life of
the mind is not one of static political thought. I know more at 30 than I did
at 20. The most important thing I know, perhaps, is that I miss my friend,
and that the world without him is nothing like the world with him was, and
could have been.
posted by BCM at 9:06 AM