No one who knows me doubts my love for Garrison Keillor. He is literate, articulate, humorous, wry, heartfelt, and he likes Messiaen. Four years ago I came across his book Homegrown Democrat. I bought it in hardback. I bought it on audiobook, just to hear his melodious voice speaking those tender words to my ears on the twelve-hour drives from Bloomington to Hattiesburg. I stood against a large metal pole for several hours just to watch the live show at Tanglewood and then stood in line getting my ankles eaten by mosquitoes so I could shake his enormous hand and tell him how much I enjoy his work. Long live radio - it keeps those of us who travel from getting too lonely on the road.
Sometimes it makes people skittish to talk about politics. In large groups of educated women, I frequently find myself shaking my head in tandem with them at the unfortunate turn this election has taken, embodied in the well-coiffed red-heeled persona of the Republican vice-Presidential candidate. We foam and froth about her lack of eloquence, her evasive answers, and her inability to produce the name of a single periodical that she reads. We, liberal women all around the table, scoff that she does not read the New Yorker. This makes the less liberal among us believe that we hate her because she is not Hilary. I can't put my finger on why, but Hilary never appealed to me. Qualified, educated, tough-as-nails no doubt, but her message never spoke to me. So my aversion to the woman in the Tina Fey glasses is not because my heart beats its last drops for Clinton.
I remember reading Keillor's book nearly four years ago and remembering his words - the Republican party is the party of fear. Not much has changed since then. Some people are so intoxicated by fear that they actually believe same-sex marriage will somehow endanger the sanctity of marriage. Many MANY of my friends are living testaments to the contrary. They are good spouses, good parents, pillars of their church communities, public servants, and walking embodiments of the golden rule. Some people believe that they can return this nation, this generation, to an earlier, purer, more naive time by closing their eyes and turning their hearts away from the future, from their neighbors, from their problems.
I'm not a die-hard Obama enthusiast either. I was extremely disheartened to watch him tiptoe across the aisle and tag the 'marriage only between a man and a woman' base. I was reading an article in my New Yorker (there I go again - does anyone have a band-aid for my bleeding heart?) about Jim Webb and his attempt to bring Obama to rural Virginia, to make him more relevant, more appealing to otherwise skeptical voters. There's this unbelievable segment about David (Mudcat) Saunders - a "good ole boy" of the highest order, and a zealous Democrat. When Webb was running against George Allen, Saunders came out to support Webb and spoke on the issue of a gay marriage ban that was on the docket. This is what he had to say:
"In my first interview, I said, This has nothing to do with queers getting married, this has to do with politics, " Saunders recalled. "This has to do with drivin' up George Allen's numbers. It has to do with dividing God's children. The one thing people better understand is God loves every queer every bit as much as he loves any Republican. It's about individual rights."
(The New Yorker, October 6, 2008, article by Peter J. Boyer entitled "The Apppalachian Problem")
It's about individual rights. It is my right to think what I want to think and believe what I want to believe and, whether I agree with you or not, and it is your right to think what you want to think and believe what you want to believe. I believe the Red Sox are among God's chosen people and that the Yankees can build all the new stadiums they want, it won't make them a worthwhile team. And you can cheer for the Devil Rays to kick the shit out of the Sox and we can all sit in Fenway Park together and manage not to kill each other because we are civilized human beings and we are entitled to the same rights. But this isn't about baseball. It's about welfare and security and ensuring the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
So I urge you, my friends and readers, to read Garrison Keillor's piece in the Chicago Tribune.
You want plain-spoken, he's got it. You want opinion without a lot of the academic-speak fanfare, he's got it.
More than that, I urge you to make sure that you are registered to vote and that you get your ass out there on election day or you fill out that absentee ballot. Because it is your individual right to have your say. So go have it.
1 comment:
I'll likely sit this one out. As the saying goes: if voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.
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