Betrayal and Making Hope

Thursday: “Have fun reading your articles and getting all steamed up,” was Marin’s comment as I went on about what I’d learned in twenty minutes of reading emails, while dressing Matteo for their exit out the front door to work and day care.

I was suffering from the realization that the so called “stimulus package” which congress and the president were having a lovefest over, was another instance of Naomi Wolf’s “disaster capitalism.” (Newer article from LA Times here). This is where any disaster, whether it’s Katrina or Iraq or 9/11 becomes an opportunity to give away billions to corporations which themselves are funding agents of the GOP and the Dems both.

On the “stimulus,” the Dems caved on bolstering food stamps and on extending unemployment benefits, the only two aspects of the bill which might have helped poor people, and also might have helped the economy, because the $600 bucks they’re going to give to me in tax rebates, and the tax breaks they’re going to give to businesses won’t show up in our spending patterns any time soon, if ever. At best, it’s hush money for the middle class, “disaster capitalist giveaway” for the rich, and something for Bush to go on about next week in the State of the Union. A hundred fifty billion so he has a talking point?

There was this: Bush was blocked from using this bill to make his tax cuts for the rich permanent. But if you look at the Dems today and contemplate next year, even in the best case scenario, they won’t take stands – they won’t get us out of Iraq, they won’t change the tax cuts for the rich, their health care proposals go nowhere. A couple articles are saying there will be no change in the bad things that have happened to our America no matter who makes it into the white house a year from this week.

Some folks believe the recession will be short. They aren’t the readers of “peak oil” prophets, such as John Howard Kunstler, who see this as the moment that we’ll look back on, years from now, when things suddenly turned grim, economically, politically, environmentally, socially, and personally.

And, under the nose of congress, the president this week signed an agreement with Iraq (not a treaty, which would have to be ratified by the Senate) to keep troops in Iraq for decades to come. Didn’t notice? This is the level of craziness going on. Do we have to honor Bush’s arrangement once he’s gone? People interviewed on NPR said, essentially, yes.

Meanwhile, I discovered myself on Wednesday taking two books on tape, one the original Pooh by A.A. Milne, back to the library without having listened to them. This used to be my refuge, listening to books, often kid books, while driving around town.

Along with my flagging literary interests, I took it to be a second ominous sign -- the dashed hopes of one of the most interesting black characters, De, in the final episode of “The Wire.” Somehow we found time to watch the first season in the past two weeks (the 5th and final season began a month ago). This HBO series is highly praised for vividly portraying the downward spiral of an American city through the lives of its people, poor, rich, workers, politicians, all.

The violence and sex on “The Wire” are minimal and not gratuitous, and Marin, who initially resisted the "cop" format, got drawn in. I loved it because I lived in ghetto Philly for 15 years, dealing on a weekly basis with the wonderful dialects, well-depicted poor people, and the stupidious city bureaucracy.

In the final episode of year one, one of the drug-running characters, De, who learns, from the cops when he's picked up with a kilo of heroin, of the brutal murder of an innocent kid ordered by his bosses. In a moment, he passionately realizes he wants to start his life over. The justice apparatus tries to respond to this, through a federal witness protection program, which stalls.

Meanwhile, his mother comes to visit him in jail, and plays the “family” card – his uncle (her brother) is running the huge drug operation, and her middle-class lifestyle depends on her son refusing to testify, and eating the time.

You see him looking down a corridor, past his mother, a defeated man, sucking up 20 years for possession. “If you don’t have family,” she had intoned, “what do you have?”

As it is written: “And Judas, with a kiss, turned him over to the authorities, for thirty pieces of silver.”

The final word, from John Howard Kunstler: “How are you are supposed to remain hopeful in the face of these enormous tasks. Here’s the plain truth, folks: Hope is not a consumer product. You have to generate your own hope. You do that by demonstrating to yourself that you are brave enough to face reality and competent enough to deal with the circumstances that it presents. How we will manage to uphold a decent society in the face of extraordinary change will depend on our creativity, our generosity, and our kindness, and I am confident that we can find these resources within our own hearts, and collectively in our communities.“

Sterling Courage / Christmas Day 7

Sterling, my Papa, was born this last day of the year, in 1918. He’d be eighty-nine today. He died of complications related to Alzheimers in 2000. You could say, complications related to motorcycling. He and my mom banged their heads big time in 1991, running their BMW into another biker at a rural stop sign my dad missed. I am thinking about him, I guess, because my Mom just died in October (see blog entry, November 9), same ailment, same complications.

And the end of the year is here, an assessment of things.

I’m in the pool at Mary Siah. Matteo is clinging to my shoulders, and I’m trying to dislodge my disappointment. Last two times in the pool, he let me pull him by the two hands on his styro-noodle. Those times I’ve gotten him to let go of my neck by coaxing him to jump from the side of the pool.

This time he won’t let go. For thirty minutes, I sing Christmas carols bouncing in a dizzying circle, with Matteo clinging to me. One by one the other families come in, one-year-olds letting their moms pull them around and laughing. Two-year-olds paddling around (like Teo did last winter, totally ignoring me) either with a noodle under their arms, or not.

In the back of my head I hear Scott Noelle reminding me to celebrate what Matteo comes up with, instead of clutching what I was hoping for. I hear other parents telling me I’ll miss it when Matteo finally dumps me, I’ll miss him cheek-to-cheek with me in the pool singing songs, laughing, licking each others faces, blowing farts on his neck when he isn’t looking.

I tell him to be brave, come on, climb up on the side, jump in the water. He won’t. "Float with papa." No!

I’m thinking, okay, why am I so disappointed. I guess because I’m so proud of him when he takes risks, and so,,, anxious? when he seems to doubt his abilities. He was doing this so easily and with confident gusto last year, totally without a noodle, swimming all the way across the pool. I worry, I guess. Does this regression mean something?

"Be brave," I urge him. "Look the little girl is being brave, she’s jumping in, watch, one, two, three, there she goes." He did this last Friday. Not today, apparently.

What did my father do that helped me be brave? Was my father brave? Am I brave? Are there any pools I’m standing on the side of, courageously jumping into? There’s the second child we’re preparing for, but that’s something nearly everyone manages. Sure, it takes gumption, but there’s a lot of support out there as well.

When I was talking to friends on the phone last night, thinking out loud whether it’s worth the investment of time to keep up on current events and current thinking about the state of our country and our outlook for the future, both of them responded instantly, "It’s all about local." It reminded me of how much a role one can play as an individual in these small Alaskan communities, and their hometown of Sitka is probably less than a tenth of the size of Fairbanks. And both of them are very engaged in Sitka’s future.

I do care deeply about our nation, and how things have skidded off track. But I’m doing little more than talking about what’s wrong and what could change. I’m not changing anything.

Bob Herbert, columnist for the New York Times, had a piece today, "the American Dream, Betrayed." It turns out that people used to expect to do as well as or better than their parents, economically, but for the young, it’s not an expectation anymore. I sense this happening, not just in terms of jobs and housing, but also in terms of the land, the sea, the air. Plus, there’s a lot more questionable chemistry going into Matteo as a 3-year-old than ever went into me at the same age.

And then there’s the big question about what will come after Peak Oil. Marin and I hosted some best friends for Christmas brunch a couple days ago, and while Marin and Teo napped, a subset of the party, Jen and Ian, Al and Michelle, and I continued talking about our take on things. In their mid thirties, both couples have built their own homes, and both couples are thinking of building again. Al and Michelle have some gorgeous land outside Healy, and Jen and Ian were thinking of buying closer in to Fairbanks.

Now both are re-thinking, because of Peak Oil, the soft economy, and the challenge of a future in a very cold (warming, actually) place, where food costs could easily soar out of reach of the middle class since every morsel has to be flown in from 3,000 miles away. There’s a certain pioneer courageousness to look directly at the radical changes which will likely result, and begin to plan.

We talked and talked. Soon, Marin, Teo and I had to leave for a dinner engagement, so we turned our house over to our friends, and it turned out that they continued the conversation about the challenging future and how their plans and hopes were eroding, and changing for another three hours.

What kind of courage Teo will need! He eventually kicked backed off from clinging to the side of the pool, and said, "lookit, Papa, I’m floating." Soon he let me pull him around by the hands, and he was grinning. "You’re swimming, Matteo! Wait till we tell Mama!"

What a challenge, raising kids. Thanks, Papa Sterling.