Political Dinners
I spent Thanksgiving as I usually do, with family, all of whom live nearby. This year it was at my parents house in Woodstock. I have never hosted a holiday dinner, since being single and with no “responsibilities” means there are no familial expectations demanded of me. I don’t wrap presents, or if I do, they are wrapped with newspapers and duct tape. Not having endorsed/validated the family idea yet, by creating my own, I’m simply not liable. Those game rules do not apply. But I still love to parasite off the holiday meal trough: vegetables of any sort to counter a not very nutritional bachelor’s diet. Plus they pity me like a hobo, or rather, an utterly, incomprehensibly free man.
This year we managed to talk about politics at the dinner table without anyone having an embarrassing explosion. It was strange. Of course, we’ve all changed over the years… I hardly ever read The Nation, and my father has either hidden or thrown away the signed photo of George and Laura Bush. Although while his disenchantment is real, I don’t think he’d ever vote for a Democrat. In fact, one thing everyone seemed to agree on was the ineptness of the Bush administration. Hardly news these days, it’s downright boring to catalog the many wrong turns of Dubya. It’s so bad no one cares…we’ve all gone hopelessly apathetic. But we also agreed that we didn’t like many of the candidates for the next go around, but then disagreed on our projections of the inevitable Clinton vs. Giuliani deathmatch. I brought up Ron Paul and thought it was interesting that while everyone claimed to “like him,” no one takes him seriously as a contestant for American Idol: President. I thought depressingly to myself that America is not ready to talk about fiat money or blowback, that despite our losses they have not been great enough as to have us question the actual status quo itself. We still prefer the popularity contest, the confetti, some “tough talk” on terror, millions of dollars wasted in ads and marketing, and some juicy wedge issues thrown in just to keep the culture wars exciting, and everyone distracted.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Great post. My family dinners are similar, down to the fact that my Grandfather keeps “signed” photos of the W and Laura around. He also has some of Ronnie, and he keeps them in photo frames, and they sit there with the rest of the family photos, scattered around the house. I guess it’s different, too, in that i have kids, but at least your family kind of leaves you alone. My father pokes and pokes at me, trying to figure out how i could be married, with two kids, and NOT BE A REPUBLICAN. Oh, yeah, and my parents think George W is doing a “bang up job.”
Anyway, I liked the post and completely agree that it is depressing that people aren’t willing to look at the world in anything other than red and blue.
December 6th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
“I’ll show you politics in America right here,” Bill Hicks told audiences, miming like a puppet master. “‘I believe the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.’ ‘Well, I believe the puppet on the left is more to my liking.’ Hey, wait a minute, there’s one guy holding up both puppets! ‘Go back to bed, America, your government is in control. Here’s Love Connection, watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer.’”