It's the Little Things

Another weird week or two on the political front. John McCain is apparently fit as a fiddle and physically up to the challenge of a run for the White House. McCain has also cleaned his campaign house, repudiating endorsements from a couple of whack-job evangelical types; he’s still surrounded by a posse of ethically challenged advisors, fine gentlemen who lobbied for the dictators of Myanmar, among others. McCain insists that he’s clean as a hounds tooth despite being surrounded by slime balls.

Hillary Clinton refuses to believe that her campaign is toast. It’s inconceivable to Hillary that voters actually prefer Barack Obama over her. Hillary gamely soldiers on, putting a resolute face on her non-existent chances, playing up her recent primary victories, and insisting, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, that she is the Democrat who can win in November.

Bill Clinton recently made a bizarre statement out on the campaign trial, asserting that the real divide in America is not class or race, but the arrogance of people like Barack Obama. Statements like that from the Clinton camp underscore their desperation. Bill might find it helpful to conduct a quick unscientific poll of average, working-class Americans to see if they are really worried about smart people or about the high cost of gasoline, food, medical care, education, housing, cable TV, and the insane Occupation we refuse to abandon in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the airwaves are full of right-wing nutcases who thunder about the dangers of illegal immigration and how poor Mexicans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans are swarming the border and undermining the American Way of Life, stealing babies from suburban homes, spreading diseases, taking jobs from Americans, and overwhelming hospital emergency rooms. It’s nothing more than shameful fear-mongering, but you can bet it will sway a fair number of voters in November. Because he has nothing to run on except Fear, McCain will pander to this extreme notion and promise to lynch any brown-skinned person with the temerity to cross the border without proper papers.

According to the nut-job Right, Muslims want to do us in from without and Mexicans want to do us in from within. Our task is not to understand these people – our task is to stomp them beneath our iron heel. Crazy times breed crazy notions. Truth, reason and verifiable facts take a beating in a climate of fear. Nobody on the far Right ever asks why Mexicans are compelled to leave their homes and risk everything they have, including their lives, to come north and do the low-wage, dangerous shitwork that Americans are unwilling to do. You can’t expect Bill O’Reilly or Lou Dobbs to examine the nexus between NAFTA and illegal immigration. No, no, these fellows have more important things to do than exercise their intellect. It’s so much easier to spout wild generalizations about savage illegal immigrants.

On the bright side, the Reign of Bush is winding down and the man hasn’t started a war with Iran yet.

It’s the little things we need to be thankful for.