Blog For Arizona

Charles Bowden: Tucson's Poet of Democracy

Charles has a guest opinion published on Sunday in the Star, which absolutely blew my hair back. I'll beg Charles' indulgence for reprinting it here in it's entirety. It is too good to be lost into the maw of the Star's paid archive.

I am the odd man out at a political rally. I love my country, love the bad coffee, weak beer and menacing use of the frying pan.
 
But I seem to flunk in simple partisan allegiances, being essentially a tree hugger with numerous guns and a thirst for wine and a lust for disreputable venues.
 
Recently a slick New York magazine, GQ, a rag basically devoted to helping men understand the deep meaning of brown shoes, asked me to prepare a reading list for the next president of the United States. As a patriot, I was happy to comply.
 
In the midst of this sacred task, I wrote a definition of my country I will now share with you: Think of a Bible wrapped with a garter belt, with a loaded gun as the bookmarker.
 
Normally, I consider both political parties, at best, criminal gangs. I vote religiously, but I refuse to believe.
 
And I tend to agree with Henry Adams, the grandson and great-grandson of presidents, who once said a congressman is a hog, and you take a stout stick and whack 'em on the snout.
 
But then Mark Twain said they were our only hereditary criminal class.
 
Also, once, when I was a real person, I taught American history in an honest-to-God university, and from that background I know that bad times and bad ideas and bad choices have often confronted the people of this nation.
 
We started out claiming some of our fellow countrymen were three-fifths of a person, we started out claiming the girls were too addled to vote, we endured human bondage for close to 80 years, we tolerated Jim Crow for another century, we slaughtered native Americans, we crushed early union efforts. We have spilled blood.
 
We have done great things and we have done mean things. And all this has made us who and what we are.
 
So what is so special about this election at this moment?
 
Fear.
 
We've lost our way. We no longer face facts. We prefer to fabricate them.
 
The Healthy Forest Initiative is not based on facts. The scorn of global warming is not based on facts. The war in Iraq is not based on facts. The Patriot Act is not based on facts. The Office of Homeland Security is not based on facts. And the sound bites of this election are not based on facts.
 
We now have a government with the mentality of a gated community. And this is repellent to me and lethal to all of us.
 
We can't solve any problems unless we ask honest questions.
 
This election matters because we must honestly face the consequences of global trade, illegal immigration, the sacking of our public lands, the destruction of our Bill of Rights and the growing international hatred of our flag and passport.
 
This election matters because terrorism will never take out us out; only we can destroy ourselves.
 
This election matters because bile and hatred are fatal to public discussion, and public discussion is essential to a decent society.
 
This election is not about John Kerry and John Edwards, who seemed to be decent folk with extraordinary hair when I tagged along with them in Iowa last summer and fall.
 
This election is about this administration and the greed and toxin it has pumped into the veins of this nation.
 
This election is about the new legal drug this administration pushes: fear.
 
In a real sense, this election is nonpartisan, it is not about being liberal or conservative. My God, what real liberal or conservative would ever sanction the Patriot Act?
 
What liberal or conservative would sanction false information about weapons of mass destruction?
 
What liberal or conservative thinks the torture chambers we created in Baghdad were right and proper?
 
What I am driving at was said a long time ago by someone I've always paid heed to: "At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the Ocean and crush us at a blow? Never!
 

"All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the Earth … in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
 
"At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us.
 
"It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

 
That is from Abraham Lincoln's address to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Ill., on Jan. 27, 1838.
 
Well, I agree with Mr. Lincoln, our first Republican president. And I'm not up for suicide. This election matters because this country matters, and it must return to path of law, decency, courage and compassion.
 
I don't have any simple answers to global trade murdering jobs here or to illegal immigration storming across my desert or to how to undo a century of fire suppression in my national forests or to how to stop men and women from sacrificing their lives to kill us. And I'm open to discussion on these points.
 
But I want facts, I want honesty, I want a fair debate. I want love of country, not hatred of my fellow countrymen.
 
No more fear.
 
Vote as if it matters.
 
This time it does.
 
As my late friend Edward Abbey once noted, a patriot must always be ready to defend his country from his government.
 
 
Charles Bowden
is a Tucson writer. His most recent book is "Down By the River: Drugs, Murder, Money and Family." This article is the text of a speech given to the Tucson Suffragettes on Sept. 12. His e-mail address is: CBowden455@aol.com.

posted by Michael Bryan @ 9/27/2004 04:34:00 PM