But poets caught up in violent political events are brethren. I believe it is essential for fellow poets to honor their struggle.

Take the Syrian Civil War that began three years ago when local protests turned into national demonstrations. Opposition, as we all know, has evolved into a violent rebellion against the government of President Bashar al-Assad and his Ba’ath Party that has ruled the nation tyrannically for four decades. To date, nearly 70,000 people have been killed.

What of the fate of Syria’s poets?

In June 2011, exiled Syrian poet Adonis wrote an open letter to President Assad calling for him to end the violence and abdicate. Many praised Adonis’ firm opposition to any religious takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood after the Assad regime falls. Adonis favors secular democracy. But some critics called his letter far too muted in opposing Assad, primarily because Adonis belongs to the same Alawite religious ruling minority as the besieged president.

Inside Syria, one of the Free Syrian Army commanders is led by poet Abu Azzam, a commander of the rebel Farouq Brigades. “I picked up my gun but did not put down my pen,” he says in an interview with the BBC. “During the battle there I wrote poems about the suffering of civilians in the area.” Earlier this year Azzam was seriously wounded. Rania Abouzeid’s account in Time magazine of the day Azzad was shot and wounded is a riveting piece of wartime journalism and a must read. It’s a day that begins with Azzam sharing tea with his mother and ends with him writhing on a gurney in a local hospital

“Abu Azzam grabbed a BKC machine gun and ran out the door to intercede on behalf of his men. According to Em Mohammad, he didn’t ask any of his men to come with him but two followed him anyway. He had just reached the roundabout and stepped out of his car when a member of the Jabhat reportedly tossed a hand grenade in his direction before others opened fire.”

PEN International has been conducting a campaign to raise awareness of killed and imprisoned Syrian writers, poets, and journalists. Through a postcard protest, PEN highlights the writings of three Syrians:

Poet Dia’a Al-Abdulla was arrested from his home in February 2012, who remains missing.

Poet Tal Al-Mallouhi, jailed since September 2009 and who has remained in prison throughout the war.

Poet Ibrahim Qashoush, who was kidnapped and killed in July 2011.

Not all the news regarding poetry and Syria favors the opposition. The Syrian actress known as Raghda was attacked two months ago at a conference in Cairo after she made a statement explicitly supporting the Assad government and reading a poem that criticized Islamists in the Middle East. According to one report, “the 55-year-old actress angered some attendees at the Arab Poetry Conference held in the Opera House after reciting some poetry to show her support of the embattled Assad.”

Good to remember, in the face of this difficulty, something Christopher Hitchens says in Love, Poverty, and War: “The messengers of discomfort and sacrifice will be stoned and pelted by those who wish to preserve at all costs their own contentment.” It’s an apt definition for poets, no? Messengers of discomfort and sacrifice.

Here is a poem by Dia’a Al-Abdulla (reprinted from PEN).

The Crypt

Violence is
the means of people:

The jailor kills me with a sword
I answer with a word,
and he sets my pages alight

Oh God
I burn the cigarettes of these days
in my cell
My heart is the fifth wall;
I set it alight

Eid is coming
And it will bring
Only bad tobacco to smoke,
so I leave it aside

You promised
my heart would be made only for love;
now I am so enraged
– save me,
cover my heart with tenderness
Make it strong,
Offer him a touch
… a laugh …

The world has passed beneath me
And this place is the most terrible of all
I have begun to embrace
the sun of exhaustion

So, this is my homeland;
I became its enemy
by speaking out

Speaking out brings pain –
but how can we not?

My homeland,
if it were not for you
I would not be so brave,

and so:
they will not break me

My homeland,
I touch your hands
from behind bars

This child is a prisoner now,
and my mother screams:
Will no one bring down this oppressor?
I am strong
I scream
My mother

Related Posts:

• Poetry Wire: Follow Your Strengths, Manage Your Weaknesses, and Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys
• David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Politics and Post-Modernism?
• David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Republican House Set to Banish Poets from America
• David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Going Back to 1968
• David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: “Daddy, what did YOU do in the great ‘Poetry Is Dead’ war?”

This past summer, she, her mother, and her aunt were passengers on the UndocuBus, a revolutionary campaign that was organized and comprised of undocumented people around the country. The five-week journey began in Phoenix, Arizona and made its final stop at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I recently talked to Kitzia about the fear and empowerment she embraced while on the UndocuBus, her work as a community organizer, and what Obama’s immigration policies mean to her.

***

The Rumpus: The story of how you and your family came to live in the U.S. is pretty powerful. Could you tell us about it?

Kitzia Esteva: So, my family actually came to the U.S. before I did. My mom, my two nephews, and my sister came to the U.S. seeking treatment for my older nephew, Chuy, who was diagnosed with leukemia in Mexico. We know now that it was the environmental degradation that was at fault. At the hospital, the doctors didn’t know what was wrong. Said it could have happened to anybody. We did some research much later when we learned about environmental racism through community organizing, and realized that it had to do with the factory we lived near by. Every once in a while there were toxic chemicals that were released into the air, and they said it was accidental. This factory actually belonged to a U.S. company—I don’t remember the name of it, but it was located in Cosoleacaque, Veracruz, where my nephew lived. And we now we know that it was the cause of his leukemia. It was a big deal, especially for my mom, who was doing social justice work in Mexico, and for her to know that it was the U.S. who was responsible for my nephew being poisoned.

My family came to the U.S., and I came two years later. We all had a really hard time finding treatment for Chuy here, and most of my sister’s time was spent in the hospital. It was a really hard battle for five years. Now that we know that his leukemia was really the responsibility of the U.S., it’s one of the reasons why we went on the UndocuBus. We wanted to really challenge this idea that “we’re criminals” or that “we’re crossing boarders because we’re adventurers, or just like to break the U.S. law,” when in reality we’re escaping a lot of bad things like disease and death. We have to escape terrible conditions that the U.S. has contributed to, if not caused.

Most of us are still undocumented in the country. For me, there are a lot of things to say about the idea of the American dream and what that means. When I first got here, we lived in Oakland in a really small apartment. I was used to a bigger home and more of a safe community in Mexico. I came to a community that was ridden by police brutality and poverty. Our apartment had such small living quarters. Four months after I arrived, my mom lost her job and we landed up at a shelter. So we didn’t have this ideal situation where immigrants come and they find fortune and get rich, and buy a house and get dogs. That’s really a fantasy for most people. For us it was definitely rougher than we had it in Mexico. Yet, the only reason why we had to go through this and move to the U.S. is that we wanted my nephew to get better, and we wouldn’t have been able to get that treatment in Mexico.

Rumpus: What was the experience of your nephew getting help? Do you reflect upon it as a positive one, or a struggle?

Esteva: Actually, my family hasn’t told me everything that they went through. I think they wanted to spare me a little of the difficulty and the pain. But I do know that it was hard to find an insurance that would cover for my nephew’s treatment. We had to get him chemotherapy and radiation, plus all the other medicine and drugs that he had to take because of the side effects. It was really expensive, and we had no money when we got here. We spent all the money we had in getting up here from Mexico. So, it was a bit of a rough time trying to find an insurance.  But, we did have luck that he did have doctors that were compassionate and really tried to help. Which speaks to the resources that the U.S. is able to accumulate, and provide something like that—whereas in Mexico, you’d have to have three houses to pay for such serious health care.

Rumpus: The No Papers, No Fear UndocuBus is a super, amazingly brave and revolutionary endeavor. You were a passenger for two weeks—what was that experience like, being there with your mom and aunt? And what were your goals for the mission?

Esteva: My mom was on the UndocuBus for three-and-a-half weeks, and my aunt was on there for five days. So, I didn’t overlap with my aunt, Manuela, but I did overlap with my mom for two of those weeks. I’m very grateful that I have a very political family that has a lot of fire for fighting back against injustice and against things that are at the core of our oppression in this country, as well as against things that might not be necessarily at the core, but are solidarity work.

Specifically, my mom has been a huge influence in my life, my worldview, my willingness to fight, and my commitment to the struggle. So, I have to start from there and give her props. She is really one of the people who introduced me to social justice from when I was little. Being on the bus with her was a reunion for us. Since I had been going to school at UC-Santa Barbara for the last four years, and then I moved to in L.A.—I hadn’t spent much time with my mom in close quarters in about five years. I had little breaks where I would go visit my family, but they were never together that long—a week tops, and we don’t see each other that frequently. The bus was a very hopeful space, and I definitely saw my mom heal in my different ways. She had been dealing with a recent diagnosis of diabetes and a bunch of other health issues. I saw a lot of improvement in her health just by her participation on the bus. When it brings hope—when it’s building something—it can also be healing for the builders of that hope and struggle. I can say that I learned from her and the adults on the bus that we’re fighting.

One of the intentions of the UndocuBus was to highlight the stories of those people who are not the “chosen ones.” President Obama made an announcement about Deferred Action and the youth—how great they are, how much they’re fighting for this country, how much they want the American Dream and how hard they’re fighting for it. Yet, he didn’t mention the reality, which is these youth have parents behind them every step of the way. That’s the case with my mom, anyway. He is kind of blaming the parents for their families being here, as opposed to really giving respect to the parents who fought hard to send their kids to college, provide for them, and make the really hard decision to bring them to this country. So, another one of the reasons why I wanted to join the UndocuBus is to highlight that story of my mom. I owe her a lot of my ability to survive. It was good to be there with her, and share our story together. I need to give my respects, gratitude, and, really, credit to my mom’s struggle in this country, and try to create change not just for her, but all of the adults that are being viewed as criminals and viewed as not worthy of getting documentation, or getting deferred action. That conversation needs to change to one about dignity, where we are raised to confront the atrocities this country has imposed upon immigrants.

I think that as I was on the ride with my mom this became more and more clear. I think that maybe the roughest moment was when we decided to do the civil disobedience. It was really nerve-wracking to know that my mom was going to get arrested. It felt very powerful to know that I was going to be there with her and that we’re going to do it together, and that we have a powerful story to tell and share with other people. Also, that we have a powerful campaign to really support the struggle and show other communities and other groups that we can rise together, and show how powerful we can be. It was challenging at times, because I had my own doubts about doing the civil disobedience and especially the risks it held for my mom.

Rumpus: What were those doubts or fears?

Esteva: The fear of being arrested and not just being deported but detained. People end up in detention centers for months and months, sometimes even years. It’s not just about putting yourself in the position to be incarcerated, but there are horror stories of people dying because they’re not getting medical treatment. So, there might not be a guarantee that my mom would get her diabetes treatment. There’s so many doubts beyond the fear: am I going to be removed from this country? We live with that every day. But what can happen to a person inside the detention center? It’s not just a question about deportation, but about criminalization and what it means for our community to be criminalized, which is to be imprisoned for trying to survive. Removal is a huge deal to undocumented folk, because it separates families and creates a lot of hardship. A lot of people are also placed in detention centers for a long time, which is also a hardship. These detention centers reflect a culture and a way of life in this country. We have two million people in prison and they look like us, too. They’re black and brown, so getting arrested embodies all of that criminalization and re-enslavement. I think I had a lot of questions and anxiety about what it would look like if we were arrested and detained for a while—for my mom’s safety and wellbeing.

Rumpus: And did your mom have similar doubts that reflected yours?

Esteva: I take leadership from my mom. I think she had a position where she was really hopeful. She knew if we did get detained, the community was going to fight back and get us out. That’s one of the things we were trying to accomplish there. If people see we’re organized and have the numbers on their side, then they definitely can fight back, win, and get out of a detention center and get out of harm’s way. Because when an arrest becomes public, the public eye can actually save people from I.C.E. and deportation. So, my mom was on the hopeful side. She knew that she wasn’t going to stay inside for a long time.

For me, after hearing all the horror stories, I was a little on the freaked-out side. I was worried: what’s going to happen if we’re inside for a while? Or: what’s going to happen if I was able to stay in the country because of Deferred Action and she doesn’t get to stay? We knew all of those risks, and we had a huge, super-brilliant group of lawyers that were fighting the legal battle. We had an amazing community throughout the country that was organizing itself to get us out. I didn’t share most of my anxieties with my mom, but she did share her hope and it was contagious. So, in that sense, my mom had a more in-depth understanding of what was going to happen, and understood the legal and organizing tactic would work together to get us out, as it did.

Rumpus: I’m sure that memory of being at the Democratic National Convention this September is still very vivid. Could you illuminate your experience of staging a civil disobedience at the DNC and being arrested?

Esteva: So, there were ten of us who were committed to being arrested on the second day of the Democratic National Convention. It was a very diverse group of people. It actually kind of happened organically how we decided to participate. We had youth, we had elders. I believe my mom was the oldest within the people of the group, and there were domestic workers, day laborers, I think five of us were queer, there were two families. It was a very diverse group and really represented the diversity of the immigrant community in many ways. We were not just representing the UndocuBus as a whole, but the groups of people who are being criminalized and attacked.

We went to the convention with the idea that the action was going to happen pretty quickly. If you know about conventions, they always have a ton of police force. They bring police from out of state—police officers from all over just to have “enough” police presence at the convention to repress the activism. I guess they’re always expecting that there’s going to be some sort of marches and people protesting, so they’re ready for it. When we arrived at the intersection, there were already police there. As soon as we put up our banner, down the police proceeded to block the street right behind us. I don’t know if I could count how many police officers there were on bicycles; my focus was on my comrades who were chanting with us, who were also there. I was centered on the struggle we were in together and not necessarily on the police. At some point, I forgot that they [the police] were there, because we were expecting to get arrested right away. It actually took a little over an hour of the demonstration before they proceeded to arrest us. One thing I thought was amazing is that there was a lot of media there. We had a really successful media team. We had a team of artists who were creating the beautiful art that we displayed throughout the campaign, and the media team was basically making sure that we were getting a national level of attention. I don’t know how many media outlets were there, but I could count with my eyes that there was about one hundred different media outlets that showed up to the action.

I remember feeling a nervousness walking to the demonstration, but once I got there I felt a little bit more relaxed. I felt [a] huge sense of liberation and empowerment with the people who were there with me, and specifically holding my mom’s hand. It was really the power we have as a family, and two women who are committed to the fight for the long term, and with all the other comrades who were being arrested. We were speaking out our stories. We were on point about what we were arguing about and why we were there. I think it was an important step to go to the DNC; to make that space outside ours when we are always excluded from it. We used that space to speak to the President and his administration in the middle of the election, and really talk about what he has done to our communities. You know, he has been the president who has deported the most people in the history of the U.S. We were bringing the demand to stop deportation and stop the criminalization of our communities. We were demanding that the Obama Administration stop the terror and attacks from the police and other racist forces. It felt like a really powerful, strong moment in history. I think I’m always going to look back with very different eyes every time I’m learning from it. And, I feel twenty times more powerful because I was holding my mom’s hand and I could feel the connection of generations of people struggling to end injustice.

Rumpus: I am in very much awe of what the UndocuBus did. The videos documenting the efforts of the UndocuBus are extremely powerful and inspiring. You were talking about Obama and how he has deported nearly 1.2 million immigrants, more than Bush or any other president. What do his DREAM Act and Deferred Action mean to you?

Esteva: There are a lot of people fighting for the DREAM Act. I have a lot of respect for people who are fighting for the struggle, and the youth that is staging civil disobediences and engaging in a more militant way. I definitely think that it’s an important act to have, but I think that a lot of people have a delusion as to what Deferred Action means. I think that on the one hand, people who are able to apply for it feel that they have a little more of a leeway. They think it’s really the right thing for our community, but it really doesn’t help a lot of our family members. It doesn’t help my mom, nor my sister. It’s really not enough. For myself, it gives me the opportunity to work legally in this country if I’m able to get it, and I’m still in the process of getting my paperwork together; I’m not even sure if I will get it. But I feel like it’s only a small step for so many of the small things that need to happen.

However, I need to remember that Deferred Action would not even be an option if people hadn’t been fighting for it and fighting for something even bigger. So, I think that in a broader scope, our demands have to be bigger and our struggle has to be bigger, too. I think that our power is the responsibility of the community and the people fighting—not the other way around. To say that the Obama Administration has done anything really great by enacting it, I think that the real credit goes to the people fighting. Yet, it’s not enough, it’s really not enough. We need comprehensive immigration reform; we need to stop the attacks on our communities; we need to stop criminalization and all the really racist attacks on our civil rights coming from a lot of places in the South but also a lot in California. And so that goes beyond Deferred Action or the opportunity that people might get through the DREAM Act if it passes. Perhaps a little more than a few thousand people will benefit from these opportunities. It’s a small minority, and the majority of us are not criminal in any way or form—we are just struggling to survive.

Rumpus: So you think the majority of immigrants can’t benefit from Deferred Action or the DREAM Act?

Esteva: I think that a good amount of youth will benefit from it, but the discourse of who’s deserving of staying in the country is not helpful. To say that I deserve to be here, and then turn around and say that my mom doesn’t deserve to be here, is a disservice to me and a disservice to my mom and our struggle as a people. Maybe some people feel like it’s some negotiation, or it’s something where you have to take the good with the bad. However, I think that this country has already attacked Mexico and the rest of the Third World so much, and the repercussions are the reason why we are here. We are at least owed our dignity and our ability to survive in a way that’s legal so that we can actually defend ourselves.

There are just so many abuses that workers receive because they don’t have documents. For example, there are the day laborers that don’t get paid after working weeks for a few weeks, because their boss has decided that because they don’t have documents they can just call I.C.E. on them. It leaves people vulnerable to not have documents, and it’s really hypocritical because everybody’s really benefitting from the labor and the resources we as immigrants provide. The discourse about who deserves to be here and who is criminal gets really blurry. How do you even figure out who’s who? We’re all in the same family. To say that the blame is on the parents—I don’t blame my mom, and I don’t think most people would blame their parents for being here in the country and being undocumented.

Rumpus: I agree—there are a great many reparations that still haven’t been delivered on behalf of the U.S. to Mexico. The New York Times ran a debate piece that compared the struggle of immigrant rights to the struggle of the LGBTQ community for civil rights. What are your thoughts and feelings about that comparison?

Esteva: I think that there is some room for comparison, and I don’t want to get too much into comparison, but just to say that queer people are also undocumented. On the UndocuBus, a third—if not more—of the riders were queer, and I include myself in that group. So, when we talk about civil rights as immigrants, we talk about the ability to even become a legal resident. Marriage is one of the ways to become documented. If you’re in a committed relationship with someone of the same sex, what does that mean? It means you’re aren’t able to qualify for relief, because we don’t have marriage equality in the country. I think that the queer community experiences similar levels of criminalization and the distinctions in the law that says that some people are outside the law. In most states, if you’re transgendered, you’re not protected by anti-discrimination laws, and that’s the case for undocumented people, as well. That’s an exclusion from the law.

Exclusion hurts everybody, not just a specific group. That’s a similarity I would bring up. Also, when you allow somebody to be discriminated [against], that means that there’s other groups that are going to follow. There are a lot of queer people who are undocumented and are fighting for just immigration reform and anti-criminalization for the undocumented, but also for queer people. Our struggles are not seen as being connected, they’re seen as two different things we have to fight for. But, in our case as “undocu-queer,” they come together. One of my favorite people on the UndocuBus, Angel, used to boast about how when he got arrested and ended up at a detention center, he was in drag. He was just coming out of a show that he did at a bar. He’s a drag queen artist and super-involved in the queer community, and to him it was a funny, exciting thing that he was still in drag when they took him to a detention center. Our communities are very diverse, and even though it’s funny and an exciting thing that he was able to express his queerness while as an undocumented person, at the same time there’s a lot of vulnerability that queer people have in detention centers. We see transwomen that have been killed at the hands of I.C.E. in detention centers, because they were not provided AIDS medication, for example. There are so many vulnerabilities that queer people can have in detention centers and through the immigration process.

Rumpus: Do you feel that being undocumented is a status or an identity?

Esteva: I had a conversation about this on the UndocuBus with a few folks there, and specifically people that came to the U.S. when they were younger. I think it’s both a status and an identity. For some of us it’s an identity, because it’s the only identity we’ve known for most of our lives. It becomes an identity when you present it and introduce yourself with it at every point during your struggle because of what you’re fighting with. It becomes an armor of really representing yourself with a fierceness of what it takes to be who we are. On the UndocuBus we’d introduce ourselves as, “My name is Kitzia Esteva. I’m undocumented, I’m queer, and unafraid.” To say “undocumented” and “unafraid” and is a part of our identity. The undocumented part might not be our choice, but we’re not afraid of saying it. It’s something that we’re struggling with, but it’s also something that we shouldn’t be struggling with.

On the other hand, when we talk about it, it’s to bring about pride and to say we’re proud to be in this struggle, even though it’s a difficult struggle. Even though those labels mean a lot and might mean a lot of pain, they also mean a lot of learning, growth, and the fire to fight. So, I think that it’s both. Being undocumented is definitely a status that creates a lot of limitations and difficulties for our communities. While we were on the UndocuBus struggling with that fear to speak out and fight and change the conditions we’re facing. It’s a status of vulnerability and exclusion for a lot of us who are learning to cope with it, and come out in some ways, and talk about the parallels of being queer and undocumented. To talk about it as a source of strength and really confronting the state who put us in this position without fear—that’s the message that we’re putting out.

Rumpus: Would you say that vulnerability is a big theme in being political?

Esteva: I think that issue of criminalization is something that I’m really committed to fighting. Not just in the realm of immigration, because it goes beyond that. The U.S. has the biggest prison industrial complex in the world. That means a lot of people are pushed to criminal acts because of poverty. A lot of people are criminalized for things that shouldn’t even be considered crimes. One of the organizations that I participate here in L.A. is fighting back against the criminalization of black and brown youth who are getting ticketed and having to go to court for arriving late to school, something that shouldn’t even be considered a crime. There’s a lot of other ways to solve that, but it’s not through the police state and not through the courts. It has a lot to do with the students’ economic background, with the resources they have in school, and with the transportation in L.A. (which sucks, but people are also fighting to make better). A lot of youth and communities are fighting to make this better, but the state is not really responding to the problem. It’s causing a lot of issues, including students leaving school. It’s criminalization, and it’s also an issue on how the system is abandoning black and brown communities. It’s about fighting for resources that are also needed.

Rumpus: Can you go into detail on the fight against truancy tickets in L.A. public schools?

Esteva: Yeah, sure. There’s a coalition of different community organizations that were fighting the truancy tickets and one of them is the Labor and Strategy Center. They were fighting for the Commuter Rights Campaign. It’s one of the biggest campaigns fighting truancy tickets here in L.A. Truancy tickets were when high school students were getting ticketed on their way to school a few minutes late. These are $250 tickets and are usually given to very low-income students. It’s a fine and a citation to appear in court. It’s an economic hardship, but it’s also having to miss school, the difficulties of being in court, and the intimidation from the police when they’re stopped for “truancy”—which is actually just lateness for any reason that could cause a person to be late. I know that when I was as in school, I was late a bunch of times because either the bus was late or I had to take one of my nephews to school before I went to school. So, I related to these students. Ninety-five percent of those students were black and brown, and certain high schools were getting more targeted than others, where there the population is more black, brown, and low-income. So, the Community Rights Campaign, along with other organizations that are also fighting against criminalization, fought to change the law and were able to amend it. The Truancy Law is a city code that says students should be ticketed. So, now thanks to the campaign, the new law is they get a warning the first two times, and then only the third time can they get a ticket, which can never exceed $200, including court fees.

So from $250 each time that you’re late, to $200 total after three strikes is a huge jump. The $250 didn’t even include court fees. It could have been up to a thousand dollars. It might be a student that was late because they couldn’t pay their monthly pass, and so they had to walk to school instead of the bus—they already have a huge economic hardship. Instead of finding a way to provide that student with resources so that they can succeed in school, and get to school on time, they [the state] are creating more economic hardship. At the end of the day, it’s really favoring the police state over the welfare state. We need more counselors and teachers, yet teachers are getting laid off  left and right, and we have more cops taking over space in the school and intimidating youth. Our communities don’t really have a good relationship with the police, because we are under attack from police brutality every day. So, truancy tickets are not really an answer for the youth.

Rumpus: There’s a major lack of political theater in this country. I know that as a community organizer you’ve been involved in political street theatre. What are your feelings on the impact it had on you and the community you were reaching out to?

Esteva: I think that art and theatre are really great tools to both bring people out, and agitate the community and raise consciousness. But it’s also a tool for fighting. My first experience with political theatre was when I was seventeen, back in high school in San Francisco. I participated in a youth program called the Mime Troupe. Everybody thought it was silent theatre, but it was actually acting satire. It was a political space in the way that we learned to create plays was through using satire in combination with the Theatre of the Oppressed. We created our own skits and performed on two different weekends. The first play I was in was about immigration and gangs in San Francisco. It was about connecting immigration and racism, and the question of who gets involved in gangs and why. It was the background story of people who are involved in gangs. The point we were raising is that we could have been gang members because of the conditions we face in the city as immigrant and poor working class youth with little opportunity.

When I was living in San Francisco, I was a part of PODER (People Organized to Demand Environmental and Economical Rights), an organization where I was in charge of building the theatre component in the summer. With the youth, we presented a theatre piece based on difference sites of pollution in San Francisco, and who is being affected by it and side effects, like workers and residents in the Bay View Hunters Point who are being poisoned from the hazardous waste coming out of the PG&E plant. The plant used to be a navy base where they were testing nuclear power. There’s still leftover toxic chemicals, and the community is being contaminated with radiation. It’s the only black community left in San Francisco, right, and our performance was about the conditions of environmental racism, and focusing on the side effects of how it affects people’s health and their psyche.

The last performance I was involved in was with the Bus Riders Union. It was a piece about Measure J, which was just defeated. If it went through, it was going to put a lot of money on the MTA to continue building rail and freeway, thus contributing greatly to the already very polluted area. It was also an issue of environmental racism and pushing away the already-gentrified black and brown communities here [in L.A.] to bring in transit-oriented development. So, we staged also a street theatre performance as a tool for education, and to expose Measure J. I was actually the “J Monster,” who accelerated gentrification and pollution—the evil things that our communities are facing, and are yet being asked to pay for. To me, street theatre is a didactic way of presenting information. It’s a way of personifying the attacks on our communities and demonstrating the ways of how we can fight back.

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• David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: Syria’s Poets Under Threat
• Boaters
• The Rumpus Interview with Joy Harjo
• The Last Poem I Loved: She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo
• The Rumpus Interview with Nataly Kelly

The IDF used social media to announce and live-blog the attacks, and to celebrate the killing of Ahmed Al-Jabari. Slate refers to this as “total military transparency,” but it feels more like propaganda to me. There’s a semblance of transparency, but the IDF is still controlling what gets sent out.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi said “The Israelis must realize that this aggression is unacceptable and would only lead to instability in the region and would negatively and greatly impact the security of the region.” The Atlantic’s Eric Trager speculates on how this will affect Egypt’s relationship with Israel, and Hussein Ibish suggest this is an attempt by Israel to call Morsi’s bluff.

Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor suggests Hamas isn’t quite as responsible for rocket fire into Israel as it seems.

More from Emily Hauser: “To Israel: With Love and Squalor.”

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• A Rep. Todd Akins Roundup
• Today’s Required Reading
• Poverty Mapped
• The Art of Nonviolence, Links by Ari Messer

DC’s in the spotlight and on my mind a lot this fall, even though I moved away last year. Most people think monuments, bloated budgets and stale politicians when they see DC in the news. The city’s got some of that. It’s got a whole lot more too. Not because it’s where the president lives. Because it’s carved out its own community in spite of that. And there’s nothing like this election week to remind me how great this city is.

***

Election Night, 2008. Republican or Democrat, everyone in DC watched the results come in. I made my way up 16^th Street to U Street and my friends. I could’ve taken the metro or one of the many cabs out that early evening, but that night, of all nights, I wanted the 16^th Street view.

16^th veers around Thomas Circle, swallows a statue or two and climbs the stretch toward U. At P Street, I stopped and turned for my daily look at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Whether it’s kids playing by the Anacostia River, suburbanites commuting down Connecticut Avenue or wannabe urban hipsters making their way to U Street, everyone can get a look at the White House every day. It’s not as high as the Capitol Building. Nothing’s allowed to be that high. But the roads unfold around it so that we can see it from all over the city and be moved. On Election Night 2008, many of us were moved.

I heard the –thwack- coming fast from behind. This is the sound of flip-flops. It can be heard on DC streets year-round, Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse-cold days aside. Lest we ever try to defend DC against the allegation that it’s Hollywood for Ugly People, the flip-flops and their male counterpart, running shoes worn with suits, do us in every time.

The thwacker hurried by. She was still in her boxy suit jacket and below-the-knee skirt. Neither piece matched her flip-flops’ hot pink straps. Her work shoes were sticking out of her bag and her ponytail was bouncing.

It wasn’t a good combination.

She didn’t care.

She was hurrying somewhere to watch the results pour in. That counted for more than looks. With a last glance at the White House, I hurried on myself.

***

People, primarily other big-city people, often say DC is Hollywood for Ugly People, where fashion comes to die and the wonks rule. But, if being DC-wonky is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

DC is journalists, non-profit workers and government staffers. It’s news junkies who follow multiple news sources daily and watch the Sunday morning shows before anything else, no matter how hot the new lover in their bed is. It’s parents and singletons alike working full-time and still volunteering in one if not THREE organizations because they know that knowledge comes from doing as much as from reading. And it’s people who discuss Afghanistan for hours over cheap wine, cheaper poulet roti and pommes frites at Bistro du Coin, cholesterol, calories and the debilitating effects of sleep deprivation be damned.

They choose these things over better-paying jobs, over taking time to find more fashionable clothes and replace suits worn down to a fine sheen, and over waking extra-early to exercise themselves to a Size 0 and prepare a day’s worth of organic meals. Could they hold their own in a beauty pageant or CrossFit competition with coastal Californians and Manhattanites? You know the answer. Do they want to? Not as badly as they want to do big things and put big ideas to work.

I don’t know if it was DC’s concentration of non-profits and journalists or the sheer lack of money these fields pay, but somewhere along the way, image took a backseat to content in the nation’s capital. In a world of reality shows and pressure to look a certain way if you want the good life, DC, in all its wonky glory, shines.

***

By the time I reached U Street, the bars were packed. Every window glowed with the light of television screens and poll numbers racking up. My three friends had squeezed themselves onto a chair built for one. I shared a stool with a guy who’d quit his job and gone on the road with the Obama campaign team. His neighbors had taken care of his cat and his friends were trying to find him a new job now that he was done stumping for Obama. He’d been offered a higher-paying job in Chicago. He had turned it down.

“You came back for a girl?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“A guy?” I tried next.

“Nope.”

A cheer rose up. Obama had just gotten enough electoral votes to claim the presidency. People hugged, clinked glasses and hugged again.

“How can I leave all this?” he shouted over the noise.

***

A new president moves into DC every four or eight years. People assume the whole town’s rotating out just as fast. DC residents don’t leave that easily.

The former spies kick around coffee shops, their pockets light without the gadgets they used to carry and their minds heavy with the secrets they can’t give back.  The government employees stay in their DC homes, living on pensions after they retire and watching property values around them climb. The journalists, victim to a struggling industry, shift to consulting or teaching so they can stay. It’s not just the intellectual energy of the place. It’s their friends, it’s the neighborhood storefronts where they’re known and it’s those embassy parties where free food from other countries is handed out. It’s not always especially tasty, but it’s still cool that you’re getting smoked salmon from the Norwegians in your own town. Even those of us who leave, like I did after ten years, keep coming back. We wonder why we left something we can’t replicate anywhere else.

***

I left the U Street bar around 2:00 a.m. and cast a glance toward Ben’s Chili Bowl, just up the road. More friends were there, having hotdogs and rehashing the election results. I considered joining them. There’s no more iconic place than the legendary restaurant, enjoyed by the likes of presidents, celebrities and our newest president, Obama, to cap off this night. But the air was filled with an energy that would evaporate in the lights and noise of Ben’s. I began walking home instead.

Cheering Democrats and quiet Republicans filled the streets along Adams Morgan’s Columbia Road. Some tried to flag taxis, but the taxi drivers were busy, talking about the election results outside the 7-11 at the corner of Columbia and 19^th. I looked around for the other man usually near the 7-11 that time of night. DC’s most famous homeless man: Compliment Man.

Compliment Man doled out kind words for dollars, coins and thank-yous. He praised shoes, suits and smiles. His own suit hung loose and his shoes needed new soles, but he stood tall and looked people in the eye when he complimented them. That night, his bench was occupied by a couple sharing an IPA. They offered to share their bench and the IPA. I complimented their taste in beer and kept walking.

I made my way down Columbia Road, past the Hinckley Hilton to Q Street and the Firehook Bakery where loaves of bread lay in the doorway. They must have fallen from Mohammed’s bag.

Mohammed, until he died a few years ago, was almost as big a DC institution as Compliment Man. He came to the Firehook Bakery at the end of each day, gathered their unsold food and took it to Dupont Circle. He scattered the loaves, cakes and sandwiches on the grass before heading elsewhere for evening prayers. People complained about the food drawing rats. They never complained about the food drawing homeless people. Someone had to make sure the homeless were fed.

I turned the final corner for home and found my neighbor, goofy on his anti-retrovirals, pissing in the bush outside his building. When he was done, he zipped his fly, picked up his garbage bag and carried it across the street to another neighbor’s stoop rather than take it out around back. He went inside and, minutes later, a barefoot man appeared, hobbling and swerving, and carried it away. He was digging through the bag as he ducked into an alley. We all knew he slept there most nights. No one called the police. Sometimes people took him a blanket or leftover food.

***

DC is black people, white people, everyone in between, living together and letting you think their having African-American mayors and Asian-American school superintendents means they’re the champions of respect for diversity and that racial discrimination – in reverse and forward modes – never, ever happens. DC is knowing you outsiders almost surely know about only one of its rivers, the Potomac, and not its other river, the Anacostia River, that separates Anacostia, a high crime, high poverty, primarily African-American neighborhood, from the part of the city you see on the maps and think is the entire District of Columbia, but caring more about helping Anacostia than standing on soapboxes to talk about it. DC is being called the nation’s murder capital when the murders happen almost entirely in Anacostia and knowing the politicians will never do enough, fast enough, to fix the problem, but being the community member who volunteers and does what he can to help his neighbors across the river, all the same.

DC is Home Rule, Taxation Without Representation license plates and knowing you live in a capital that hosts politicians who won’t give you voting control over how you improve your local or national community but saying “Fuck you” and volunteering, engaging and sticking around despite that.

Maybe even because of that.

The Washington Monument casts a physical shadow not half as long as the White House and Capitol Building’s psychological shadows. Somewhere along the way, people in DC decided they were going to shine a light even bigger than the shadows.

***

The morning after Election Night came fast. I was in a classroom of English students with several other volunteers and their teacher. Everyone was bleary-eyed. Everyone was wired with an energy that had something to do with Obama’s message of hope and change but more to do with the night itself. I can’t remember what any of us said, but, four years later, I still remember the energy. Everyone had a story. Every story involved their neighbors, families and friends. No one had been to any fancy, VIP results-viewing party. No one knew anyone in power of the sort the outside world equates with D.C. And no one cared.

I headed to work after that, coat thrown over my arm because winter hadn’t yet hit DC. I passed people raising money for charity, homeless men playing chess in a traffic circle and a diplomatic motorcade the locals ignored. DC, I thought, is a city we hold in our hands as surely as we can walk so much of it end to end. But then I passed another corner of tourists, volunteers and harried workers who still stopped to give the tourists directions and I reconsidered who holds whose heart.

Four years later, with another election now finished, I don’t have to reconsider. I know. Just as surely as the people who love DC hold its heart, DC’s holding our hearts, our minds and our wonky spirit just as tightly.

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Compiled by KQED News and The California Report, the NPR affiliate presents voters with an immensely easy-to-understand ballot measure guide. Nonpartisan in nature, the guide cuts through the mumbo-jumbo and complicated language, and maps out the facts regarding all 11 props.

For all our friends in San Francisco, there’s an equally-impressive guide produced by the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. This one’s a tiny bit more slanted towards the city’s political trends (see also: liberal), but it also gives the lowdown on SF-specific ballot measures in clear and concise language.

Remember: there’s no shame in staying informed. Having a say in what happens locally is power. We hope you all vote today.

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***

I was scheduled to fly from San Francisco to New York on Sunday night to resume writing Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell on FX. Hurricane Sandy cancelled my flight and I was spared the anxiety of flying directly into the fifth, soggiest circle of Hell.

Watching the news coverage from afar, Hurricane Sandy has provided a welcome relief from the unyielding tsunami of vacuous electoral blather. Mother Earth rained a golden shower of truth down the gullet of every pundit.

The backup generators went out at NYU hospital. This should not be possible. The electricity should never go out at the most vital civic institutions—the hospital, prison, and the taqueria. Nurses evacuated the hospital by carrying PICU and NICU patients down nine flights of stairs in the dark.

People are quick to call first responders heroes. But I spent years working for the nurses union and am married to a nurse practitioner, and saw time and again that they don’t call themselves heroes. They won’t let a patient die if they can help it. It’s that simple. The fact that we call nurses and firefighters heroes for doing their jobs just shows how selfish the rest of us are. The rest of us rose up to cry in one unified voice: “I’ve been posting George Takei pictures all day! What more do you want from me? No, I can’t go volunteer. The rain will aggravate my trench foot.”

Remember the NYU hospital evacuation next time a politician demands a cut in pensions or benefits. Remember it when the likes of Scott Walker and the Chris Christie skip across the land complaining how front-line service workers have it too good and taxpayers can’t afford it. I kinda think that if you’re willing to run down nine floors with a premie baby on a battery-powered respirator into the armageddon, you’ve earned a pension and a low deductible on your PPO.

Disasters are live-action infomercials for big government. A crisis will flex and strain the muscles and tendons of big government until government’s nipples bleed under their racing tank-top: the taut glutes of regulation, the shredded abs of infrastructure investment, the rippling quads of highly-trained and well-paid unionized workers with real safety standards.

At one extreme you have the ripped, disciplined, and prepared Michael Phelps of government springing into action. At the other extreme you have the malnourished, drug-addled, and skittish government wholly unable to prepare or respond to a disaster. Think Haiti after the earthquake.

There are plutocrats who in their pillow talk believe that if you are poor enough to be hurt by a storm, then that is the natural consequence of your foolish choice to be poor. If natural disasters create the occasional Malthusian spike in immiseration and death, then it will be good for dividends. At best, human suffering that doesn’t affect me is not my problem. The stalwarts of the 1% would gladly replace FEMA with the Federal Country Club Maintenance Administration.

Right now the merit of big, burly, over-reaching, centralized, government contrasts sharply with the exuberant villainization of all things public by both parties. Both parties love austerity while loathing debt, spending, regulation, public workers, and taxes. Both candidates wring their hands about the debt and compete over who is most on the free enterprise system’s nuts. The difference between Obama and Romney is in degree.

Republican talking points could sustain years of research by psychologists seeking to understand the boundless capacity of the human mind to contain contradictions. In the debates, Romney attacked President Obama for not creating enough jobs, and then said the government can’t create jobs, and then said that we need to create jobs by cutting government spending. He said these things without bleeding from his ears or fainting from the dizziness of contradicting himself in the same sentence.

Romney may not be aware that the President is totally part of the government. He’s like in charge of it and whatnot. Also, government spending is mostly spent on jobs. Yes, they’re government jobs, and maybe you don’t like what they do, but then say that. Sending reasonably-paid government employees to work at Hot Dog on a Stick isn’t a net gain for the GDP.

You know who was no help at all during the storm? Job-creators. Small businesses. This election has been an epic love sonnet to the glory of the American entrepreneur. We’ve heard a lot about them, until this week. Turns out they’re not that rad if you need to fistfight Neptune. They’re great if you want to invest in a timeshare. Totally useless if you’re chest deep in seawater without electricity or food.

Next time they dust off the canard about the noble job-creator, feel free to throw the NYU nurses in their carbo-loaded faces. Nurses carry your baby to safety. Entrepreneurs don’t carry shit. Bankers don’t rescue dick. Bankers carry golf clubs.

Meanwhile, the lights stayed on at Goldman Sachs. Every floor. Never mind the children, they had to keep Sheldon Adelson’s offshore accounts on life support.

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• Flood the Art Market: Hurricane Sandy Benefit Party

***

Third parties are the pariahs of our political system, surviving on the scantiest scraps of media coverage and campaign contributions. To vote for a third party candidate is, in the opinion of many, a wasted vote, since the candidate has little to no chance of winning the election. However, if history is any indication, the greatest progress is often born out of defeat.

In the 1932 election, deep in the throes of the Great Depression, the Socialist Party candidate Norman Thomas picked up a surprising 2.2 percent of the popular vote (a 230 percent bump from his performance in the previous election cycle). Franklin Delano Roosevelt, sensing a growing distrust with the leadership in the country (following a series of notable runs from alternative candidates), sought to recover this contingent of voters by adopting some of Thomas’s ideas, which include two of FDR’s most successful and enduring innovations: social security and unemployment aid. This isn’t the only instance of a third party candidate influencing the policies of a major political party. Workers’ rights (including child labor laws and the forty-hour work week) were originally advocated by the Socialist Party. The Reform Party brought the national debt crisis to public attention. A graduated income tax was the handiwork of the Populist Party. Women’s suffrage was first championed by the Liberty Party, and later by the Socialist and Prohibitionist parties. These are just a small handful of the causes appropriated by the controlling parties.

***

For a time it seemed third parties were gaining traction in the United States (like our geographic neighbors, Canada and Mexico, both of whom subscribe to multiparty systems). John Anderson drew 6.6% of the vote in 1980. Ross Perot and his Reform Party pulled 18.9% and 8.4% in 1992 and 1996, respectively (the former tally accounted for the highest number of votes since Theodore Roosevelt ran on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912). But following the role of Ralph Nader in the highly contested 2000 election (for which he was branded as a “spoiler,” a term that has never sat well with me for its basic assumption that somehow Gore was entitled to those votes), third parties have lost their foothold in American politics, with the third place candidate polling at just 0.38% and 0.56% in the last two elections.

***

The Republican Party, once the party of progressives like Teddy Roosevelt (not to mention, vampire hunters like Abraham Lincoln), has morphed into something much more dangerous: self-proclaimed arbiters of moral rectitude, deniers of scientific fact, wielders of fear. Similarly, the Democratic Party have strayed so far from their core values that today a candidate like FDR would be tarred and feathered for his radical left leanings. Most importantly, both parties have fallen victim to moneyed interests.

Voting for a third party is the way I choose to voice my dissent. It’s a vote toward realignment, a recalibration, of our political system. The dominant parties are stricken with tunnel vision; their economic promises are distracting us from other critically important issues (many of which contribute to the long-term health of the economy). To vote for a third party is to help place neglected issues back on the table, make them relevant again: poverty, education, climate change, clean energy, corporate welfare, drone warfare, gun control, capital punishment, labor rights, consumer protection, to name a few.

***

One idea that has been tossed around by a number of third party candidates over the past decade is campaign finance reform (a bipartisan issue advocated by candidates on all ends of the political spectrum). Gary Johnson (Libertarian Party), Dr. Jill Stein (Green Party), and Rocky Anderson (Justice Party) support greater transparency, with the latter two pushing for more comprehensive spending reforms. Since the Citizens United ruling, unattributed donations (better known as “dark money”) have accounted for 35.2% of spending in national and state elections.

The DISCLOSE Act was placed in front of Congress in 2010. The bill would have required political groups to release the identities of their largest donors, but the bill failed to reach the necessary number of votes in the Senate. Some believe the federal ban on direct corporate spending could be the next regulation to get nixed, which would only serve to further pollute our system of government.

***

Among the hurdles facing third parties today is their inability to get into the debate. The Commission on Presidential Debates, an organization formed by the two major parties (after the League of Women Voters refused to sponsor the debates, owing to the increasing demands of the parties), only allows a candidate to debate if they are polling at 15% or more in five national polls. The conundrum, of course, is how are those candidate expected to reach the 15% threshold if they aren’t allowed a televised platform to voice their views and opinions. (Recently, the Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein was arrested after trying to gain access to the debate site at Hofstra University.)

***

This duopoly is undermining our democracy. Two parties is a farce. We live in a nation saturated with choices (supermarkets carry three different types of Raisin Bran, for God’s sake), and yet we’re limited to two viable candidates for President of the United States? That isn’t in line with the values of this country. We deserve more choices. We deserve better choices.

Still, for all our seeming helplessness, we ultimately hold the greatest trump card of all: our vote. Politicians need to be reminded that a vote is something earned: not something that can be taken for granted, and certainly not something that can be bought. As long as we continue to settle for the “least worst” option (vote defensively instead of offensively), those in power will continue to take advantage of the very people they were elected to represent. Settling isn’t a way forward. It only leads to more of the same. And how much worse does it have to get, how much more deception and greed, until we draw the line, until we say enough is enough?

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I’m starting with this quote because I think it’s useful for drawing out a couple of viewpoints about the role of government overall, but particularly in situations like these. I’m going to go back in time for my first response to this notion, all the way back to Alexander Hamilton before we had a Constitution, when he was arguing vociferously in favor of one. Hamilton was arguing for a stronger national government because the one that put in place by the Articles of Confederation was, to put it mildly a disaster. Too much power remained in the hands of the states, which meant responding to common threats or challenges was nearly impossible. In Federalist #23 he wrote “if we are in earnest about giving the Union energy and duration, we must abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective capacities; we must extend the laws of the federal government to the individual citizens of America.” He was talking about national defense primarily, but I think the reasoning holds for disasters of this type.

One of the things I have long hated about the conservative argument fomented by Ronald Reagan and his progeny that government is the problem, never the solution, is that it pretends like government is made up of someone other than us. It suggests that citizenship is not related to governance. But that’s nonsense. We get the government we vote for, and the government we demand. If we demand a government that cedes its responsibilities to the states, or worse, puts incompetent people at the helm of agencies like FEMA, then we get results like Michael “Brownie” Brown after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast. (More on that guy later.)

Mind you, we have another example of just how a President Romney might respond to a national disaster, even if he says he didn’t quite mean what he said about FEMA last year. He was governor of Massachusetts during a pretty massive flood, and even his few political allies in the state weren’t happy with his response. Maybe he wanted mayors and sheriffs to take more responsibility. It’s not really clear.

In the meantime, what’s the former Governor up to? Well, he’s claiming a campaign event really isn’t a campaign event, while the President is going to the Red Cross and directing the federal response to Sandy, garnering praise from such political allies as Governor Christie of New Jersey. Allies of Governor Romney, that is.

The President is also taking heat from some unexpected and–were the situation not so serious, comically inept–quarters. Former FEMA Chief Michael Brown actually argued the Obama administration reacted to Sandy too quickly. You read that correctly. How do you even respond to that?

The reason humans organize themselves into societies is because we recognize, on some level, that we can do things collectively that we can’t do individually. We cede some of our individual freedom in exchange for the benefits that come from living in groups–things as basic as dependable sources of clean water and electricity are only possible with collective effort. Don’t believe me? Go to any part of the world with an ineffective central government, and you’ll see instability at all levels. Politics is the method we use to argue over and decide how much of that individual freedom we’re willing to cede, and what we demand in return for it.

And the response to this and previous natural disasters shows a pretty clear choice. There’s a group that is willing to let you fend for yourself in the face of the overwhelming power of a storm such as Hurricane Sandy, and there’s a group that feels a duty to try to protect you during the storm and help you recover afterward. This isn’t necessarily a party thing either. Governor Christie of New Jersey is a Republican, a conservative, a spokesman for Governor Romney, but he’s been killing it in his response to this storm. He obviously believes, at some level, that it’s government’s duty to take care of its citizens.

Next week, we’ll finish the latest argument over what sort of government we want, and we’ll start on the next one almost immediately. The response to this storm will extend beyond that, and will no doubt be fodder for the next argument, along with whatever else pops up going forward. And we’ll rehash a lot of these same fights–how much help do we want? how much help do we want to give? who deserves it?–but remember that you’re voting (or not) for something that you are a part of. The government is not the enemy. It is us.

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The left and right in this country are growing more isolated—and therefore alienated—from one another. Ask yourself: How many of my friends/acquaintances hail from across the aisle?

I felt it was important for Rumpus readers to hear what conservatives have to say for themselves. So I spent the past month interviewing a bunch, some in person (I found Angela, for instance, in the Denver airport, highlighting a Glenn Beck book), and some on-line.  I apologize to them in advance for my severe editing and slight reordering. My goal was to capture the gist of what they had to say, not to argue with them. I’ve added brief editor’s notes with factual clarifications when necessary.

***

Angela, a financial analyst, lives in Eagle River, a small city outside Anchorage.

WiG: What does “conservative” mean to you?

Angela: Family, religion, and less government.

WiG: How do you get your news?

Angela: Fox News. I’m a semi-regular viewer.

WiG: Are you following the election coverage?

Angela: Not really. All they do is throw mud at each other.

WiG: Are you familiar with the platforms of either party?

Angela: Not really.

WiG: How do you know what the candidates intend to do?

Angela: It’s whatever I hear on those shows, and I might look something up on the Internet.

WiG: On what sites?

Angela: None in particular.

WiG: What gives you confidence that Mitt Romney will be a good president?

Angela: I’m concerned about the jobs, and preserving traditional values, and our foreign policy, protecting ourselves. I think it’s horrible what happened to the ambassador [in Libya].

WiG: Do you feel President Obama was responsible for that?

Angela: Of course. He said it was over a stupid video. And he didn’t put extra protection on the embassy even though it was the anniversary of September 11^th.

WiG: What do you know about Romney’s specific plans to create jobs?

Angela: [Shrugs]

WiG: What do you know about his tax plan?

Angela: [Shrugs]

WiG: What do you like about Romney?

Angela: His religion. I’m Pentacostal, so I don’t agree with his views, but he seems to have more traditional values than Obama.

WiG: In what specific ways are his views more traditional?

Angela: [No response]

***

John, a father of two, works as a manager at Safelite, the auto glass company, and lives in Ohio. Both his parents were both teachers, but he was “politically clueless” until college, where he became a Reagan supporter. He was offended to hear people in a bar cheering because the President had been shot. He’s also troubled by paying too much in taxes, as he feels the government is a bad steward of his money.

John: I consider myself a conservative, probably a little more libertarian than Republican. The term to me means rugged individualism, pursuit (not guarantee) of happiness, and the freedom to be the biggest success or fuck-up I want to be.

WiG: I, too, remember Reagan being shot. I’m shocked people were cheering. Have Obama’s calls for political civility impressed you?

John: The president’s calls for civility are essentially a political inoculation against the same. Same as when Warren Buffett says he doesn’t pay enough taxes. When Rush calls Sandra Fluke a “slut” or when Bill Maher calls Laura Ingraham a “cunt,” that’s going too far. Politics is a blood sport and you play to win period.

WiG: Given your debt concerns, do you support measures such as closing loopholes for giant oil corporations? Or for millionaires?

John: Loopholes for corporations is kind of a straw man for me. Who owns these giant companies? In most cases it’s you and me with our mutual funds. If we tax these folks they will pass that cost back to the consumer, raising prices and making the business environment more difficult. For millionaires, you could do it, but they will lawyer up and figure out a way to not do it.

Romney’s recent dumbfuck move by saying that 47% don’t pay taxes is untrue. It’s 49%. When Obama says that “we are asking people to pay their fair share,” there is really nothing fair about it, because 86% of all income taxes are paid by the top 25% of income earners.

[Editor’s note: this statistic is accurate, and reflects national income distribution. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the top one percent of American households possess 34.5% of our national wealth. The top ten percent possess 74.5%. The bottom 50% possess 1.1% of our wealth.]

John: …As for entitlement programs, both Social Security and Medicare are set up badly, a weird blend of capitalism and socialism that will only end badly. I believe there are folks that genuinely need assistance. I believe there are a ton of folks who are scamming.

WiG: What do you mean by “folks scamming”? Are there non-partisan studies about such practices? I ask because the argument for limited government seems to assume widespread incompetence or malfeasance. As with “voter fraud” claims, the integrity of this argument resides in the evidence of such abuse.

John: I don’t have a study, but from a few sites found info that the federal government made improper payments of around $125 billion last year. I think that whoever is president should tighten that shit up immediately. Maybe “tons of people scamming” is urban legend, or I could just be plain wrong … I think Romney is counting on Reagan’s model of lowering taxes, revenues to the feds increase, folks start new businesses and hire more folks who pay taxes. Yep, trickle down, but it worked.

[Editor’s note: “Reagan’s model of lowering taxes” did not increase revenues. It increased the national debt by 186 percent over his two terms.]

John: I think Romney is some “Ozzie and Harriet” type corporate weenie, that the country needs desperately at this time. He seems adult and not cool, but a fixer of sorts and I would like to see him in there. My core values translate to them in getting the debt under control, reforming entitlements to get people working, creating an environment where business can flourish, and him making polygamy the law of the land. Just joking, one wife is enough.

WiG: What do you mean by “reforming entitlements to get people working”?

John: I mean put the work portion back in “workfare.” I think on your side it’s a sign of pride that we have 53 million people on food stamps. If people need it, I’m good with it. That number horrifies me, I want people to win and win big and buy a yacht.

[Editor’s note: The claim that Obama sought to strip the work requirement from welfare is untrue.]

***

Jack is a senior editor at a small public relations company in northern New Jersey, and is gay.

Jack: Mitt Romney isn’t the Reagan that at least half the country would like. But I argue that we don’t need another Reagan—that example was given to us already. All we need to do is imitate it … By the usual and accepted measures of economic health, Obama’s strategy of more government intervention, regulation, and top-down economic control has been a failure. The growth rate has limped along at about 2.2%. No recovery period in recent history has seen growth this weak. The unemployment rate has persisted at or above 8% for about three-and-a-half years running, which is also extraordinary for a recovery period.

WiG: Given that our economy was shedding 700,000 jobs a month when he took office, what measures should Obama have taken?

Jack: I don’t believe he could have done anything about that particular problem at the time…

WiG: In your view, how and why did the economic meltdown of 2007 occur?

Jack: Contrary to the narrative that was pushed on us, “deregulation” was hardly the culprit. We can trace the problems back to Federal Housing Authority and HUD regulations, and the even more pernicious Community Reinvestment Act. The deregulation which followed was only at the margins … Of course, the emotionally satisfying explanation is that the whole mess was caused by Wall Street greed.

WiG: What should a President do when the economy he inherits is slumping? It sounds like you feel government should do as little as possible, and allow the free market to call the shots. Is that accurate?

Jack: In a perfect world, yes, that would be accurate. But we didn’t have a free market in the first place. There is no way a free-market solution was going to work in a decidedly unfree market environment…

As for my philosophical objection, the government cannot “create jobs,” nor can it “put people back to work.” These are not functions of the government as outlined in its charter, and the idea makes no sense in the first place. I want all politicians to stop claiming otherwise.

WiG: This morning, me and my kids walked past the elementary school they’ll go to, which is being rebuilt. There were about 25 guys working on the re-build, which was funded by taxpayers like myself. How is this not government creating jobs?

Jack: You answered your own question. Those jobs are funded by you, not the government. The government is merely the means by which your money is diverted to that project. Now building a school is of course a good and useful thing. But such a project does not represent an expansion of the economy—the resources used to build the school were diverted from another part of the economy. In fact, there are instances where rebuilding a school may not be the best use of resources. Believe it or not, there are times when it is more useful to renovate a chain of go-go bars, or build a new Wal-Mart.

WiG: Can you talk about your stances on social issues?

Jack: After the freakshow that was the DNC convention, I am quite honestly worn out by all the angry estrogen. But I will talk briefly about abortion. I was informed by a grad-school colleague of mine that until I have a uterus, I don’t have a right to an opinion about abortion (never mind the fact that I am thoroughly pro-choice). The stridency of these broads cannot possibly be making them many friends.

WiG: What do you mean by “angry estrogen”?

Jack: I prefer to let your readers chew on that one.

WiG: Honestly, Jack, you clearly pride yourself on being intelligent and precise, so what are you saying here?

Jack: …Sandra Fluke exemplified both the angry as well as freakish aspects of the DNC convention. She delivered her speech with a very large and secure safety net cast by her (extremely angry) handlers, as is always the case when she speaks publicly. Ms. Fluke was described by President Obama as “one tough and poised young lady.” He wisely left out the adjective “smart.” Insultingly, Ms. Fluke was foisted on us as some kind of intellectual powerhouse, an eloquent voice against the forces of white male patriarchy. Yet when Rush Limbaugh called her a rude name, suddenly she became this delicate little creature who was being bullied, and all rallied to her and cradled her precious little head and told her that Rush is, well, he’s just a big meanie. There, there now, child—it’s OK, Uncle Barack is on the phone, sweetpea.

… As for gun control, I am as staunch a supporter of the Second Amendment as I am of the First. The Left would have us remain as sitting ducks, relying on “Hate Crimes Legislation” to protect us from homophobes (or any other type of thug). I can’t imagine anything more “self-loathing” than that. While I am not actively against such legislation, I claim the right to arm and defend myself. I am convinced that if Matthew Shepard had carried a gun, he’d be walking among us today. As my friends at Pink Pistols say, “Armed gays don’t get bashed.”

… I won’t allow my blood to be spilled all for the sake of some vague, contradictory, and bossy opinions that others hold about “the common good.”

WiG: You believe Matthew Shepard would still be alive if he’d carried a gun. So was he a victim because he allowed himself to be? Given that we all might be victims of violent crime, should everyone carry a gun? Would this decrease, in your view, gun violence?

Jack: No, I don’t blame Shepard for his own death. But the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is of little benefit to either of those gentlemen now. I don’t argue that people should or shouldn’t arm themselves. It’s a decision that each individual will make for himself.

WiG: Do conservatives respect your sexual orientation? How do they express this respect? Is it in their policies toward homosexuals? Can you be specific?

Jack: Most conservatives I interact with respect and agree with my political point of view. As for sexual orientation, my mission on the Right is not to alert them to the virtues of hot man-on-man action. Of course many of them raise an eyebrow at my sexual orientation and romantic proclivities. But once we have a discussion about John Locke, the Rule of Law, the Founding fathers, the Constitution of the United States, and F.A. Hayek, I have made a friend for life. (A hearty laugh at Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s expense never hurts, either.)

This is a discussion that is impossible to have with a Liberal. It begins and ends with the same not-very-original charge that I am like a Jewish guard at Auschwitz and do I realize that the Republican party hates me?

I have never received hate mail nor have I ever been the recipient of personal invective from a conservative. The totality of vitriol comes from the Left. A recent example of gay Leftist hatred came courtesy of the ever-repulsive Dan Savage. He called GoProud “house faggots for the GOP.” We point out to Savage that it’s better to be a house faggot for the Right than a field faggot for the Left. Who has a better shot at cutting the master’s throat while he slumbers? My money is on the house faggot.

***

Jack’s making a particular kind of joke here—one with violent undertones. It speaks to what John said earlier: that politics is “a blood sport.”

My intention was to allow conservatives to speak for themselves. I interviewed a bunch, and chose three voices that struck me as representative. My not-so-secret hope was to dig beneath the binary dogma—to unearth the hopes that might unite us. I was after solace.

That I failed, and so abjectly, should occasion any number of emotions. At the bottom of them all is helplessness.

No there is no way for me to reach these folks: Angela who regards “politics” as some vague source of paranoia, John, with his friendly need to make sure nobody unworthy gets their hands on his dough, and least of all Jack, for whom politics is an arena to strut his intellect and externalize his self-loathing.

But politics isn’t about projecting your pathologies into the public arena, and it’s not about hurting people. Its essential mission is to enact morality in the world, to make the rules by which we care for everyone, not just ourselves. What matters isn’t who “wins,” but to what human effect? Is the greater cause of justice advanced? Is opportunity expanded? Is the suffering of our citizens reduced?

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Issues of military experience mattered, because Bush had launched two wars in the wake of 9/11, neither of which was going well. The central historical curiosity of that election is how Kerry’s service—he won a silver star, a bronze star, and three purple hearts—became a liability.

Kerry lost the election, if barely, for one simple reason: because he never turned to Bush during any of their three debates, looked him in the eye, and said, “With all due respect, Mr. President, you wouldn’t be so reckless about sending our young men into battle if you’d ever been under enemy fire yourself. But you haven’t been, sir. While I was in the Mekong Delta getting shot at and wounded, you were in Alabama working on a political campaign for one of your father’s pals. That’s not a political attack, Mr. President. It’s history.”

***

If Barack Obama loses his re-election bid in a few weeks it will be because he failed to confront Mitt Romney in the same manner, face to face, about his relentless and brazen lies to the American people.

Men born of wealth—like Bush and Romney—feel entitled to bullying the truth, and their opponents. It’s how they their mask their insecurity, and conceal their panic. Obama, a bi-racial kid raised without money, got ahead by avoiding conflict. In most contexts, this would be an attribute. But modern presidential campaigns are filtered by pundits, and decided by voters, who think very little about policy. They go with their gut. They go with the guy who seems like a winner, the guy who has made an ally of his aggression.

Because tomorrow’s debate is town-hall style, Obama will have to empathize with those in the audience, and attend to their questions. But voters at home, the ones still open to voting for him, need Obama to take the fight to Romney, to speak with urgency and moral force. He needs to have lines of attack prepared for particular topics, and those attacks need to tell a larger story.

The story is simple—Mitt Romney is a salesman. The grin, the swell suit, the sunny promises of moderation are a pitch intended to hide what you’re really buying: a shameless oligarch.

***

The overarching message:

Governor Romney has been running for office for twenty years now, and the only core position he holds is that he deserves to be President. Everything else depends on who he’s talking to. When he’s talking to rich fundraisers behind closed doors, and he thinks nobody else is listening, he says 47 percent of Americans are dependent on the government and can’t take responsibility for their lives. When he gets caught, he says, “Oh gosh, I didn’t mean that.” Now he’s for the middle class. During the Republican primary, Governor Romney promised to cut taxes for the one percent. In Denver, he swore up and down he wouldn’t do that. He used to be a moderate conservative. Then he was a severe conservative. Used to be pro-choice, now he’s pro-life. Used to be for his own health care plan, now he’s against it. Used to be against regulation, now he’s for it. Just shake the etch-a-sketch and presto chango: a new Mitt Romney. When reporters point out his ads are full of lies, his staff says—this is an actual quote—“We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.”

That’s not leadership, Governor Romney. It’s salesmanship.

***

On Romney’s tax plan:

Governor Romney is constantly reminding us that there are six studies that prove his plan to cut $5 trillion in taxes—cuts skewed toward the wealthy—won’t raise the deficit. Six studies. Sounds pretty impressive, right? Until you read the fine print. Those studies are blogs and editorials written by conservatives. That’s how he defines a “study.” By those standards, I guess Governor Romney himself is the author of a rather famous study, the one entitled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” That’s the study about how we should have just let our auto industry fail. The only legitimate study of his tax plan revealed what common sense should tell you: if you give massive tax cuts to rich folks, middle-class families are going to have to pay it. That’s how it always is with Governor Romney. The sales pitch sounds great – until you look at the fine print.

***

On health care:

Governor Romney wants to turn Medicare, one of the most successful programs in our history, into a voucher program. Period. He likes to promise seniors he won’t touch their benefits. But that’s only because his voucher system doesn’t kick in for a few years. Like any good salesman, he’s put his political liability on layaway. But in the mean time he’s going to gut Medicaid programs for seniors and sick children. He says his plan will allow folks with pre-existing conditions to get insurance. It won’t. Five minutes after our last debate ended, his staff had to admit that was a lie. He says he’ll repeal Obamacare and let states come up with their health care laws. But that’s impossible—because the federal government actually subsidized most of his state’s health care plan. Those are the facts. Governor Romney knows those are the facts. His only hope is that voters won’t read the fine print on his health care plans, because if they do, it will make them sick.

***

On foreign policy:

For the last couple of weeks, Governor Romney has been running around shooting off his mouth on foreign policy—which is odd, given that he has no foreign policy experience. Actually, check that. He did visit England and manage to insult our closest ally. Then he tried to score cheap political points while our citizens were under attack in Libya, and he’s still trying to exploit that tragedy for political gain. Americans have seen this kind of bluster before. It’s what got us into two wars. My foreign policy isn’t about bluster. It’s about results. Under my watch, we’ve ended the war in Iraq, we’re winding down in Afghanistan, and we’ve decimated Al Qeada. Like President Bush, Governor Romney didn’t believe bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice was a high priority. I did.

Being Commander-in-Chief isn’t like being a candidate, Governor. You can’t just sit in a comfy armchair trying to win the next news cycle. You have to sit in the Oval Office and make the tough calls. Tough talk isn’t a doctrine. It’s another form of salesmanship.

***

On character:

Governor Romney has been running for president for years now and he’s made lots of promises: to cut taxes and reduce the debt and save Medicare and create twelve million jobs. After all this time, he can’t even tell you what’s in his tax plan. These aren’t serious proposals. They’re sales pitches.

Here’s what we do know about Governor Romney: he was born into wealth and made millions in private equity. His company closed down plants in America and shipped jobs overseas. He believes corporations are people. He makes more than $20 million per year on investments and pays a lower tax rate than an occupational therapist. He has a Swiss bank account and a tax shelter in the Cayman Islands. Despite being the richest citizen ever to run for President, he refuses to release more than two years of his tax returns, though his own father set the precedent as a candidate of releasing a dozen returns.

Governor Romney is a good businessman. He knows how to close a deal. But America isn’t a business. The job of the President isn’t to maximize profits for the folks at the top. It’s to maximize opportunity for all our citizens. The Governor is eager to talk about how much he cares for the middle class, because he thinks this will get him elected. But look at how he’s spent his life. Those are his values. Boil away the sales pitches and he’s for a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy.

***

The riffs above amount to less than ten minutes of talking. Obama will still have time to set out his own agenda, and say “um” a lot. But what’s precious in these debates—what turned the race against him last time—is the chance to project strength. It’s incredibly sad that such an attitude should have to prevail in a mature democracy. It speaks to the moral poverty of our Fourth Estate, and our electorate. But that’s where we are.

If Obama wants another four years, he has to find a way to fight against his instincts, and take a salesman out to the woodshed.

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