theblogginfox.com

Welcome to the Fox's Den

CharlesChuckFox — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:31:00 GMT

These are the writings, ramblings and images of award winning columnist, author and poet Chuck Fox. From time to time his thoughts on politics, sports and life itsownself will appear, along with some photo essays on various places he has visited. New material will appear when the urge arises, so check back often.

JFK, RFK... Where Are We Going?

CharlesChuckFox — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:57:00 GMT

Forty five years ago John Fitgerald Kennedy was assassinated on the streets Dallas, Texas by a nutcase who flitted around the fringes of political extremeism. Forty years ago Robert Francis Kennedy was assassinated by another nutcase who thought he was making a ploitical statement for a cause he never has been able to articulate.

The common political thread that runs through these tragedies has continued to weave through the fabric of American discourse, growing thicker and more vehement until today it is a rope around the neck of rational debate. In many ways today's verbal violence is equal to, if not in excess of, yesterday's physical violence. Today the bullets have been replaced by innuendo, smear and lies.

Many see Carl Rove-like tactics as "hardball politics' with a "win at any cost" attitude that is merely a good, competitive, All-American mind set. Others see it for what it really is: the desperate, pathetic, shameful last resort of inferior minds. Physical violence has ended the lives of good men, accomplished men, men who gave us the best and brightest leadership and a vision for the future that shined with a white hot glow that still smolders among the embers of the American spirit. Rove-esque character assassination, when successful, has deprived us of those who may have fanned those embers into that white hot glow that shone for all the world to see; a glow that gave hope to the world that here, in this great country, peaceful solutions to violent problems can be achieved. In many ways the Camelot edict that "Might does not make right... it is might FOR right that should be the code" is what the verbal violence has assassinated.

In one of his last speeches (to the Cleveland City Club on April 5, 1968) Bobby Kennedy, speaking on violence, said:

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly and destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is a slow destruction of a child by hunger and schools without books and homes without heat.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this, too, afflicts us all. I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies - to be met not with cooperation but with conquest, to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the least, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all of this there is not final answer.

Today that final paragraph is being exploited by ignorant, fear mongering talk show hosts; by rabid 'my way or the highway' politicians; by self righteous, 'holier than thou' religious zealots and by 'I've got mine, the hell with the rest of you' fat cats who do little or nothing to further the common good.

The violence done by those who would turn disagreement into hatred; by those who imply that a difference of opinion must somehow be anti-American or by those whose positions or agendas or motives are weak, tennuous or suspect is NOT the American way. This kind of violence is insipid, shameful and as dangerous as any bullet.

The Silly Season

CharlesChuckFox — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:59:00 GMT

    Is it just me or has the silly season of politics become a 365/24/7 proposition?

    It seems that politicians have taken two tacts in communicating with the electorate: spew as much, hate, vitriol and out and out lies about their opponent as they can possibly fit into a 30 second spot or bore the holy bejabbers out of the electorate with how wonderful their husband, wife or mother thinks they are.

    Case in point for the former: Here in San Diego we have a showboating City Attorney whose antics would provide a good laugh if he weren't so tragic. He has shown himself to be mean spirited with those who don't agree with him and the upcoming election promises to be one of the most ferocious on record. His opponent is a long standing nemesis from the City Council who has been openly hostile to the incumbent. Oh, what a hell of a mud bath this one is going to be. Silly.

    Case in point for the latter: again here in San Diego (I don't mean to pick on my hometown, but things HAVE gotten sillier here than most places over the past decade or so) we have a perennial candidate for Mayor who decided in mid February that what this town was desperately in need of was his mug on TV EVERY DAY from then to the June 3rd primary! Moreover, he has decided that the most neutral spokesperson he could find is his wife. She assures us that he is wonderful and smart and independent. Now on the first two issues I am sure she has a firm conviction. As to the independence, it is hard to conjure up that image in light of the fact that this guy is a multi-millionaire Republican. Maybe he DOES need all that TV time to explain how to reconcile that dichotomy. Silly.

    Nationally we have a fight brewing on the Republican side between an old man who wants to recreate the 100 Year War and a guy who wants to declare holy war on anyone who doesn't pray as he does. The only results of the first 100 Year War was the nobility decided it would be dandy to use the peasants as cannon fodder (sound familiar?) and the Plantagenets got kicked out of France (this may have been the last war actually won by France). As to the Holy War, why do religious Zealots feel that separation of church and state is a one way street? Look at those countries that mix government and religion (I don't know, say Iraq?) they have a dandy society, don't they? So we have Senator McCain who is too liberal for the conservative branch of the right wing party and Governor Huckabee who is too conservative for almost everybody. It's going to be bolts from heaven against blasts from tanks. Oh, my!

    It looked for a while like the Democrats were, irony of ironies, going to provide some civility to the political scene. That was until Senators Obama and Clinton had "Plays nice with each other" expunged from their permanent record. They haven't exactly slipped into the primordial ooze at this point, but they are on a slippery slope and they both need to wash their hands more often. This one could be the silliest of all since both candidates have almost exactly the same views, they merely differ on methodology. We're still going to have to listen to endless debate about the best way to split hairs. Give me a break!

    Ok, so silly is as silly does. What can The Rest of Us do about it? First of all we can stop reacting to the Cult of Rove, or "Rovism". This is the almost unAmerican practice of character assassination, slander and/or rumor mongering perfected by George II's good buddy Carl Rove. If you can't beat 'em, lie about 'em. This tactic appeals to the worst in The Rest of Us. It heightens our fears, our biases, our prejudges. Another aspect of Rovism is the mistaken belief that one side is always right an the other is always wrong. This is patently nonsense. When did the fine art of compromise become so distasteful? Since when is working for the common good intolerable? What got this country where it was a decade or so ago was the ability to come together in common cause and work through our differences. There are those who will tell you that there is only one way to move forward and that is their way and anyone who doesn't agree or has another idea is blatantly abhorrent to the American Way. This is not only silly, it is detrimental to a free society.

    The next thing that we can do is heed the advice of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, speaking before the Dial in Dublin, Ireland in June of 1963 "The problems of this world cannot possibly be solved by cynics or pessimists whose horizons are bound by obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were."

    We have been taken over by stearn faced cynics and pessimists who tell us that we are headed to hell in a handcart unless we fall into lockstep with their very limited view of the horizon. We don't need to be told how bad we can be, we need to dream of how good we can be. A Europen friend of mine once told me that his part of the world always admired the United States because if something was needed, Americans would invent it. That was pre-911. Is it that we have reached such a silly season in our society that we have forgotten how to societaly invent? Have we forgoten that this nation was built on dreams? I certainly don't believe that we have.

Or is it just me?

In The Land Of The Great Decider

CharlesChuckFox — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 21:12:00 GMT

    Is it just me or are the rest of us being punched around, politically, by a right cross and a left jab?
    It was sunrise over Demming, New Mexico and the good ol’ boys were gathering at a great little café for breakfast. They arrived in ones and twos, talking of cattle prices, feed costs, the weather and the equipment auction coming up that weekend. They wore a variety of cowboy hats, John Deere baseball caps, NAPA Auto parts hats and a couple of major league baseball team caps. After ordering coffee, bacon, eggs, pancakes and hash browns the conversation turned to politics.
    Politics these days inevitably means Iraq and one good ol’ boy ventured that “Dubbya” had it right, teach “them Godless A-rabs a lesson. Protect our interest!” A gentleman across the table countered that we had no business being there and should “bring all our boys home tomorrow.” The rest of the group looked into their coffee cups. About this time the last of the group arrived, he was the spitting image of the Marlboro man, tall, square jawed, tan, silver hair. He removed his cowboy hat when he sat down (his momma taught him right) and ordered coffee, sausage and eggs and pancakes. Murmurs of “Hey, Jimmy” and “good to see you back, Jimmy” greeted him.
    “I heard y’all talking about Iraq as I walked in,” the big man said, voice low and deep, “and y’all know I just got back from Arlington, laying Jimmy, Jr. to rest.” Words of sympathy rumbled around the table. “I Had a lot of time to think on the plane, back and forth. I joined the Marines and went to Viet Nam believing that there were a bunch of dominoes ready to fall if we didn’t stop the commies. We were told that if they weren’t blown away, they would be crossing the Golden Gate tomorrow.” The good ol’ boy who had espoused admiration for ‘Dubbya’ avowed that Jimmy, Sr. had that right. His eyes firmly set on the good ol’ boy, Jimmy, Sr. said with a set jaw, “Our folks in D.C. lied to us. Jimmy, Jr. went into the Marines and to Iraq because our folks in D.C. said that they had all sorts of weapons that could wipe out millions of people. They lied to us and Jimmy, Jr. paid the price. I know, Al, you want to blow ‘em all away because they don’t pray like you do and they have oil that we want. And Slim, you don’t want to fight anyone, for any reason. What about the rest of us? You all knew Jimmy, Jr. You watched him play football. He dated some of your daughters. He worked on some of your spreads. He was a good, smart kid. You tell me… what did he die for?” The right and the left stared into their coffee cups. The rest of them just sadly shook their heads.
    The rest of us. There’s something to think about. We get bombarded from the extreme right by talk radio poseurs and TV buffoons who make up whatever is convenient, both with obvious agendas. We are preached to by the extreme left by self righteous, self proclaimed arbiters of freedom whose agenda mostly revolves around decrying the positions of the far right. A sorry state of affairs on both sides.
    Then there are the rest of us. Those of us who believe in “the common good.” Who believe that “Liberal” and “Conservative”, far from being dirty words, are traditionally rich staples of the political pantry. Who believe that coming to a compromise is in the best traditions of the American Way. Who also believe that there are principals worth fighting for, but there better be good reasons to fight and we should never throw the first punch.
    The rest of us are tired of hearing that if we don’t agree with a particular position, we should leave the country. It has been the debate of differences of opinion that has made this country strong. The rest of us are tired of hearing that one side or the other has the only patriotic position and if you don’t agree with it, then you don’t love your country. The rest of us are REALLY tired of hearing that if we question what is going on in Iraq or the Middle East we somehow hate the troops stationed there. This is patently nonsense. The rest of us want to make damn sure that our alleged leaders never again put our troops in harm’s way for self-serving, nefarious reasons. The rest of us should take it upon ourselves to make sure that our troops never again become the cannon fodder of hysterical, paranoid and divisive diatribes from the right and left.
    Jimmy, Sr. asked “what did he die for?” The radical right will tell you that he died protecting our freedoms, our way of life, our America. Maybe. The loony left will tell you that he died for nothing more than oil. Perhaps. The rest of us suspect that there is a measure of political power at stake and huge measures of money, greed, avarice and corruption added for spice. There is also a macho factor that has no place in conflict management.
    The best that the rest of us can offer Jimmy, Sr. right now are our prayers and the hope that his son’s death will spur on a few more of us to take a good, hard look at those who profit from war, both monetarily and politically.
Or is it just me?