A eureka moment

I’m currently teaching a concentrated summer course with lots of terrific students, so I have no spare time because I’m swamped with that. Hence, no more new posts. But this just came to me when responding to a student’s reading journal, and I needed to write it down.

The political rhetoric in this country is mind-numbing. I think that’s part of the problem for the American people. Their minds are numbed.

It’s that simple. So many politicians use the same hackneyed phrases to discuss deep, complicated issues that they’ve managed to bore us to ennui.

OK, so I know this is reductionist, simplistic and probably not even true. But I’m stumped.

I’ve been back in the States for a year now, and I’m more discouraged than ever. What’s happened to the American people? I’m generalizing, of course, as there are millions of active, thinking Americans out there. I’ve met a number of them since I’ve been back. But after teaching a ratio of about 100 zombies to 20 live sparks this year, I’m concerned. I’m beyond concerned.

Got to get back to my grad students, who have certainly bolstered my faith in American education, but more on this to come!

Why Impeach for Lies? As Long as there was no sex….

Monday evening, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the guy I was supporting for president, brought to the House floor 35 article for the impeachment of President Bush, mostly for issues of lying and war-mongering.  I watched part of it live on C-SPAN and waited with glee for some coverage in the press.

Yesterday, my beloved Gray Lady (the NY Times), had this to say:

National Briefing | Washington

Kucinich Seeks to Impeach Bush

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: June 11, 2008

Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, defied his party leadership on Monday by calling for the impeachment of President Bush for starting the war in Iraq — but his move was not expected to go anywhere. Mr. Kucinich, a former presidential candidate, outlined his intention to propose more than two dozen charges against Mr. Bush on the floor of the House. He accused Mr. Bush of executing a “calculated and wide-ranging strategy” to deceive citizens and Congress into believing that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly said she opposes trying to remove Mr. Bush, calling such an effort divisive and most likely unsuccessful.

And that, it seems, is the end of that.

If you google Kucinich + impeachment, you see a lot about the articles he brought against VP Cheney (I bet you missed that one, too), but not much about what happened this week.  Folks are too involved with the heat wave in the North East, the floods in the Midwest and gas prices, I guess.  Can’t blame the administration for the former, but the latter?  Maybe.

For me, this all points to the travesty of justice in American government.  President Bill Clinton faced an impeachment hearing over his role in the Monica Lewinski scandal.  He wasn’t brought up for the Monica part, but for the lying and obstruction of justice part.  Fair enough.  But why was the Lewinski scandal a scandal?  Who got hurt?  A young, she was only 21, naive girl (which is a shame), a wife (which is a shame, too), and that’s about it.  Since when is marital infidelity any one’s business but the people involved?  So the American taxpayer footed the bill for the impeachment hearings over what basically amounted to a very bad lapse of judgment on the part of the president of  the United States that ultimately harmed no one but the very small group of people involved.

People argue that the “office of the president” was tarnished.  Yes, it was.  It’s not the first time the White House has seen a sex scandal, and my guess is that it won’t be the last time.  But now, almost ten years after those proceedings, Bill Clinton is doing OK, Monica Lewinsky has earned an MA from the London School of Economics, Hillary has been in the news a bit lately.  Many think the Lewinsky scandal did harm her chances for becoming president.  I’m sure they didn’t help, but she did make it to senator with little problem.  That’s not a small accomplishment. (The Times of London did an in-depth “Where are they now” feature for the 10th anniversary of the scandal.  The Lewinsky segment is very enlightening.)

But Democratic leadership refuses to impeach President Bush for lying to the people of the United States in a situation that resulted in a war in which thousands of American lives have been lost, tens of thousands of foreign lives have been lost, America’s economic future has been destroyed for the foreseeable future, and our moral authority in the world has been irreparably damaged.

Could someone explain the logic of this to me, because I certainly don’t understand.

Lying is wrong.  Yes.  Clinton was wrong.  Many argued that if he showed poor moral character in this regard, it points to poor moral character all around.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Hey, Henry Kissinger said it best with his famous quip, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”  And many people in power use that aphrodisiac.  It’s more about the ego than the libido.

But in my moral scales, somehow Clinton’s actions seem so petty, so unimportant in the big picture.  But Bush’s actions?  I think they demonstrate a much scarier lack of moral judgment and responsibility.

Obviously, though, the leadership of the United States doesn’t agree with me.  Well, one man does, but he’s been marginalized.

Hillary and the Women’s Vote? What’s with that?

As most of the Western world now knows, Hillary Clinton has dropped out of the Democratic primary race.  And now, many pundits are asking, “who will get the ‘women’s vote’ now?”  I think someone forgot to pass me that memo–the one that said I had to vote for Hillary because she’s a woman and I’m a woman.  I didn’t realize that’s the way it works.  Silly me.  I thought I was supposed to vote based on issues and beliefs.  Oh, and in case you didn’t get the memo, either, black people are supposed to vote for Barack Obama because he’s black.

Does that mean that white men all have to vote for John McCain?  That can’t be right!  That would have meant that for the past 232 years of American democracy, only white men could have voted.

Naaaa, that only lasted till 1869 when black men got the vote.  White and black women got the vote in 1920.  So blacks and women have been voting on the issues for the past 88 years.  While it’s nice to have someone “like us” to vote for, I don’t think that can be the only criterion.

Seriously, though, I know that this was an historic primary in the US.  It’s the first time a woman was a viable candidate, and it marks the first time a black man will be a viable candidate–the candidate of one of the two major parties.  I think that’s wonderful, of course.  It’s added proof for my belief that America is finally, finally, after almost 400 years of history, transcending race and gender as issues.  It’s a great “first” for the history books, but do race and gender really matter anymore?  They shouldn’t.

There’s the rub, of course.  They shouldn’t matter, but of course, they do.  I like to think that America has moved beyond race and gender, but one minute’s viewing of television, and I know my country has not.  All I have to do is live my life to see the reality.  But since when has the best of America been about reality?  It’s about the ideal–the “more perfect union.”

To be fair, I have yet to see a place where race, gender, or even class don’t matter,  but that’s not my point here.

My point is that I don’t want to be lumped in the “woman” group.  I’m a woman, but that’s not all I am.  In fact, if you asked me to describe myself in 8 nouns, woman wouldn’t be one of them.  It’s part of who I am, but not all, not by a long shot.

When I used to teach in NYC, when we’d be discussing the triumvirate of educational “hot buttons,” (race, gender, class), I used to ask my predominantly non-white students if they saw me as white or a woman or a teacher.  They almost always answered “teacher.”  But when I asked how they saw me on the first day, the answer was always “white,” with the implied “of course” in their voices.  I would argue that I didn’t see them as their color, and I didn’t, but we came to the conclusion that I didn’t have to.  I was in the power position no matter what their race or gender, so I could ignore it.  But put me in a room with strangers, and I can immediately tell you the man-woman ratio.  I’m not always in an adversarial relationship with men, but the potential danger is always there, and I have to be ready for it.  That’s reality.

I know I seem to be contradicting myself here, and on some levels I am, but not totally.  One-on-one, gender matters.  In terms of safety or power struggles, gender matters.  In administrative decisions?  In who is best to run a country?  I don’t think that gender matters.  Nor does race.

As a woman, I’ve not had the luxury of being able to vote for people just because they are women.  I’ve voted for plenty of women in the past, but I can honestly say that I’ve never voted for someone because she was a woman.  I’m much more likely to vote for someone based on party lines than gender or race lines.

And Obama has had my vote since Kucinich dropped out of the race.  Pundits might have predicted I’d vote for Hillary, but I didn’t.  Of the people who know me, one summed it up best when she said, “Of course, you’d be voting for the dyed-in-the-wool idealist.”  Obama got my vote on the second bounce based on the issues.  Of the people left standing, I think he’s the best for the job.  I still think he’s too young and too untested–he doesn’t have that much experience of politics on the national level–but maybe that’s a good thing at this point.

Today’s CNN headline says that some of Hillary Clinton’s 18 million voters are hesitant to back Obama.  According to a CNN poll, 17% of Clinton supporters now say they will back McCain.  I don’t get it.  Clinton and Obama’s stands were so close that I agonized over my decision.  The deciding issue for me was the war in Iraq.  Perhaps those 17% like McCain’s plan for the war, but I have to wonder if there’s not a more nefarious reason.

I started out wanting to complain about stereotyping and the media lumping people together, and here I am, starting to do the same thing.  Scary.

At the ending of my musing, I get back to Hope.  That word is a key one in Obama’s campaign, and I think that’s what he does represent.  Many of my students don’t vote.  They are vocal about not voting because
“what’s the point–it doesn’t change anything”.  And yes, that’s a quote from students.  Maybe the young people are starting to see that it does make a difference.  Don’t vote for someone because of their race or gender, but voting does make a difference.

Culture shock, again? Yeah!!

One thing that has definitely shocked me during this year’s sojourn is the level of culture shock I’m experiencing.  How could NY be so close and yet culturally so far?  I don’t know why I’m surprised.  I used to tell my Swedish students that the US is made up of 46 sovereign states and 4 commonwealths, and each state has its own subtle differences.  I thought I was overstating to make a point.  Seems like I wasn’t!  Well, maybe I was a bit.  It’s more like there are regional differences.  As much as it pains me to say this, New Yorkers have a lot in common with folks from Jersey (um, that’s tongue-in-cheek–I have relatives in Jersey, and in fact, that’s where some of my earliest ancestors to the States started out).   NY-NJ-PA, we’re the Middle States.  We’re nothing like these New Englanders!

Of course, I have some students here from Connecticut, and they say they don’t understand the folks from MA.  So it’s a series of variations amongst variations.

I had thought that our being American transcended other differences, and when we’re in Europe or Asia, it definitely does.  But when we’re just interacting with one another, it’s back to regional differences.  I’ve had to come to the sad realization that my students here in MA just don’t understand me.  One of those students, born in NYC, with relatives in NYC still, but reared here, confirmed my suspicions when he told me flat out, “they don’t get you”.  Before I moved to Asia, I’d never lived out of NY, and I worked for city and state schools, so I only taught immigrants or native New Yorkers.  Who knew kids from NE were so different?  I really thought mass internet and television exposure had homogenized Americans.  It has, to some extent, but obviously not fully.

My mom’s dad was from Virginia, so as a child, she would make visits down there to see his side of the family.  She remembers it was like going to a different country.  Not only were the flora and fauna very different, there were also different stores, different food, different styles of dress, and in those days, segregation, a system of apartheid she just couldn’t understand.  She lives down south now as a retiree, and while she still feels like she’s “somewhere else,” it’s a totally different place from the south of her childhood.

And on some levels, I expect the south to be different.  Psychologically speaking, the Mason-Dixon line is still there.  Applying for jobs down there, I knew to expect a different type of student.  I knew the demographics were totally different.  But I think geography threw me.  MA is right next to NY.  How could people here be so different?  Stupid, I know, especially for someone who has lived in Europe.  Switzerland is right next to Italy. Totally different worlds!  Sweden is right next to Denmark.  People from those two countries, while very similar, really get on one another’s nerves!  Why should New York and Massachusetts be different?

So I hear you asking, what are those differences?  Well, for what is traditionally the most liberal state in the Union, Massachusetts has an awfully conservative population, and I mean that both politically and socially.  To me, they don’t seem as open as New Yorkers.  When sober (remember, I teach college students–the age of the binge drinker), they are definitely quieter than New Yorkers.  There’s a more circumspect way of approaching things that I didn’t expect.  In New York, when you’re acting stupid, people will tell you.  Perfect strangers have no problem telling you to straighten up and act right.  Loudly.  Often in colorful language.  So even when I tone myself way down, in their perception, I’m still rude to them.  I’m sorry.  If you do something unacceptable in my class, I’m going to tell you.  I kind of think that’s part of my job.  But nope.  I’m thinking I’m expected to ignore it.  As you can probably tell, this is a subject I’ll be getting back to!

I think they save all of their aggression and self expression for driving.  People from Massachusetts warned me about MA drivers–affectionately called “Massholes” even by one another.  Compared to Taiwan drivers, they are downright civilized, but then Taiwan drivers are the worst I’ve ever seen.  They make driving in NYC feel like a Sunday drive in the country.  Frankly, I feel safer driving in NYC rush hour/holiday traffic than I do driving around town here in MA.  I believe in being a defensive driver, but people here seem to think it’s my responsibility to avoid being hit.  Once I figured that out, all was fine!

So yes, this is a theme I will be exploring in the future, but I wanted to sound them out a bit here.  Stay tuned for more regional prejudices, I mean, observations, to come in the days ahead!

School’s Out! The Broad is trying to get back!

Teaching full time plus does not leave a lot of time for writing blogs.  It doesn’t leave a lot of time for doing much of anything, actually.  And on many levels this has been an exhausting year–my first back in the US after 13 years.  Back teaching a practically whole new generation American kids.  Most of my students this year were about 5-8 years old when I left America.  I tell you, there’s a huge difference.  I’ll be writing about in the weeks to come, and in fact right now I’m writing an academic paper on that very subject.  I’ll be “treating” you to a mainstream version soon.

Right now I’m processing a lot of what I experienced this year.  And because I’m a writer, I’m going to be writing about it, probably a lot.

I’m also having a great experience right now.  I’m teaching a grad class on American Idealism.  I picked the topic because it is a theme of what I want to address in the book I’m working on.  I thought have a bunch of grad students to talk things through with would help.  It is, immensely.  I’m so lucky to have a great group of multi-disciplinary students–people from history, literature, education and law.  I feel like the pistons are really firing in my brain, so I should be able to write more frequently.

So stay tuned and thanks for your patience!