The Fractured States of America

I start to write this having just come from a 9/11 memorial at the fire station, which is kind of ironic considering the subject material. That’s because September 11, 2001 was the day that brought us all together after a contentious 2000 presidential election, in which Al Gore won the popular vote but not the electoral vote. More than half the country had a president it didn’t vote for. Everybody was either Red State or Blue State. We weren’t America anymore. Things were starting to get a little ugly.

But that all changed when some extremist lunatics vaporized nearly 3,000 American civilians on a beautiful sunny Tuesday morning.

Suddenly, American flags were everywhere: on homes, on buildings, sticking out of car windows, hanging off of bridge overpasses. People were donating money by the millions to the Red Cross and other charitable organizations, to help the victims and their families. We were all a little more polite, a little more patient, a little more tolerant. I think we just didn’t know when a plane was going to scream out of the sky into our kitchen, and we didn’t want our last moments on Earth or the last impression on the people around us to be that of an angry jerk.

So we were all on the same page again, with the exception of some wack-a-loons who probably still think 9/11 was an inside job. We invaded Iraq, invaded Afghanistan, killed off most of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, caught and killed Saddam Hussein, bought houses and big flat-screen TVs, put magnets supporting our troops on the backs of our SUVs, and America was great again.

Then we figured out there was no way out of Iraq and that we didn’t do enough in Afghanistan. Then we had another election, and though that one wasn’t as close as 2000, it was probably more rancorous, reopening those Red State/Blue State wounds. Then gasoline went up over 4 dollars a gallon. Then we found out about secret prisons where the people we captured in Iraq and Afghanistan were abused and tortured. We still had no way out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and more and more of our soldiers were dying. We still hadn’t found Bin Laden. People started pointing fingers again. Then the economy tanked—big time—and that was the final straw. We found out that if you hit Americans in their pocketbooks, nothing else really matters. The gloves come off. The left blamed the right for allowing and encouraging all the corruption and greed in Corporate America. The right blamed the left for pushing into houses people that couldn’t afford mortgages, thereby nearly destroying the banking and real estate industries. The president at the time was on his way out, a lame duck who was not going to be able to do thing one about very much at all.

Enter the 2008 election. Now I will state up front that I voted for Barack Obama, but that I would have been, with the exception of knowing Sarah Palin was a 73-year old heartbeat away from the presidency, very comfortable with John McCain as president. I think he’s a good and decent man, just as I think Obama is. But people couldn’t see that. The campaign was broken down to The Empty Suit vs. More Of The Same. It was All Talk, No Action vs. the Grumpy Old Man. And when Obama won, it seemed that, finally, while not a landslide by any means, there seemed to actually be a general feeling of relief that it was over, and a chance for fresh start. Even the classy McCain tried to impart a spirit of cooperation with his concession speech, saying he’d work with the President however he could, and scolding those who booed.

Well, here we are less than eight months into BHO’s presidency, and any feelings of optimism and cooperation have been completely flushed down the toilet. We’ve gone Thelma and Louise into a divide that might not be able to be repaired. Ever.

And the evidence of having reached that divide is stark: I present the boorish behavior of Congressmen Joe Wilson of South Carolina and John Shimkus of—you guessed it—Illinois. During the President’s health care address to a joint session of Congress, Wilson shouted “You LIE!” in the middle of the speech, in front of the whole world. And Shimkus flat got up and walked out. Now, whether you agree with Wilson and Shimkus or not, those are just things you don’t do—at least, apparently, up until now.

Congressman Wilson apologized almost immediately, saying his emotions got the better of him. But a lot of people defended him, saying the breach of respect was justified. And how many of the Republicans who professed dismay over Wilson’s outburst were actually secretly wishing they had the church bells to do that? There was actually such little fallout because of his immediate apology and the President’s subsequent acceptance, that, in fact, the next day, Wilson said that while he stood by his apology, he defiantly said in a web video seeking campaign donations that he wasn’t going to back down from his attacks. Shimkus’s mouthpiece, meanwhile said the Congressman left after hearing the president repeat "an accumulation of rehashed talking points." Nice.

That’s certainly their Founding Fathers-given rights, but I fear the lack of consequences will further embolden those who believe Wilson and Shimkus were justified in their behavior and lead to a complete catastrophic breakdown of any remaining decorum in this country. I’m not just pointing at the right, either. When people on the left do it in the future—and they will—the right will naturally complain, but the excuse will be the ever-popular (and mature!) defense: “but you did it too!”

What bothers me most is that the number of people with whom you can have a logical, reasonable discussion about the issues is evaporating rapidly. It used to be that the only ideologues out there were politicians, old people and college students. But now you can’t talk to a soccer mom without discovering in about point-three seconds where she stands on health care, even if you’re discussing plans for the PTA fundraiser. (Here’s how any phone conversation with my dad can go, by the way—Dad: “So how’s everybody?” Me: “Pretty good. The girls have swimming coming up, and then we’re going to…” Dad [interrupting]: “Yeah, so how about that Nancy f*cking Pelosi. That’s one scary broad. You see what she and Harry Reid are trying to stick in that health care bill?” This is no exaggeration. Except for him interrupting. He might let me finish my sentence.) Either you’re right or you’re left, you’re right or you’re wrong, you goose-step to Rush or guzzle the Olbermann-Aide, and if you don’t agree with me, I’m going to yell at you and insult you until we part ways or come to blows.

And it’s making me very afraid of what’s next. Obviously, any civility or decency in a public forum is completely out the window. The town hall meetings on health care have been bad enough. But with Wilson’s scot-free verbal assault in the middle of the President’s address in the middle of the House of Representatives, it’s just going to get that much worse. You’re going to see a lot more personal attacks on not only our elected officials, but among other people in the room who are in disagreement. You’re going to see a lot more verbally along the lines of what you might have in the past only read in anonymous online comments. If there haven’t already been—and I suspect there have—you’ll see flat-out fistfights at these things. And what’s going to happen when the President makes an appearance somewhere—anywhere? After all, aside, perhaps, from a courtroom, church or funeral parlor, there is no place that’s even close to requiring the decorum expected inside the U.S. Capitol. So what happens when the President makes a campaign stop at a Chick-Fil-A on Main Street, USA? Are we going to see someone HERE throwing a shoe?

Or, perhaps, the unthinkable: someone throwing a bullet?

In fact, I made that comment just last night. I would not be surprised if, in the next three months, somebody takes a shot at him. And then, Katie Rose bar the door.

Somebody won’t go after him because he’s a Democrat. Somebody won’t go after him because of the Economic Stimulus Bill. Somebody won’t go after him because of health care reform. Somebody won’t go after him because of the silliness over his birth certificate. And somebody won’t go after him because he’s black, either, although that will likely be the perception, thus triggering a race war in this country that will make Watts look like a charity picnic.

Somebody will do it because his “emotions got the better of him.” And nothing is off the table anymore.

So to answer the long standing question posed by Rodney King in the wake of the L.A. riots, “Can’ t we all just get along?”—

No. No, we can’t. Sorry, Mr. King. And that means, like all great civilizations that collapse and die under the weight of their own corruption, greed and internal strife, the beginning of the end is, in my humble opinion, coming sooner rather than later for the Fractured States of America.

Fire that [expletive]er. [expletive] 'em.

As I sit here and ponder the events of the past couple days regarding Rodney R. Blagojevich, soon-to-be-former-Governor of the State of Illinois, [henceforth to be known as “Blago” because a) ‘Blagojevich’ is too long and difficult of a letter combination to repeatedly type whilst on narcotics and b) I sure as hell ain’t calling him ‘Governor’ no more], a strange parallel keeps leaping to mind. Do you remember the scene in the movie “Animal House” when Otter stands up before the Interfraternity Council hearing to defend the Deltas against Niedermayer and Marmalard and Dean Wormer? (“I’m pre law.” “I thought you were pre med.” “What’s the difference?”)

Otter stands up and says something to the effect that you can’t blame a whole fraternity for a few bad apples, for if you do, isn’t it an indictment of the entire fraternity system, and if you indict the entire fraternity system, mustn’t you indict the university as a whole, and therefore the entire American way of life? (That’s when the Deltas walk out humming the Star Spangled Banner, in case your memory hasn’t been jogged yet.)

Here’s why I think of that silly scene, besides the fact that Blago’s defense during his upcoming impeachment hearings (he surely won’t resign--see below) will be only slightly more ridiculous than Otter’s: for as reprehensible as Blago is, he’s not the only one to blame. We need to blame the history of politics in Illinois (and Chicago specifically). We need to indict the historically acknowledged and approved pay-to-play system that put him there. We need to point the finger at the people who ultimately put him in the Governor’s mansion (if he actually lived there, that is).

We need to point the finger at you and me.

Even if you voted for Roland Burris, Jim Ryan, Judy Baar Topinka or Rich Whitney in 2002 or 2006, it’s just as much your fault as if you punched your pay stub, er, ballot, for Blago himself. You see, simply by casting a vote in an election for a statewide office in Illinois, you’re guilty.*

You’re guilty because by voting for one of those candidates, you weren’t working against all of them, even by choosing the lesser of two evils. Unless you ran for office yourself, you’re guilty. Unless you encouraged, financially backed, knocked on doors or handed out bumper stickers for somebody not affiliated with a political party in the State of Illinois, you’re guilty. Simply by allowing people the likes of Blago, Topinka, George Ryan, Dan Walker, Otto Kerner, Orville Hodge, William Lorimer, Len Small, Dan Rostenkowski, Ed Vrdolyak and scores of other Chicago aldermen to even get on a ballot, makes us all guilty by association.

I’m not talking about denying them their rights as Americans to run for office. I’m talking about our obligation as Americans to see through their self-serving bullshit.

My daddy taught me two things growing up: you never get something for nothing, and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. It seems that if the electorate in Illinois had a good dose of that common sense, we wouldn’t be in this mess today. Yet we still insist on voting for these people, whose egos are so bafflingly grand, whose lines of bullshit are so thick, I’m stumped as to how we were hornswaggled into not thinking this is too good to be true.

I’m not saying there aren’t good, qualified people in statewide elected office right now. There are probably a couple. But there is no one I trust, that’s for damn sure. I don’t think there’s a one of them that wouldn’t sell out a colleague or piss on a campaign promise if it wouldn’t get them more power or money from whatever the source, however ethically icky it might be. Maybe all politicians are like that. I hope not, but I’ve lived in Illinois all my life, grew up watching Fahey Flynn talk about the Council Wars in Chicago. My parents grew up in Fast Eddie’s famed 10th Ward on the Southeast Side of Chicago, for heaven’s sake. So, in my world, words like "honorable” and “decent” and “trust” don’t often appear anywhere close to the word “politician” in the same document.

My worry is that there’s no solution. I mean, we can hope this sudden light that been shone on Illinois’s kitchen and exposed all the Blagockroaches that have been scurrying about unabated for a hundred years now so that we can spray them with a giant can of Honest and figuratively kill them all. But how likely is that? Do we really trust other perhaps-not-quite-so-crooked-yet-still-crooked politicians to fix the mess that Blago, Ryan, et al. have gotten us into? (See above paragraph about trust.)

The quickest and simplest solution from where I’m sitting is to just break up the state. Split it in two. Chicago and the collar counties should be its own state (“Bladolyakowski”) and the rest of us could retain the name of Illinois. If you’re in that area and are offended by that, I’m sorry, but that’s where the bulk of the money, power and influence (and therefore corruption) resides. Border it off and let them grift it out to the death. If you live there and don't want to watch it implode from the front row, feel free to move to Illinois. But let the other 95 counties start over. Or, anything above I-80 could be its own state. You could keep the name Illinois, and we could be Southern Illinois, because, after all, everybody north of I-80 thinks anything south of that distinguished road is hick country anyway.

I think we should secede and establish the true Land of Lincoln and name it after him. After all, U.S. Attorney Pat Fitzgerald rightly said that what Blago has done would make Lincoln roll over in his grave. But I’ll go him one further: had Lincoln known what was going to happen in this place he once made hallow, he would have handed Booth the pistol himself.

The worst part of all of this is symbolized in a couple lines from this Associated Press report from December 10: “Ensconced in his downtown office, Blagojevich gave no sign he was contemplating resigning, and dispatched his spokeswoman, Kelley Quinn, to say it was ‘business as usual’ in his 16th-floor suite, situated a few blocks from Obama's transition headquarters.”

Business as usual. I don't know about you, but that scares the shit out of me. And nothing says more than that about Blago or the citizens of the State of Illinois who haven't yet stormed his office demanding his resignation.


*For the record, I didn’t vote for Blago in 2006. I voted for Green Party candidate Rich Whitney over him and Judy Baar Topinka, whom, I’m convinced would have been just as, if not more, corrupt than Blago-—not that that excuses him--I’m just sayin’. But I did vote for him the first time in 2002 when he ran against Jim Ryan. Sorry Abdul.