August 22, 2010 by Jim Israel

He’s a Piece of Work, But He’s Not the Only One –“I f—in’ busted my ass and pissed people off and gave your grandmother a free f—in’ ride on a bus, O.K? I gave your f—in’ baby a chance to have health care… And what do I get for that? Only thirteen per cent of you out there think I’m doing a good job. So f— all of you.”

A lovely sonnet from none other than the poet laureate of American politics, Ron Blagojevitch, former governor of Illinois.  We’re all been titillated by the blasphemous bleatings of Blago,  of course, but Mr. Gripes wants to let his readers in on a secret: there’s no politician alive that does not harbor not only similar contemptuous, dismissive feelings about his constituency, but in their hearts they’re anti-democratic despots as well.

Yes, Mr. Blagojevitch is a “few sandwiches short of a picnic,” as the saying goes, and he was incredibly egocentric and obtuse not to presume his telephones were tapped.  Plus, he’s certainly a vain and desperately insecure politician. But, Mr. Gripes actually appreciates Mr. Blagojevitch for what he’s accomplished: opening up the lid, and letting the fetid air of our political septic tank emerge into the daylight. How politicians operate inside their inner sanctums, away from prying eyes, was exposed. It’s a 24/7 brass-knuckled, cynical world of deals, deals, deals, in exchange for ever-flowing cash, cash, cash.  Upholding democratic principles and keeping the republic safe from our enemies? You must be kidding. They are #2,731 and #2,732 on the ‘To-Do’ list.

Every national politician in this country pontificates on the sanctity of our Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and genuflects at the altar of free, unencumbered elections and the principle of one-man, one-vote.

They’re lying. Their behaviors point to just the opposite.

Politicians, no matter how powerful, are frightened to death they’ll be turned out by voters. They’re scared bleepless. So, they attempt to manipulate and ‘fix’ the system. Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who will face token opposition in an election in 2012, raises $24 million for his campaign fund. His weak opponent, whoever that is, won’t have $1 million to run a campaign.  Just think about $24 million for a moment. It’s crazy, right? Not to Mr. Schumer.

That $24 million wouldn’t be needed if Mr. Schumer ran in 40 campaigns. It’s raised to intimidate any opposition from even running. ‘I’ve got a zillion dollars, and I’ll squash you like the pathetic , enfeebled insect you are.’ That’s Mr. Schumer’s war-cry. A fair fight, with both candidates presenting their positions for the voters to mull over and decide? No way. Mr. Schumer is a coward and a bully.

One more example:  Sheldon Silver, present Speaker of the House in the New York State Assembly, was elected in 1976 to the Assembly, and became Speaker in 1994. No one, not even Queen Beatrice of the Netherlands, has a safer seat. He could appoint Charles Manson as his chief aide-de-camp and still win an upcoming election.

Earlier this year, a resident in his district had the temerity to initiate a process of opposing Mr. Silver in the Democratic primary. He goes about securing 500 signatures in the district, a requirement for a run for the Assembly seat. Now, mind you, Mr. Silver can’t lose – he’d win by a 10-to-1 margin. His opposition probably has about $345 in his campaign war chest, left over from his bar-mitzvah, and just enough maybe to buy doughnuts and coffee during the campaign. He’s got no shot.

But, Mr. Silver, paranoid and frightened, opts to contest every signature tooth-and-nail, and manages to eliminate enough names to prevent the opposition candidate from entering the primary.  [One can only imagine how assiduous officials were in combing through those signatures: ‘no dot atop the ‘i’ -- kill it.’  After all, the officials are probably beholden to Mr. Silver for their jobs.]

The last thing Mr. Silver wants to do is face actual voters who would have a legitimate choice – he’s just another Soviet-Politburo despot in sheep’s clothing . He’s a muscle-guy who knows he can  strong-arm everybody.

Mr. Gripes has always enjoyed the political arena. And, it’s not principally the hyper-competition that has intrigued him. No, it’s the mind-boggling, outrageous hypocrisy of the game that really hooks Mr. Gripes. We’re all heard forever the high-falutin speeches on Democracy, Economic Opportunity for All, The Great Wisdom of the Forefathers, The Simple Virtues of the American People, Free Speech, blah, blah, blah. The reality? Small-minded, egomaniacal, avaricious, cynical, bitter men desperately clinging to power.  Shakespeare says it best: ‘the insolence of office.’

I Do Believe – Mr. Gripes is not a religious man, by any account. As a child, in fact, one day my fourth-grade teacher, Ms. Loos, asked each of us to write an essay on the nature of our family’s religious beliefs [Yes, in those days, teachers could ask those kinds of questions without a listener of Limbaugh threatening to smash her head in with a two-by-four.] I dutifully went home, and asked my father, “What religion are we?” My dad, who was slotted in his large Orthodox family to be a rabbi but who, at 14 or 15, said, “No way,” and never looked back, glared at me, asserting rather forcefully, “Listen, tomorrow when you go back to school, tell that teacher of yours, ‘The Israels are intense secularists’.” I didn’t know precisely what my dad was talking about, and I don’t remember my teacher’s response, but I certainly do recall that I did not have to write that essay.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally figured out what religion is all about.

I was in the midst of a week-long solo vacation in the South, attending minor league baseball games in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. The weather was hellacious – 95 everyday – but the food was celestial: barbecue [ribs and brisket], fried chicken, smoked turkey, sides of okra, baked beans and lima beans. One evening as I was driving down 121, a two-lane road between Greenville SC and Augusta, and enjoying the All-Elvis satellite radio station, Elvis Presley starts with You’ll Never Walk Alone:

” …And don’t be afraid of the dark,

At the end of a storm is a golden sky

And the sweet silver song of a lark.

Walk on through the wind, [soft, but building]

Walk on through the rain,

Tho’ your dreams be tossed and blown.

Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart [louder, with background chorus]

And you’ll never walk alone. [louder, with chorus]

You’ll never, ever walk alone. [even more powerful, with chorus]

Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart

And you’ll never walk alone.

You’ll never, ever walk alone. [reaching a crescendo, with chorus]

Mr. Gripes, twenty minutes after a delicious supper,  is driving fast, 75 or 80 miles an hour, no other cars on the road, amidst beautiful pines, on a soft, warm evening, in the heart of a most courteous and  gentle South: it’s Elvis country. Mr. Gripes sets the volume as high as it can go. Mr. Presley, in that gorgeous, baritone voice of his, sings more powerfully with each refrain of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. [No one sang Gospel like Elvis.] And, for about 2 minutes and 34 seconds, Mr. Gripes, really too old for this, finally experienced divine ecstasy.

Young Man, Herman Melville? – Mr. Gripes has an appointment in an hour. He needs to get on the subway and ride into Manhattan. First, though, he decides to return a couple of books to his local library. He allows for a few minutes to complete the task. He gets in line at the ‘return’ desk. UH-OH.

In front of Mr. Gripes, a mother, a young child in tow, is returning some books. They’re thin books, children’s books. And, she’s not just ‘returning’ books, she’s taking them out as well. Staggering under a pile that, on close examination, looks like 30 books being returned, and 30 books being taken out, along with a dozen or so being renewed, Mr. Gripes can only seethe, and mumble under his breath a jet-stream of epithets that would embarrass a marine. It sure looks like he’s going to be late for lunch.

Mr. Gripes instinctively knows what he’s dealing with. He constructs the profile: her husband is general counsel of a Wall Street financial firm, in charge of making sure overtly illegal strategems are so opaque they’re invisible to the SEC, and pulling down a half-million dollars a year; she’s on extended maternity leave from one more superfluous media relations company; she was cashing in at $200,000 before her leave.

Despite all the trappings of a wildly successful life, Mom is very anxious. Her son, Josh, after all, will be attending school in a couple of years, pre-school, then kindergarten, and someday college. There’s no time to waste. So, she comes to the library every couple of weeks and takes out another 30 books to read to her darling Josh. She’ll read and read to Josh; after all, her husband’s alma mater will be so much harder to get into in 15 years.

Mom wants Josh to be able to read by the time he’s five. He’ll be so ahead of his classmates, and that $40,000 pre-school in Manhattan will open its elegant French doors to Josh with open arms. Josh, like any three-year-old, just wants to play with his toys, kick a ball, build his blocks, and look at books with huge pictures of animals in them. No, no, Mom insists. You’re going to sit here and I’m going to read to you, and you’ll learn how to read. And, we’ll run through multiplication tables, too. Mom is in deep denial:  the reality is that if poor Josh read a book an hour for the next three weeks, he still couldn’t get through all the books Mom’s taken out.

Mom’s a little crazed, and very anxious. Her expectations are that her son will be able to read Updike by five, Dickens at seven, and Thomas Pynchon by nine. And, ah, as a throw-in, memorize the electronic orbits of the halogens by ten. Mom and Dad only want the best for him.

Mr. Gripes feels very fortunate he grew up when children were treated as children. Most of our fathers, sons of immigrants, were raised under rather meager economic conditions, and, as adults, had to fight in a war that demanded additional years of sacrifice; consequently, they wished very much, and worked very hard, to allow their children to enjoy carefree, plentiful childhoods. There were virtually no demands on us, except going to school. Mr. Gripes used to walk out his front door in the morning, with no oppressive schedule on his plate, and not return until his mother clanged a large bell summoning all of us for dinner.

Today, it seems every moment of the day is pre-arranged and structured for children. And, anxiety about getting into this kindergarten or that high school is creating too much pressure on kids. So much is expected of them. Where is the spontaneity that should define a childhood? It’s all so robotic.

As for my reading habits early on, no, I did not have to read Nathaniel Hawthorne at six. Nor Thomas Wolfe at nine.  For non-fiction, later on, I read by the barrelful insipid, adoring American hagiographies, like Lou Gehrig, Thomas Edison or Ulysses Grant. For fiction, worse: I devoured Chip Hilton novels [Mr. Hilton was an athlete who competed in, it seemed, about 1,500 sports], for one; I read all of the John Tunis juvenile baseball novels, and each of the Hardy Boys stories. My absolute favorite book?  ‘Freddie the Pig Plays Football.’ So, for all you hypertensive mothers out there, calm down: there’s plenty of time for Dostoyevsky.

But, I’m daydreaming. I’m still on line and this damn woman looks like she’s going to be checking out books for weeks. Lunch, including spicy chicken with peanuts, Hunan-style, in Chinatown is gone.

August 22, 2010

Jim Israel

Mistergripes.com