One of my favorite poems by Richard Brautigan ends thus
“My teachers could easily have ridden with Jesse James
for all the time they stole from me.”
I feel the same way about people who exert their authority to bore or obstruct.
Brautigan’s sentiment reflects I think not just the severity of the crime of boring a child, but also the crime of using a position of authority to subject a child to your boring ass, made worse by behaving self-righteously about it.
The association to Jesse James is not as merely to a thief, but to a capital criminal, having stolen youth, deserving to meet death by hanging, or any looming ignoble death, hastily arranged by unanimous consent.
Boring teachers are the least of it. I believe we could find universal condemnation of any bureaucrat who stands in the way of disclosure which would serve the public good, we’ve passed laws to punish not just bureaucrats who would impede justice.
Petty officials, loathsome hypocritical pedophiles -now we know it’s not just hyperbole, steely-eyed patronizing prigs. Such are men like Joe Lieberman. Today’s news is that Diebold does not deny the rumors of Lieberman’s likely win in November. Alarm bells are going off because Lieberman has been promised the chairmanship of two key subcommittees, both of which laymen Democrats had been thinking would be used to bring the Bush GOP to accounts. What would Harry Reid be doing in giving Lieberman those seats? Aren’t the Democrats running on the promise of setting matters straight? It’s said that Reid fears Lieberman would otherwise defect to the dark side. What part of Lieberman’s voting record offers us any representation otherwise?
Our Senator Salazar has been campaigning for Lieberbush, even though Lieberman was forced by his loss in the primaries to run as an independent. Party loyalty is one thing, but it’s not about political parties is it? Don’t tell grassroots party members they mustn’t discredit the party platform with extremism, yet at the same time reach to support an extreme right Democrat who’s finally thrown off his cloak in order to stay on the ticket. Lieberman needs to be kicked out of the party is what needs to happen.
When you just as easily eschew party affiliation to lobby for the opposition, because the candidate is an incumbent, you are lobbying for the status quo. No one is sent up to Washington on the opposition party ticket to fight for things as they are. What a mess. And the Democrats are riding what high horse? The high horse Bush rode in on?
