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Culture wars keep U.S. stuck in the shallows
Published Saturday, October 3, 2009
Every so often, sitting down to your Cheerios, you open the New York Times to the crossword puzzle and find clues such as “_ Van Winkle” and “_ of 1812” and “Buried in Grant’s Tomb” and you finish the thing in five minutes flat feeling brilliant and unappreciated, some sort of national treasure, and then you spend an hour searching for your glasses and car keys and that brings you down smartly to earth. For some reason, you’ve parked your glasses in the top drawer of the bureau next to the pewter soup spoons and the car keys in an earthenware vase atop the clavichord.
The easy crossword threw you off stride. Up here in the North we believe that adversity is a stimulus of intelligence, so we don’t want our kids stuck in the slow track in school, putzing around in the shallows, trapped in boredom and lazy thinking. We want the schools to push them, make them write whole sentences and paragraphs, grapple with calculus, learn about the Renaissance, and all the more so if they’re bound to become truck drivers. What is so disheartening about politics is the putzing around in the shallows. The sheer waste of time — years, decades, spent on thrilling public issues in which the unconservative right fights tooth-and-nail against the regressive left and nothing is gained. It’s like a tug-of-war between two trees.
The so-called cultural wars over abortion and prayer in the schools and pornography and gays, most of it instigated by shrieking ninnies and pompous blowhards, did nothing about anything, except elect dullards to office who brought a certain nihilistic approach to governance that helped bring about the disaster in the banking industry that ate up a lot of 401(k)s, and all thanks to high-flyers in shirts like cheap wallpaper who never learned enough to let it discourage them from believing that they had magical powers over the laws of economics and could hand out mortgages by the fistful to people with no assets and somehow the sun would come out tomorrow. The anti-regulation conservatives enabled those people. We’re still waiting for an apology.
And now here comes the Supreme Court, about to rule in the case of a little plywood cross erected, as it turns out, on federal land in the Mojave Desert as a memorial to war dead — could there be anything less pressing right now? But we shall have great legal minds wrangling over something that doesn’t make a dime’s worth of difference to anybody whomsoever.
Thirty-six years of bitter battle over Roe v. Wade and what has it gotten us? If the decision were overturned tomorrow, not much would change. The question would revert to the states, and some would permit the termination of pregnancy, others wouldn’t. Meanwhile, the effect of the battle has been quite other than what the Catholic Church could have wanted, the unleashing of angry demons, the poisoning of the body politic.
Conservatives and liberals can agree on the basics — that the nation wallows in debt, that it is shortsighted of the states to cut back on the most essential work of government, which is the education of the young, and that somehow we have got to become a more productive nation and less consumptive — but the ruffles and flourishes of Washington seem ever more irrelevant to the crises we face. When an entire major party has excused itself from meaningful debate and a thoughtful U.S. senator like Orrin Hatch no longer finds it important to make sense and an up-and-comer like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty attacks the president for giving a speech telling schoolchildren to work hard in school and get good grades, one starts to wonder if the country wouldn’t be better off without them and if Republicans should be cut out of the health-care system entirely and simply provided with aspirin and hand sanitizer. Thirty-two percent of the population identifies with the GOP, and if we cut off health care to them, we could probably pay off the deficit in short order.
It’s time to dump the dead-end issues that have wasted too much time already. Old men shouldn’t be allowed to doze off at the switch and muck up the works for the young who will have to repair the damage. Get over yourselves. Your replacements have arrived, and you should think about them now and then. Enough with the shrieking. Pass health-care reform.
Garrison Keillor is the author of “77 Love Sonnets,” published by Common Good Books.
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Comments
Posted by ErnieGann (anonymous) on October 3, 2009 at 4:56 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Another crock by Keillor. The entire column can be summed up in far fewer words. According to Keillor, we should spend more time on more substantive issues. In effect, he's saying "Be reasonable--do it MY way."
"The so-called cultural wars over abortion and prayer in the schools and pornography and gays, most of it instigated by shrieking ninnies and pompous blowhards". Let's look at it, Garrison. WHO did all of the demonstrating and pushing for abortion? Was it NOT liberals? Was it OK to raise caine about it THEN, but not NOW?
"Prayer in SChools"--was it NOT the liberals that made THIS an issue? Was it OK to make this a national issue THEN, but not NOW?
Pornography--we pretty much policed ourselves without government help, but was it NOT liberals that decided that there should be no defining issue for pornography--leaving it to courts to contend every single case? Was it OK to make this a national issue THEN, but not NOW?
Gays--We pretty much treated them the same as anybody else--as long as they didn't engage in sex in public bathrooms and make unwanted advances. Was it NOT liberals that decided that they should have a protected class, and marched in the streets? Was that OK THEN, but not NOW?
He makes light of "a little plywood cross erected, as it turns out, on federal land in the Mojave Desert as a memorial to war dead — could there be anything less pressing right now?" Tell us, Garrison, was it NOT the liberal ACLU that made a big issue of this cross--so far out in the desert that few could SEE it in order to be "offended"--a cross that had been silently standing for 3/4 of a century without issue, before it became a cause celebre for the "perpetually outraged"? If you REALLY want to come to common ground, call off your dogs!
"Enough with the shrieking. Pass health-care reform." He doesn't think that we should debate one of the costliest and far reaching programs ever proposed for this country--a proposal with profound effects not only on our economy and place in the world, but upon us personally? A proposal that the vast majority DON'T WANT?
That's the arrogance of liberalism--"Be reasonable--do it MY way!"
Posted by bornFree (anonymous) on October 3, 2009 at 8:22 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I guess the "cracker" comment that keillor made in his last column doesn't mean much to the Tribune, I would be willing to bet that if I made a derogatory comment it would matter. It indicates to me that the Tribune indeed has a double standard, why is it that newspapers think it's ok to do that? Would someone at the Tribune give your readers a answer to that? I don't really expect one because I don't think they can rationalize why.
Posted by Culture_Warrior (anonymous) on October 4, 2009 at 4:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think Keillor is one of the most cynical commentators that I have ever read. He lives an illusion that anyone who disagrees with liberals and pro-abortion Democrats are idiots. Kellior claims to be a Christian, yet all we get from him is a non-sensical defense of abortion, porn and homosexual acts. All, who in good conscience oppose these, things are in his words, "shrieking ninnies and pompous blowhards." Now THAT is the pot calling the kettle black! Healthcare is a right for all? Is that right extended to an unborn child as well? Barak Obama voted three times in the Ilinois Senate against allowing healthcare for babies that are born alive after a botched abortion. That is sick. Now Kellior wants us to "get out of the way and allow the replacements to repair the damage." We are all watching the destruction of our culture and the nation we love brought to us by these radical leftists like Kellior, Pelosi, Reid and Obama. God help us all if we allow this to happen.
Posted by BabyGotBack (anonymous) on October 4, 2009 at 5:03 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Culture - I think he is stealing your moniker! Maybe he reads this paper, who knows?
Tribune - can't you get someone a bit more hip as a columnist? No offense but this guy only appeals to AARP members (sorry to offend anyone). If you want to keep him, fine, but then get someone who is hip/current to balance this guy out.
Posted by realchange (anonymous) on October 5, 2009 at 9:49 a.m. (Suggest removal)
You would hope that his stroke maybe would have put reality into him, he got the best medical care available. I wonder what he would have thought if he had Obama care. He probably would have been told he's too old to spend money one.......
He does need to go.
Posted by Disgusted (anonymous) on October 6, 2009 at 7:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
It is unfortunate that many of those who suffer strokes have suffered some memory loss. He has left out a lot of factual information in his rambling comments. There was no mention of Barney Frank, Fannie Mae, etc. It was his party who wanted everyone to own a home even if they didn't have any money, credit, or job. We all remember what happened and what produced the paper that brought down many of the banks. Do you think he is playing with a full deck or has he always been missing a few cards?
Posted by ErnieGann (anonymous) on October 6, 2009 at 3:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Keillor's own comments apply to him.
"It’s time to dump the dead-end issues that have wasted too much time already."
"Old men shouldn’t be allowed to doze off at the switch and muck up the works for the young who will have to repair the damage."
"Get over yourselves. Your replacements have arrived, and you should think about them now and then."
"Enough with the shrieking."
Each of these comments could and should be applied to Keillor. Dump the dead-ender, quit sleeping at the switch, get over yourself, and quit your shrieking.
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