Manifesto of Washington-Weary Old Bag

I could not loathe the Republicans more than I do right now, their obstinacy over raising the debt ceiling,  their tenacious obeisance to the wealthy and powerful.  Really, I am at my wits end about it, and yes, shouting at the TV again.   Is Obama on  IV vodka?  How can he STAND dealing with these people?

Then over the weekend, I watched the DVD of "Inside Job," about the recent financial crisis.  They're ALL in bed with each other:  business, government, academics, the lot.  The rest of us are out in the cold, especially the line of people shivering in the fog of a Berkeley summer, waiting  for food hand-outs.

Wretched as it all is, the debt-ceiling mess has served to clarify a few things for me.  First, we might as well give up on the big  picture.   The people in Washington aren't going to do anything useful.  We out here in the country are invisible-- at best, abstractions--to them. 

Paying taxes and then moaning that the money is mis-spent is an easy out.  At the extreme, it's the position of the Tea Party, which wants to come in with a scythe and whack the hell out of everything and everybody.  Not good enough.  The government are us, but we are more than the government. We have phones and brains and computers and  canned goods to contribute.  Also hammers and plumbing snakes and screwdrivers and a working command of the English language. And cars.   From now on, I'm going with Act Locally and Radically.  No point in thinking globally. That way lies madness and possibly alcoholism.   Dumpster dive if necessary to feed the hungry (due to squeamishness,  I think I'm speaking metaphorically, but I'm not ruling it out.)

And speaking of dumpster diving: I'm enjoying the hell out of "Farm City," by  Novella Carpenter.  It's funny, uplifiting, quirky, well-written, and inspiring.  What this young  woman does with a vacant lot in the West Oakland ghetto is amazing.  Crops, chickens, rabbits, ducks, geese, bee hives,  you name it.  She and her boyfriend dumpster-dive in Chinatown to feed their rabbits and chickens and gather manure from stables in the East Bay hills to fertilize their crops.  They have an open-garden policy with their neighbors.

Wouldn't it be great to see John Boehner coming by his tan naturally by farming on an Oakland vacant lot, scaling a chainlink fences to save a goose from guard dogs, and drinking wine made from second-rate grapes he bartered honey for?