For Mama

It's occurred to me of late that, though I mention Papa Able a great deal in this forum, I have yet to type out the words "Mama Able" in a post, which is funny, as I talk to Mama daily (if not twice daily). I suppose it's got something to do with the character of our intellects; Papa is a culture man, like myself, taking the most pleasure in consuming and discoursing earthly delights, music, folks. Mama is high-minded, a scientist, a Philosophe, a greater thinker than each of the clan combined. I glaze over at the very thought of the Heidegger on her bedside table. However, Mama has a major vested interest in two less rarefied, more earthly things: politics and baseball. Now, baseball leaves me cold like Heidegger. But politics bear keeping up with, and there is no better way to do so than phoning my mother (anytime, day or night).

I recall Oli North's hearings. I was about two and a half at the time (1987). But, toddlerhood aside, they had an impact. They marked the first time I witnessed (cogently) my mother's righteous anger against Republicans. Ronald Reagan was enemy number one at Castle Able well into the 90s (after which there were: Newt, Ken Starr, and, well you know, le Deluge...). Cowpoke actor cum Governor cum Commander Reagan had incited an idiotic and tired culture war--hippies versus soldiers--that my Ma took quite personally. He had dismantled unions, American industry; sent Right-to-Choice into a difficult position of defense; reinstated a Cold War culture of fear; and, among so many other crimes I shall not bother to list here, widened the divide between rich and poor with wild, cronyistic deregulation and a generally faulty, over-theoretical economic policy (that had something to do with that previously mentioned death of Industry).

Because it's high time we laid a whole mess of blame and shame at the feet of multiple generations of Republican extremists (those tacky, far-cries from their good ole', balancing fiscal conservative ancestors), and because I love to give Mama Able credit for knowing best, I was quite pleased by this simple and direct op-ed. Krugman, with his eye toward economic actuality (as opposed to soupier emotional politics--my stock in trade), reminds us that this current crisis is a direct result of 25-year-old Reagan policy. The brewing of this storm is my agemate. I have come up entirely in an era of limitless credit (and unlimited banks), and it becomes clearer to me everyday that it has had a damning effect, has poisoned myself and others with unprecedented (even in this bourgeois promised land) levels of materialism and imprudence that will take much time to abate and understand. So, thank Reagan for your crippling debt, or for each time you feel cold and out-of-place at the thought of not being able to afford the goods and services you once breezily counted on. And thank Mama Able (unironically) for decades of astute, impassioned watchdogging--at least someone still had a conscience (and a memory) after Vietnam.