The vision thing - critique of the Republican party's conservative agenda - The Culture War - Column

The Republican feeding frenzy on the national Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been as stunning an example of arrogantly dogmatic political idiocy as any in recent memory. This phenomenon, coupled with congressional slash-and-burn tactics carried out against every conceivable federally man, dated educational initiative -- from the school-lunch program to Operation Head Start to guaranteed loans for less, than-affluent college students-leaves one wondering exactly what new and amazing activities the Congress of the United States might concern itself with once the dumbing of America has be, come an accomplished fact.

Regardless of the politically predict, able frothing at the mouth and endless sanctimonious moralizing of the likes of Senator Jesse Helms and Representative Robert K. Dornan, the mission and primary function of the NEA, the NEH, and the CPB throughout their relatively brief histories has always been to in, form, educate, and generally improve the quality of life for Americans across the board, regardless of income, education level, or social status. It is a function these agencies have carried out rather well, especially considering the fact that their combined annual budgets rarely amount to more than $500 million.

Compare this to the fault-ridden B-2 bomber, a project which, if ever brought to successful completion, will produce a weapon that will most probably never be used: $44 billion has been sunk into the B-2 over the last 14 years. So far, 20 of these unlikely aircraft are in production despite the fact that, after nearly a decade and a half of research and development, the B-2 still fails miserably to meet many of its most crucial mission requirements. Astonishingly, there are some in both houses of Congress who would not only continue funding present B-2 production but would like a additional $16 billion to pay for the construction of even more of these flying boondoggles. Perhaps not surprising most of these are the same senators an representatives who are determined to cut off funding to the NEA, the NEH, and the CPB in the name of federal frugality. After all, if we call it "defense spending," then it can't be called "pork" right?

Consider also, for a moment, recent Supreme Court decisions concerning school desegregation (Missouri v. Jenkins), electoral districts (Miller v. John, son), and affirmative action (Abarand v. Pena). In all three instances, a majority of the justices supported a conservative notion of judicial and legislative "color blindness" as their rationale for grossly diluting the strength of the forceful stand the Court has taken on these vital issues for four decades. On the face of it, the idea that government should take a neutral position with regard to race appears perfectly equitable. As Justice Scalia said, "In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American." This deceptively simple-minded assessment would be all well and good if we lived in a perfect world. Alas, the fact remains that the United States -- regardless of any smug self-perceptions we may hold to the contrary-most definitely is not a color-blind society, and the views of many concerning this country's racial and ethnic diversity are far from the benignly fraternal. Indeed, the arrival of justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court would be considerably more difficult to imagine had the civil-rights and affirmative-action legislation of the past 40 years, aimed at ensuring equal educational and employment opportunities to all regardless of racial or ethnic background, never been passed and subsequently upheld by, the courts. Amazingly, Justice Thomas -- for juridically supercilious, if also quite moot, reasons-sided with the conservative majority in all three cases.

In To Renew America, Newt Gin, grich's briskly selling book of corrected platitudes, among the countless asinine assertions made by the Speaker of the House of Representatives is the following: "Far from making people feel insecure, the sight of weapons makes people feel safer" This starting remark is made in support of Gingrich's near, mystical belief in the United States as an armed society, though throughout the book he consistently fails to make any kind of convincing case against gun control. In a country where drive-by shootings have become commonplace and ten-year-olds carry guns to school to kill classmates for their tennis shoes, one is hard pressed to fathom exactly what, beyond shameless political pandering to the membership of the National Rifle Association, Gingrich must have in mind.

Down what garden path is this right-listing government of ours -- the executive branch notwithstanding (sort of) -- so gleefully leading us? To what lofty personal and social aspirations do our legislative and judicial leaders seek to inspire us? What kind of a nation are they remolding the United States into? What about commonweal? What about "the vision thing"?

By definition, vision in such matters is "unusual competence in discernment or perception; intelligent foresight." But it is difficult to understand exactly how deliberately limiting cultural and educational opportunities only to those well off enough to be able to afford them is evidence of "intelligent foresight." Can anyone in their right mind really believe that arming us all to the teeth is going to make the United States a safer place in which to live? Can the Supreme Court be considered competent in its discernment and perception when it capriciously, almost spitefully, attacks statutes that were enacted specifically because the law was in no way adequately responsive to the realities of life in American society with regard to race, sex, and national origin? What we have here can in no sense be called vision; it is more correctly referred to as revision. It is a form of revisionism that attempts nothing short of providing justification for an ignoble retreat from our commitment to the high-minded ideals of social justice and equal opportunity for all as national priorities, and fir the protection and enhancement of the power, privilege, and tremendous social advantage of a small elite class that is predominantly white, wealthy, and male.

Like all reactionaries, Gingrich and company hanker sentimentally after some romanticized period from the past when life was good, when "there was a clear sense of what it meant to be an American." For Gingrich those were the glory days of the 1950s-more specifically, 1955, a year in which the Saturday Evening Post and Reader's Digest gave an accurate view of the health and vitality of American society, at least according to Newt. But what was it really like to live in the United States back then? What was the nature of this clear sense" of the meaning of being American, and to whom did it belong? Was it Ward and June Cleaver's or Dr. Martin Luther King's?

Gary Pool is a freelance writer, editor, and novelist and a regular contributor to the Word, a monthly gay newspaper published in Indianapolis, Indiana. His novel, The Bread of Wickedness, is being published by Brownell and Carrol later this year.

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