Every Friday night, from eight in the evening until the early hours, you will find me in a restaurant/bar in a small town in North East Oklahoma. I don't go there to eat, the food is decent, but it is Southern Country Cooking, and a little heavy for my taste.
Nor do I spend those hours drinking my fill from the many craft and bottle brews offered from all around the country, and the world; good as they are.
Nope, I am the KJ. I run the karaoke and have done so for nearly two years now. It's decently well-paid, and a fun way to spend one evening a week.
Now this is not a Democratic stronghold, I think it fair to say. The best Democrat the good citizens around these 'ere parts have managed to elect is Dan Boren (D-OK). Most of the customers in this establishment think that he is a Communist, so you will understand when I tell you that I rarely discuss politics.
For anyone who remains in any doubt at all ... The photograph is a picture of a sign in the bar window. I took that picture with my phone, this week. The fake bullet holes in that sign are an "artful" touch, don't ya think?
The owners of the bar are decent, hard-working small-business people. They are just the kind of business, and people, that makes this country tick. They have been around since God was a boy, and many of them remember Him, playing in the street with the local kids. This is Oklahoma, and God graduated High School here. Yes.He.Did!
I'm very sad to report that Woody Guthrie and Will Rogers are but a distant memory for all but a few. Fortunately, among my friends I can count some of the few.
The upshot is that I rarely discuss politics (or religion), and we rub along nicely. I take a bit of that back. There are times I discuss religion. That would be when one of the women, a local Baptist Church attendee, complained that one of the other women was wearing too few clothes, and distracting her husband. I had seen the complainer with her tongue halfway down another girls throat, so pardon me but I felt that she had little to complain about. Such is life in a small town.
Halfway through last Friday evening my phone made it's silly jingly noise that suggested that someone was texting me. It was Mrs Twigg, keen to impart the news that Governor Romney was due to announce his VP pick tomorrow, and that it was going to be Paul Ryan.
Here is the reply I sent:
Ryan! BwaaaaaHaaaaa. Dkos must be going nuts!
I admit that part of me was wondering how she had managed to winkle out of the presumptive nominee who his pick was, so far ahead of the announcement. After all, he is good at keeping secrets. Maybe I should ask my wife to text me the contents of his Tax Returns.
Sitting a few feet away from me was a friend ... Not so much a friend, as a friendly bar acquaintance who I get along well with. He is a Facebook "friend", so I have known his politics for a long time. He is as deep a shade of Red as the State, and I figured that he would appreciate my sharing the news.
Indeed he did, and he responded by suggesting that "at last, a team that can get rid of that Marxist, Obama."
That took me a bit by surprise. Not that he thought that Calamity Mitt and Lyin' Ryan would make a good team, I expected that and I generally believe that they deserve each other. No, what amused me was that he thinks that Barack Obama is a Marxist.
So I asked him ... "Why do you think Obama is a Marxist?" ... I do that. Want a straight answer, then ask the damned question. "You know I'm as Liberal as they come, and I think Obama is a Centerist Democrat".
"Definitely Marxist. All those Socialist policies are killing this country". Okay, so now he is "just a Socialist", but I can't leave it there even though my common-sense was telling me that no good would, or could come of this.
So I continued ... "Well let's consider his flagship legislation, ObamaCare".
Yes, I know some of you don't like that term, but I do and this is my story. I also think, by the way and apropos of absolutely nothing at all, that one day we will all celebrate "ObamaCare" as the start of something very special.
"That needs to be repealed as soon as possible", came the not surprising reply.
"Well I know that Republicans think that, but they didn't think it a few years ago when Romney introduced the same thing in Massachusetts. It was Republican policy, and it was written by the Heritage Foundation". Got him now, thinks I.
Not a bit of it as, barely pausing for breath he replied, "No it wasn't. I am a member of the Heritage Foundation, and they did no such thing".
The ignorance, it burns! But wait, there is more ...
"But Romney was proud of it. He said it provided a great model for the rest of the country". Surely he has to acknowledge at least this much. I reckoned without the revisionist tendencies of the Tea Party.
"No, Romney admitted his mistake and, in any event, thinks it is a State matter". I'm not getting through here, am I?
I try a final question:
"If it is a good solution for the people of MA, and Romney still thinks that it is, then why is it not good enough for the rest of us?".
I didn't get an answer to that. The music began to fade and our two minute conversation ended as the current singer wound up a pitiful attempt at something by George Strait.
I mention all of this only that we understand the size of the problem. My friend is not a stupid man. He is a family man with a lovely wife and decent kids. He is a Churchgoer, and sensible enough not to complain about scantily clad women in a bar, on a Friday night.
Yet politically, this thirty-something guy is typical of so many. I realise that Oklahoma has more than its fair share, but they are not just here, and I am fairly confident that similar conversations are happening in bars and workplaces from Seattle to Miami.
When people come to my karaoke shows, they come to enjoy themselves, not be harangued by me about their politics. So conversations like this will be few and far between. How many do you need to recognise the depth of the problem though?
As for you, the readers ... You all are free to come along any Friday night you choose, and harangue away. I have other music besides the redneck favourites.
Probably could even find some Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger in the collection somewhere. They get a bit dusty around here.
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