[Gnu-arch-users] [OT] America, Land of Contradictions

[Ron Parker]

Reading Tom's long post reminds me all too much of my own experiences.
So please pardon me, if my thoughts roam a bit and I wonder from the
original discussion. But this was written somewhat flow of
consciousness.

I am going through a period of extensive change in my life. I am in
the process of tearing down the false self I find I have built and
getting back to what really matters. It's a hard thing to do and not
entirely without pain.

Sometimes its necessary to discard a piece of software that has
seemingly large problems and to begin anew with the knowledge gained
and create something that should have been in the first place. This is
CVS->arch. This is my life.

The USA is a place of constant contradictions and utter paradox.

Our constitution grants us more freedom than anywhere else I know. Yet
our populace has little idea what freedom is and what is required to
protect it. So yes, it seems we are far too rapidly becoming one of
the most surveilled and unfree countries in the world.

I have been told that in Belarus roughly one out of ten persons is a
policeman. While the percentage of officers here is much lower, I fear
the level of observation is becoming just as bad and I expect that
within a decade informers within families and small groups will become
a way of life unless something changes in a major way.

I have a relative that has spent 25 years in the state penitentiary
because of "dirty cops". Yet, now, I am good friends with many police
officers, from the patrol officers to internal affairs to those in the
police chief's office. I have relatives that have been killed by their
drug dealing buddies, and yet some of my cop friends have worked in
narcotics and drug interdiction bringing down dealers. Growing up, one
of my best friend's mothers was a prostitute and last I knew, she was
a prostitute herself.  Yet some of my police friends have worked in
vice.

My life has seen its share of twists and turns and contradictions.

On Tue, 13 Jul 2004 03:32:43 -0700 (PDT), Tom Lord <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> Have I mentioned poverty (including mine)?  I've dragged myself
> through "the angry negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix"
> (Ginsberg) wondering if I'd be shot, stabbed, or beaten up.  I've been
> held up at gunpoint, had my house broken into, been spat on by a
> homeless Vietnam Nam vet as well as bythe post-pubescent kid of the
> richest guy in town.  I've talked down junkies and crazies on the
> street.  Shared my share of cigarettes.  Smelled how people smell
> after weeks with no access to bathing.  Smelled how kitchens smell
> after years of nothing but bargain-basement froot-drink and boxes of
> macaroni and cheese.  Been persued endlessly by creditors.  Been
> refused meaningful treatment by a doctor hired by my employer for a
> workplace injury.  Wear glasses that are out of date and falling
> apart, have worn shoes down to the point where they are just the idea
> of a shoe.  None of that is the true meaning of poverty in the US for
> that subset of the poor (not me) who inherited that condition as their
> lifelong condition and that of everyone they know: The true meaning of
> poverty in the US for those folks is exposure to overt and suddenly
> deadly violence, yes -- but more usually, deprivation of health care,
> crappy food, unhealthy living places, hostile civic policy, the
> normalization of an expectation that you'll spend some time in jail
> before your 30th birthday or have a friend who will: all that barely
> balanced against a community of johnsons you can rely on (even though
> they lack resources to do much more than commiserate and not cooperate
> with the police).  Not to be romanticized, by a long stretch, but when
> shit hits fan I know which neighborhoods are ready to fight the good
> fight.  Again.

This is where I was raised. I did not learn of it second hand or
through reading the writings of others.

I grew up in relative poverty. I call it relative because for the most
part I agree that poverty in the US is nothing compared to poverty
elsewhere.

As a child I had no idea that where I lived was at all different from
the rest of the world.  I grew up in an unincorporated "suburban" area
of St. Louis, MO. My childhood was in the seventies. Where I lived,
"white" was the minority. Where I lived, prostitution reigned. Where I
lived, drugs were in the elementary schools, weapons were in the
junior highs and rape was common in the high school. It was a social
prison, a place of no hope, a place where you were born, lived and
died without ever having the hope of breaking out and making something
of your life.

While taken out of context, the beginning of Proverbs 29:18 was very
applicable, "Where there is no vision, the people perish...".  Sure we
lived, but hope was dead and a people without hope is a people most
desperate, a people that is perishing while alive, a people that too
many view as perishable goods.

I was most fortunate. My father began looking for a new job and found
one in another city.  When my friends found out I was "getting out".
They begged me to do something with my life, to make something of
myself, to make them proud. You know your situation is desperate when
you rejoice because one of your friends has a chance to escape. Those
words have stuck with me and driven me to excel.

My parents moved us to an actual suburb in the new city. To me it
wasn't a suburb it was a completely different city. There where
pastures between where we lived and The City. It was odd and required
a while to adapt culturally. Pot was the biggest drug problem these
new kids had, there were no guns, no knives, no pregnant 11-year olds
running around.  This was a different place.

And yet, while my parents would live in what was a fairly wealthy
suburb, not too long there after we would find ourselves "dirt poor".
Due to various circumstances there came a time when my father was
bringing home $90 a week or month in the early 80s. It really doesn't
matter that I don't remember if that was weekly or monthly.  Our rent
was more than that. And here I was living with a bunch of spoiled
"rich kids", while we ate bean soup every day of the week because dry
beans were cheap. Once a week my mother would be able to add a couple
of ounces of ham to the soup and we were happy about it. At the same
time I knew teenagers that owned and drove new Mercedes, BMWs,
Ferraris, Porches and so on. Yet here we were, with my parents
struggling to feed us. These were desperate times and I came to hate
everyone and everything about my life, from God right down to myself.

> Did I mention wealth?  As I said, I graduated from the same prep
> school as our president.  I've been shuffled around "privleged"
> meetings with numerous industry movers and shakers.  I've sat in on
> meetings with board members, founders, investors, luminaries and
> pundits.  As a rule, with definate exceptions, cautious to a flaw.
> Reactionary when confused.  Offended by dissent.  Protective of
> position first, concerned about others as a hobby or secondary
> avocation.  Schooled, not educated.  Poor taste in food.  Poor taste
> in visual art, music, furniture, and cologne.  Minds barely attached
> to bodies.  A wealth of possesions; a poverty of appreciation and
> intellect.  Able to "zoom in" and actually feel life for an occaision
> -- like a dinner announced in advance to be prepared by a skilled chef
> or a wine reputed in advance to be worth drinking -- but otherwise,
> simply not all there, most of the time.

Obviously, things got better. Eventually my father found a job that
paid a decent wage. Eventually I grew up and "made something of
myself." The kid that lived in poverty, came to be the young adult in
an affluent suburb that had the nice new car, loving wife, well paying
job and large home he had always dreamed of.

I've known those with hundreds of millions of dollars. Some of their
lives are a prison that requires escape too, others manage to do
something worthwhile.

One of my mother's best friends became angry when her husband died in
a plane wreck and "only" left her $20M out of the $800M or so he was
worth.  Instead he left the $400M business to his daughter and used
the remaining $380M to create a charitable foundation. He was someone
that had far more money than I ever expect to see and yet was always
helping out and spending time with poor fatherless children that lived
in the city and I suspect from what I saw, the projects. He actually
had a fairly deep seated resentment for most rich people.

At the other extreme, in terms of someone that "had it all" and lost
it. I had a close friend that lived next door to the Doles (pineapples
not politics) on Rodeo Drive in Hollywood with a backyard that opened
onto the ritzy country club golf course there. He had dropped out of
Harvard, was given the degree and hired to teach in their business
school.  Later going to work for a very large company, he would be
responsible for deals worth (American) billions of dollars.

Then, he lost his eyesight, eventually his job, etc. and for reasons I
won't take the time to explain had to protect what he could via a
trust he could never touch. He did regain his eyesight eventually, but
had to raise his children in a smallish home that his family purchased
for them in the Midwest. They had to live off of what money his wife
could make in the local school district while trying to cover his
exceeding high on-going medical bills.

His heartbreak was that he "knew" his children would be "much better
off" when he was gone. He passed away a couple of years ago and if
everything worked out the way he expected his widow and children are
now worth about $150M. No doubt they would all give it up to have
their father and husband back.

I would give most anything to have my friend back with his mind intact
as well. When you have an I.Q. in the >200 range it is rare to meet
someone that you can talk with and just let your mind race without
leaving them behind.

Well, I've since given up the nice new car and expensive home. But, I
still have the job, for now. My wife and I live in a modestly-sized
nice suburban apartment and our young "up and coming" neighbors nearly
choke when they see our friends from the urban core showing up en
masse to have dinner or something at our home. (It's good for them to
have their Barbie Fantasy Lives shaken up now and then.) You may take
the boy out of the ghetto, but how could I be true to myself and
forget from where I have come? I do not keep friends from the city for
appearance sake, we are close.  We share each others burdens and
sorrows. We help each other when problems arise and we are all just
trying to do something that matters in our lives.

I am now at the place in my life that my wife and I are looking at
selling almost everything we haven't already given up, going back to
school and then leaving the country to do linguistics and literacy
work, probably in an area of the world where an unwritten minority
language is spoken. I don't know if this will be in a cosmopolitan
area or somewhere literally in grass huts. Either is possible and I am
doing my best to be prepared for whatever.

I am not interested in taking either the good or bad aspects of
American culture with me, although no doubt some of that is
inevitable. I've already made at least one big cultural faux pas and
had to clean it up. What I want to do is to fulfill the real dream of
the friends I grew up with, and do something with my life that will
matter and have an impact long after I am gone.

So, America the Beautiful is a place of paradox and contradiction. It
has its horrible ugly underbelly that slithers through the dust and it
has a wonderful and beautiful side as well of people that give of
themselves and risk their very lives in the hopes of helping others.
(I'm not talking about myself here, by my own measure I do not
qualify.)

We have the rich that are decadent and poor inside and we have the
poor which are infinitely rich in their families and lives. There are
people addicted to drugs on Skid Row and Rodeo. There are all colors
and languages of people seeking to make a difference while others seek
to make a buck. Some want to take America to the world and some want
to make America like the rest of the world. (A generalization, I
realize.) We have conservatives, liberals and the politically mixed.

One of the unique things about America is that our "samizdat" is
distributed out in the open.  Sometimes making it to movie screens and
whether that is Mel Gibson's interpretation of things biblical or
Michael Moore's interpretation of things political, the sensational
always attracts and we as a people are free to love or hate our
country, its policies and its politicians.

What frustrates me when I see politics making this country less than
it could be and it disturbs me when all that the rest of the world
seems to see is the negative. There are a number of great and good
things about and in the United States. No I don't always expect the
rest of the world to agree with us, nor do I think we should need the
validation of the entire world. For that matter, I don't think other
countries should have to have our approval before making independent
decisions. Either a nation as free and sovereign or it is not.

Sometimes disagreement is a good thing. What if the entire world were
run by one government? Would not that government also become corrupt
over time? Has mankind come up with the perfect system of checks and
balances?

Lafayette recognized that the ability to redistribute wealth through a
vote would be the downfall of the American system. Ask yourself if you
live in a nation that is in decline, what caused its downfall? Or has
your nation fallen so far from the height of its greatness that you
can no longer see that you have fallen? Or maybe just maybe you are
fortunate to live in a nation that is up and coming. One that may be
remembered in years to come as one of the great nations of the world.

Whatever you do, do something that matters.