Doc Hastings Comes to Random 16-year old Blogger
Once upon a time back in high school, I noticed a flyer (located in a place I rarely had reason to look at, and likely a day or two past the point where it would be relevant) for a “thing with Doc Hastings”. I didn’t think much of it — which is to say, it didn’t really even warrent a “hm”. I did not like Doc Hastings (oddly enough, considering it fits right into an issue raised by the 16 year old blogger that is for good or ill the subject of this post, for much the same reason as my Independent but Republican-leaning parents). Despite not having any good candidate to vote for he was the first candidate I voted against… but I did not consider him to be terribly relevant to my day to day life. (Oddly enough, so can the blogger Katey, who you will see is a Doc Hastings backer.)
Perhaps it is a key problem with the Internet that a 16 year old who usually blogs on subjects of no interest to anyone past the age of majority — and for that matter, of no interest to the 16-year old me — blogs a political opinion just once — and that can easily be picked up the partisan blogosphere. Is this comment a little bit mean?… Honestly, the thought of anyone over her age looking around her blog beyond the politics angle is creepy, and honestly, in the case of this robbery — the circumstances suggest that her help is not needed in apprehending the brazen robbers.)
So, I guess Jesus General has “Doc Hastings” logged in as a key search at his blog-congealer, because I don’t see how else he would find the blog of the young Wenatchee High School student named Katey. Is this comment a little bit mean?… (In the case of this robbery — the circumstances suggest that her help is not needed in apprehending the brazen robbers.)
So, stick to the political entry. In the end, I’m stuck at one reference point… “went to the thing with Doc Hastings today” where she observed the difference between the “conservative kids” and the “liberal kids”.
That does not compute. Is there that huge a difference between late Clinton era – Mid-Yakima Valley and mid-Bush era in the burning metropolis of Wenatchee? Have the kids today suddenly become political, and more than political, partisan? (I guess it’s the goddamned Iraq War. Which is a bit funny… any Democrat nominee who would have had a theoretical chance of winning the fourth congressional district in 2002 or 2004 would have been a backer of the Iraq War, like it or not. Geez Louise… at a Doc Hastings event circa late 1990s — what contentious topic would I be yelling at him about? There’s nothing like the Iraq War that is on the radar screen back then.)
As a teenager, I guess I was more politically aware than most. Heck, I listened to talk radio. (And if my listening habits tended to sway toward Art Bell, you have to consider the reality that the whole of talk radio consisted of your Rush Limbaugh echoes. I was a fan of Jim BoHannon, who at the time I thought of as remarkably Centrist and today view as small “C” Conservative.) And I read the various political magazines in the school library. (I liked Harpers. I don’t think the school library had The Nation — it was National Review, Mother Jones, and The New Republic.) But I can’t say that there was much of a hotbed of political discussion amongst the student body… and what of it there was tended not to go into “Donkey versus Elephant” land.
Freshman year. A couple of pot-heads (of sorts) talking up material likely dredged up from NORML or High Times Magazine (likely procurred at the store that advertised on the radio as “a place for the cigar conoisseur to pick up — er — various artifacts”, in a faux-stoner version of an intellectual manner… which was shut down by the DEA a number of months after opening) about how safe marijuana is. This is in Art Class, and our Art teacher shakes his head and throws out “the facts” of marijuana. And we’re off and running. I’m not going to say that this was the focal point of politics at my high school, though to the degree that a small handful of students took the issue of the legalization (or “decriminialization”, if you will) of this herb seriously, it was a thin veneer toward conversations about easy it iss to get pot past their parents.
(Disclaimer: I never inhaled; nor did I exhale.)
For the purpose of a “debate” project in an English class, I was part thrust with and partly chose the issue of “school prayer”. My two partners ended up derelict, and even though one of them was recused from his in-house suspension to join me in class — he had nothing. Largely because I was alone, and had some conviction to my belief in the seperation of church and state that maybe the other side lacked, I destroyed them in the debate.
A number of conversations with a fundamentalist Christian about the “debate”(?) between Evolution and Creationism, and various items of what passes for “social issues”. These were always fun. I can’t see that these converstions went anywhere near resolution (how could they possibly?) — though I’ll always be glad to know that there were dinosaurs on the Ark. He also had biblical explanations for the debate on the Normalization! (You know, the Body is a Temple.) I once slid him a print-out of this Onion piece, which aggrivated him to no end. Later, I found out he had tossed it in the back of his truck, and while driving around with his youth pastor, his youth pastor found it and he had to explain the thing to him. Funny stuff… amusing story… good times… Misty Water Colored Memories of the way we were.
The Election of 1996. DECA teacher teaching how Political polling fits in the field of Market Research. The teacher puts up the three candidates — Clinton, Dole, and Perot — and goes through the Gallup poll on “which candidate best fits your opinion on the issue of — [fill in the blank]”. Somebody calls up, saying “But there are more than those candidats in the voting pamphlet.” The teacher says, “Yeah, but it’s like anyone’s going to vote for the Libertarian candidate!” Chalk this one up a defeat for the third – party movement, I guess. (I personally would not have voted for any of those three candidates, and probably should have not rasied my hand when asked the final question of “Who would you vote for?” — and if asked why I’m not raising my hand, simply state that I’m leaving the ballot blank.) The final polling results through the various classes were all over the map: my class chalked up a narrow victory for Clinton with no support for Perot, another class had a modest victory for Dole, and still another had a landslide for Perot. How the heck did Perot pull that one off?)
Beyond that. We shuffled through opinions on the Clinton Impeachment Effort. We had to. In any number of classes. My take was fairly contrarian and left everybody with a confused look on their face: I was mostly upset with Clinton’s apology, because I believed it violated the post-modernist construction he had created where everybody knew he was lying, but he had to go straight ahead as though they made any sense in order not to unsettle the delecate political and legal issues at play here… and to apologize would be to throw up another funny looking-glass mirror, and this is one looking-glass mirror too many… the symmetry has been destroyed.
There are students who were obviously Republicans (like their parents) and others obviously Democrats (like their parents.) Okay… there was one student who was obviously a Republican, and another who was obviously a Democrat. And I never understood who the student who was obviously a Republican was talking about when she said that “I even know some hard core Democrats who are just tired of Clinton and the whole thing.” Because the girl who was obviously a Democrat wasn’t tired of Clinton, you see.
And so one of these politically activist parents comes in for voting education and takes over two of my classes (though in the case of the partisanship matters not one iota, so much as the fact that she obviously cares about the civics part of the equation… two classes because they could both be used for the same required course), in large part as an underheaded way for the school to get students out to vote for a school bond measure. The second time around, she invites me to teach the thing, which really can be shortened to “Pull the level.” I decline. The first class was large enough (a collection of a few classes) that we didn’t actually do anything with the ballot. The second time was small enough that we “voted”. the ballot in the machine is for some funky King County contest of a couple years past — and features a member of the “Socialist Workers Party”. I play along, and loudly and proudly vote for him… muttering about the Imperialist Jackals, and how it’s time for the Proletariat to rise up and throw their boots at the Bourgeoise Jackals. On second thought, I should have taught the thing… see, this way, I can veer off topic and also teach Voter Intimination — ordering everybody who comes up to the booth to vote for this Socialist Workers Party figure.
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Come to think of it, I note that I’ve seen political figures do this civic-requirement “thing” with the youth of America on C-SPAN. Bernie Sanders came across particularly well, not talking down to the kids he was talking to. (As Matt Talibi’s book suggests, Dennis Kucinich was just as good, discussing Ghandi and such with the kiddies.) Other politicians come across as pareening yahoos when talking to teenagers… the “Future” and “Tomorrow”.