Political Mama

By trade I am an indexer. I work primarily on sociology/criminology texts. It's boring most of the time--like having a professor who teaches straight out of the book and so you have to read the whole thing.

But sometimes it's interesting too. In the nearly six years that I've been doing it, I have watched the trends in thinking, and the changes in society.

There's one theme that keeps hitting me lately...

Fear of crime.

The truth is that most of us, many of us, especially the suburban, white, middle-upper class will never be a victim of a "street crime." Our children will never be abducted, and our daughters never raped by a stranger they spoke to on the playground. And in fact, crime in general has been dropping steadily for years. That's a fact. The cause of the "crime drop" can be debated, but crime is dropping, while fear is rising.

I know why, too. We're addicted to fear. We're addicted to the stories of abduction and serial killing all over the news. Sure, it could happen, but the odds are microscopic, a little bit better than winning the powerball, but still... The truth is that the grand majority of victims know their attackers. They are the husbands, wives, parents, friends, overly solicitous uncles that hurt us. They are not strangers to us.

A lot of people will disagree with me, but I refuse to tell my children not to talk to strangers. It's true that I am always with them, but I can turn my back, I know I can, get busy with the other one just long enough to lose track for a second. But I will not give into my own fear. I tell my four-year-old, do not go anywhere with anyone you don't know. If they say they have something to give you, or they need help, come get Mommy, she'll help them.

I refuse to make them scared of a world, that is less scary than we think. I refuse to breed children who are suspicious of "strangers" who mean them no harm. Am I wrong? I know that I'm not. If they get abducted, or molested by someone who spoke to them on the jungle gym I will feel like shit, but I think the odds are with me.

I refuse to be a part of the local news (and CNN) generation that is afraid of everything from some crazed maniacal genius who lures kids into cars, to mold growing in my basement.

My boys will eat all the Halloween candy they want, as there has never been ONE DOCUMENTED CASE of razor blades in apples. That's right. Someone threatened it, years ago, but never did it.In fact, I think, the more strangers they talk to, the better.

Hatred spurs hatred, mistrust, mistrust. And after all, it takes a freakin' village, right?

You, too can be a democratically elected dictator!

1. You advertise, fundraise, advertise, fundraise.

2. You invoke the name of God. A lot. You invoke in secret language and publicly. You invoke it often, after all it's important that you imbue yourself with authority and righteousness at every moment.

3. You enlist only people you trust in this fight, i. e., only people that can benefit from your regime.

4. You take people's innate fear of the unknown and you use it, you twist it, you make it an engine for war which will keep them fearful, and in turn coming back for more. Like a drug dealer who sees that your hooked, and kills your former supplier (which here is the war on drugs).

5. You talk about ground swell (both sides do this actually).

6. If you are Bush, you stage events all over the country where people are cheering in decidely Third Reich feeling ways. Always pre-screened and pro-you.

7. You do not talk to anyone who doesn't agree with you. Including people who have lost children in your war. (Side note: Sister Cindy Sheehan, I am with you!) A war mind you, that you wouldn't consider fighting in yourself, or sending your children into. (Another side note: In case Czar Bush is asking my advice, talk to the woman. Though I admire and admit that I was surprised that you sent your aids last week, it ain't enough. She's not going away. Say a prayer, show her around the ranch.

8. You repeat your righteous bullshit over and over again. Where there is dissent, send out your hatchet men, far and wide, over hill and dale, and REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT!

Follow all these steps, and you too can become the Democratically-elected Dictator of the United States. At least that's how Herr Hitler did it.

Fear not my fellow Americans people eventually catch on, and decide on someone else at the end of our collective nightmare in 2004 (well that's what I thought would happen), I mean 2008!

I'm finally published. It's a small piece, but I'm thrilled! I'm ready to quit my day job... If only the kids weren't so damned hungry ;)

Last night I had a conversation with a woman who was the director of a cooperative preschool in San Francisco for thirty-seven years.

I asked her if it had changed much in all that time.

"Kids are the same," she said, "But the parents are totally different. All they worry about now is whether the kids get hurt. They don't realize that in order to be whole people, they have to experience pain as well."

That hit me. I'm less protective than the other people I know in this suburban Shangri-La I call home, but my boys are always in my line of sight. I know where they are and what they're doing at all times. I make them wear helmets, and I stand behind the two-year-old when he's on the jungle gym. In the end, the idea of their pain is horrifying for me, and the idea that they would suffer at all is enough to make me want to throw up.

I think about all the mothers who have children in the armed forces as well. How powerless and lost they must be not knowing or understanding what their children are doing. And also how proud and hopeful they must feel to have raised children willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country, which is the most noble thing of all.

I read about one such woman this evening. My heart goes out to her, and all of the countless mothers around the world whose children have fallen victim to circumstance, be they Iraqi or American, from North Korea or Niger where they will have another two months to wait for assistance.

As I watch my little boys play with their overpriced little trains, I can't help but sympathize with a parent who feels it may be okay if their child never feels pain, even if it means they might be a little less than whole.

So Bush is on vacation for 33 days! 33 days! How many has he taken thus far? And that's just his summer stint. He also quits work everyday at 5. At 5! He even manages to workout two hours per day. As a freelancer, I couldn't even dream of that kind of day, and with the kids I'm lucky if I manage a shower. There is so much I could say about the sheer unseemliness of any kind of vacation while we're at war, while our soldiers are dying, while the middle-east is on fire. But I won't. I let his actions speak for themselves.

Having said that, we just got back from Baja, cruised the Pacific with the whole clan--mother, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and mother-in-law.

The kids loved it, though their favorite part was the bed that hung from the ceiling. We had a great time too. It was fabulous.


But being Jewish and liberal, I spent much of my time talking to the people that worked on board and feeling guilty.

Here's what we found out:

• When you agree to work on a Carnival "fun ship" you put down a deposit for your, "airfare home."
• You sign a contract for at least seven months and if you break it (according to the girl at the duty free shop), you forfeit said airfare.
• The ships (and this is true of nearly all cruise lines) is some obscure place like Liberia where workers rights are, well, nonexistant. It's known as a "flag of conveniece." Convenient, huh?
• An assistant waiter is on salary for $74 per month. PER MONTH. The rest they make are tips.
• They get 4 hours off a week. You heard me. 4 HOURS a week.

So I felt like a schmuck the whole time, a horrible person, and yet still managed to have a fabulous time. We're already planning for next year!

Yesterday my cleaning lady told me a story:

She had just come home and parked her car out front. It was 7:15. Fifteen minutes later the neighbor called, frantic. He'd seen two boys they knew--aged 12 and 17, break into her car.

She ran frantically outside to discover that all the money she'd made that week was stolen along with her spare set of keys. Was it dumb to leave that stuff in her car? Sure. She had it all in one of those big dayplanners that has room for pockets so it didn't really look like a wallet--still not the best idea.

She then called the police. It was 7:20. She drove around the neighborhood, located the boys, asked please for her money back, and called the police again. It was 8:00. They still weren't at her house where her daughter waited.

Furious, she confronted them. Of course they denied that they had anything, and kept right on doing what they were doing.

Her son went personally to the police station and told the police he could take them right to the boys. They said he had to wait until the officers came to the house.

She started getting scared as night fell, and the boys went home for dinner. It was 9:00. The Suffolk County (New York) Police (one of the highest paid departments in the country--$125,000 with overtime) got to her house at 11:30, and swore the detective would call her in the morning, which he never did!

I know, for a fact, that they would have been at my house within the hour. For the first time I realized where vigilantism comes from.

I can't imagine why poor/minority folk don't trust the cops.