Joe,
I haven't seen your work for a while until I ran across the Cold Type site. As I have written you before, your work is so different from anything I read. I drives a spike into some part of Psyche, because I agree almost completely with the analysis and the tone of what you say. I wrote a response to one of your essays on Christianity and you sent me a complimentary note. I just read your Ditch essay, and was prompted to send a report from the Western Confederacy.
To refresh your memory my roots are in the Texas dirt, but I made a journey through the student radical acid communal left. That trip rewired my brain. I don't claim to have ever been normal, but looking back on it all the people I liked were out of bounds. The people in bounds were the obviously absurd Baptists. They were among the most consistent at making a go of things.
I was living in northern New Mexico about 1980 when I learned my grandmother was about to die in her nursing home. I came back here and have been watching the evolution of America from North Texas ever since. I really thought I could live here. There was a native antidote to the crap. Jefferson said democracy could not function without the independent yeoman farmer. The populists who provided a sort of defense against totalitarianism are all dead and these stupid shits here who run around in middle class cowboy costumes don't have a clue about what it takes to make it in a frontier situation. It was a community situation. When my family came here in 1848 there were fifty people. They were part of a clan that had been moving across the South since 1779, with bits of them breaking off as they went. The thing consisted of three or four families, hopefully enough to keep the gene pool somewhat fresh.
Anyway they weren't idyllic. They hated. They hated Yankees, niggers and so on. However they really did like each other, and it was fun to be around them. I don't remember a lot of stories about who they hated. What I remember were stories about the good times or hard times they had experienced together. I don't remember being with people who didn't seem to be there. Most everyone seemed to bringing a lot of living to the situation and they enjoyed spending time in the past.
The present situation is not about the past it is about the future. I do physical therapy. I am a Physical Therapist Assistant. I make $25 bucks an hour and I like the work I do. Most of the therapists I work with are much younger than I. Almost all are Christians. They are nice people. They chose to spend their time doing something for other people. They never mention current events. They never mention politics. When I say never I really mean never. I have been on this job six weeks, and not one mention of any larger issue than entertainment, travel or dining out. They put up little flags, patriotic symbols and so on. When the periodic events happen there is a mood swing, but not conscious analysis. I was living on the commune and a new guy stretched the hide of a cow we had slaughtered on the barn. The cows went more than slightly bonkers until we got the thing down. Bush is never going to take the hide off the barn.
I need the money and a little more experience doing what I am doing. This is about my fifth career. It is obvious I have to keep my mouth shut. If I offered any of my opinions there is no doubt I would be gone. It has happened pretty fast. I remember only a couple of years ago being fairly comfortable making comments about things general. I have made a comment or two about disorganized state of health care and this seemed to be shocking news. This is undoubtedly some form of totalitarianism. There is a social taboo against any recognition of obvious unpleasant realities, and it is weird.
It's clear to me in my rational moments the only thing to do is get the fuck out of here. You may be crazy, but you definitely have a handle on reality.
Michael
Dallas, Texas
