Democracy in a regressive state

One of the standard responses I receive from students whenever I ask questions about Athenian democracy is that women, slaves and outsiders were not allowed citizenship, that democracy could exist while not offering democracy to everyone else. These students, whether they be Americans or Koreans, always answer from an ideological pedestal of postmodernist deconstruction, content that they're living in enlightened times. All is well in their worlds, and everything that happened in the past is the low point of social evolution.

An article appeared in Time, March 7, 2009, Iraq's Unspeakable Crime: Mothers Pimping Daughters. What the article indicates is that women in Iraq are now being sold off by their families to live their lives in prostitution. If they don't fetch a good husband, then they are seen as commodities. It adds:

Still, it remains a hidden crime; one that the 2008 US State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report says the Iraqi government is not combating. Baghdad, the report says, "offers no protection services to victims of trafficking, reported no efforts to prevent trafficking in persons and does not acknowledge trafficking to be a problem in the country."

In other words, Iraq is moving forward towards democracy, but at the behest of an entire segment of their population. In the end, are women going to be grateful for this great democracy that is being formed, when they're sold off into sexual slavery? I seriously doubt it. And that's the problem, because I don't think the men of Iraq, the ones who are pushing for their own democracy, care. And that's par to the course in a lot of these areas. Yesterday, in Saudi Arabia, a woman was arrested for driving. Not for driving under the influence, too fast or over the lines in the middle of the road. For driving. Here's the first words of the article on CNN's site:

Police in the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca Wednesday arrested a woman for violating the country's ban on women driving, according to the Saudi English-language daily Arab News.

The woman, whose nationality and name were not released but who was described as being in her 20s, attempted to flee when she realized police had spotted her driving, Saudi authorities said.

Yep, the women had to flee when the police discovered her driving. So, no, it's really not that hard to make the leap from not being able to drive to being sold into sexual slavery. This area of the world has nothing but disgust towards women, unless they are fulfilling their "purpose", which supposedly is procreation and remaining invisible.

But the United States is in Iraq right now, and sadly enough we made things worse for women than they used to be. We like to tout our accomplishments (like the few times we did something good for women out there) but those advances were in spite of the people of Iraq. The men of Iraq don't want an equal playing field for men and women.

The problem is that the United States is always willing to support a regime as long as it is loyal to the United States. We used to stand behind dictators and horrible people, because they would show loyalty and/or support to the United States. But these policies have ALWAYS come back to bite us on the ass. An example: Iran. We supported the Shah of Iran. Look what that got us. 444 days of captivity for the people of our embassy and hostility from a country that is on the verge of becoming a nuclear state.

Right now, we're kind of doing nothing, hoping the Iraqis will fix their state. We're happy as long as no more Americans are dying. But we broke this country, and we're probably going to leave it in pretty sorry shape, although our press releases will indicate it's doing great. As long as one woman is being sold into sexual slavery, we have helped to ruin a people.

So, what can we do? We can use what's left of our influence to influence the important things, like civil liberties. We have a female Secretary of State going over to a country to negotiate with a group of people who would probably sell her into sexual slavery if they were given the chance. They have no respect for women, so what makes us think they respect her for anything more than the fact that she has the ear of the President of the United States? They probably laugh at her behind her back because she is a woman and is completely unworthy of their attention. That's the kind of people we're dealing with right now.

So either the United States needs to be forthright about this sort of thing, indicating that oppressive behavior towards any part of a society is wrong, or we need to stop doing ANYTHING to try to influence other countries because for way too long we've been vociferous about some things and boisterously silent on others because we feared ruffling feathers of people who already don't like us.

Either way, it is truly sad that this sort of thing is still happening under our noses in the 21st century. And with that said, because it's so easy to point our fingers at these "evil" empires, it happens in the United States, too. So if there's any point to this post at all, it's about how good we are at ignoring the plight of other people who are right there in front of us, suffering. Somewhat out of character, I leave you with one of my poems, Saw It On TV:

The TV remote must be broken
I click the buttons
But the channel doesn’t seem to change
On the screen
Is the figure
Of a malnourished little girl
Cold and hungry
I think we’re supposed to watch her starve to death
These reality programs are hard to understand sometimes

I really don’t want to be watching this
I keep waiting for Sally Struthers
And a plea for money
But neither comes
Just that poor little girl
Starving on the screen

I change the channel manually
But still the same haunting image
She lives in a home
Made of aluminum siding
She’s covered in dirt
Innocent to the rest of the world
Both a gift
And a curse

I wonder what horrible creature
What vicious regime
Twisted government
Hater of mankind
Could allow this to happen to a little girl
In one’s country

I try to turn off the TV
For some reason
Nothing happens
The child is soon replaced
By a malnourished family
They stare at me
At the camera
With blank faces
As if seeing the camera for the first time
I wonder how the cameraman
Can just stare back in silence
How can someone be so indifferent?
How can people ignore something like this?

And then I begin to remember
I don’t own a TV set.
I’m looking out my own window.

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Californication and the life of a writer

There's this show on Showtime called Californication, which stars David Duchovny (of X-Files fame). It is kind of interesting, in that the main character is a New York writer who is living in Los Angeles, and he can't stand California. He's suffering from writer's block for reasons never really explicit, although the show hints that his rationality involves the fact that they turned his introspective third novel into a Tom and Katie love story, and he's upset. He's generally upset all the time. And he womanizes women all of the time.

I watched the first five episodes of the show before it finally dawned on me why the story seemed so familiar. No, it's not my story. Yes, I'm a writer, and yes, I had an interesting past involving a number of "interesting" women over the years, but that's about it when it comes to the comparisons. So, I often found myself watching the show and really not identifying with the main character, even though we both have problems with our writing and the state of California itself. And yet, I often find myself wondering why I'm drawn to the character.

And then it dawned on me. The main character doesn't remind me of me. It reminds me of Charles Bukowski. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized they practically ripped off the style of Bukowski and claimed it as their own. If you've ever read a book or a series of poems by Bukowski, you know instantly that this is the exact same story that would have been written about his life. This is the guy who attended a reading of his own work at a girls' college, and because he was still drunk from the night before, he walked out and onto the lawn. Then he found a nearby tree and vomited on it. A young woman remarked to him: "Man, you're fucked up" to which he responded: "Finally, a woman who understands me."

I guess that's why I find myself interested in this show. Even though the idea and inspiration is not original. But then, in Hollywood, what is original anymore?

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Inspection

This is a new poem in its first draft for my book of poetry, License to Quill by Davina Marconis, as found by Duane Gundrum

Inspection

At the crack of dawn
Begins the daily roll call
Like a mother pigeon
Taking inventory from the night’s losses
I inspect the ranks of the missing
For the missing
The night losses
The recently injured
The survivors
Future casualties

There’s Harold
His perch at the BART entrance
Always a smile
Greeting passer-bys with a
“Morning, Ossifer!”
When I first met him
He told me he had dreams
“Gonna find my place!”
Now he only smiles
When I ask him if he’s still
Looking for his place
He says he’s happy
…Not there
…But happy
And no longer looking
One more needle mark
In his arm
Means not having to worry
About stuff like that

There’s Muriel.
Was a beauty queen
Married and happy
Talks about her little boy Jimmy
How he could run and run
…and run
Faster than them all
But couldn’t run fast enough
One IED
One less Jimmy
Now she wanders the street
Looking for him
Saying he will come home
When he’s finished running
Because he always has in the past

Then there’s Danny
26 years old
And drunk all of the time
Says he can stop any time
Stopped twice last week
But why should he?
Will it change who he is?
Will it change what he is?
Ran away from home
Because he loved his best friend
It’s not a new story
When a family disowns one of its own
Ironically, he came to San Francisco
And he never fit in
In the place where anyone can fit in
Cheap alcohol is cheaper than
$200 psychiatric sessions

And finally there’s Jaime
Life of the party
Always something fun to say
Could make you laugh at a funeral
And then the notification
198 t-cells
Two below safety
She stopped laughing
Or making us laugh
And it kept dropping
Some one-night stand
Of lifetime proportions
I’d often try to comfort her
Today was not necessary
The police found her in a bathroom stall
Blood already dried over from
Where she opened her wrists

Each morning
I take inventory
Over the dispossessed
The forgotten
The abandoned
And I will do so
Until…
…someone finds me
It’s what we all share in common

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License to Quill

Currently, I'm working on a book of poetry that I'm trying to complete. Most of the poetry is finished, but now I'm trying to put the whole program together for publication. I had an idea on an original poem about a decade ago called "License to Quill" about a young girl named Davina Marconis who is on the streets of San Francisco after killing her father who was molesting her (yes, a happy story, of course; would you expect anything else from me?). She's intelligent for her youth and writes really powerful street poetry that is helping her come to terms with her destroyed life (which is what the original poem "License to Quill" does. My vision of this book of poetry is that it is the lost notebook of Davina Marconis, which is found by me and published posthumously, going against her wishes to destroy everything she wrote after she is gone, much as Galileo did during his time.

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