PEN AND PETA AND ACRYMONIOUS ACRONYMS FOR $1000, ALEX

This post was inspired by a gentle flame Kelso got on his last post, taking him to task for going to the cockfights at La Gallera San Miguelito last Saturday. As a preamble, we're going to have to take a trip in the wayback machine to 1987.

The issue was PEN's choice of George P. Shultz (who held different cabinet positions during Reagan's presidency) to give the keynote address at their convention. As Kelso recalls the story, the choice was either made by then president, Norman Mailer, by fiat or perhaps Mailer cast the deciding vote in favor of Shultz over Grace Paley's objections. Kelso has much admiration for both authors and found merit in both sides of the argument. Ultimately, though Kelso was a pup with no stake in the outcome whatsoever, he agreed with Mailer's choice. The family Kelso was split 2-2 with Kelso and Kelso-mere in agrement, Kelso-pere and Kelso-seure against. Former Mrs. Kelso #1 cast the deciding vote in agreement with Mailer on Shultz.

It really came down to this. Wasn't a Reagan cabinet official and former Bechtel Corporation officer exactly the wrong person for PEN to honor for a million reasons? Or was it an iconclastic choice of someone instrumental in reining in Reagan, Bush Sr, Casey, & Meese's worst instincts? The only outspoken Republican at that high level completely out-of-the-closet opposing both the death penalty and in favor of legalization of drugs had been a lone voice in Reagan's cabinet opposing asset-forfeiture laws and Federal Mandatory No-Parole Sentencing Guidelines? He was also a well-spoken guy with good stories to tell and had been instrumental in getting the USA and the USSR down to the table. Rushdie could wait. Atwood could wait. There was always next year for them. And the whole thing passed by without too much rancor.

Wow. All kinds of serious left-wingers can have different viewpoints on serious issues. Go figure. Does that mean that Kelso doesn't have to think that Zora Neale Hurston was a better writer than Virginia Woolf was? You sure now? OK. Not that's there's anything wrong with Zora Neale Hurston...

These are Old-School names. Rushdie is the only one still in common currency. But Kelso issues a challenge. Find two big-time artists of today whose politics are more progressive than either Mailer or Paley's were. Bono? Sinead O' Connor? Jonathan Franzen? You must be joking. Mailer was also a boxing fanatic. And Kelso's not sure but he can't recall "anti-cockfighting" to be high up on Paley's list of important issues. She probably would have said she liked Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novella No One Writes To The Colonel. As a feminist thinker, however, there aren't too many who could run with Paley. Not Toni Morrison to be sure.

What does this have to do with anything and why are you being boring again, Kelso? Nobody cares about George Shultz or Norman Mailer or Grace Paley or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. We've never heard of them. We like Sean Penn and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Kelso digs. That's great. They are good actors and each has a social conscience. But for fuck's sake, you think either of those guys give a rat's ass what PETA has to say about cockfighting? NeverfuckingmindNormanMailerorGracePaley.

This is all just more of the same old, same old "identity politics" thing that has made a hash of everything. Yes, the same kind of shit that makes very few willing to tell the truth about Obama today and about Lieberman in 2000. Democrats, Progressives, Left Wingers -- why does everyone have to be on the same team on every interest-group's views? As a Jewish man, Kelso felt no pride, only revulsion, at the thought of a Vice President Joe Lieberman. That Vice-President Cheney is worse proves the point. Plenty of well-meaning progressives were all-out for Gore, even though he ran to Bush's right in the fall campaign. Kelso didn't like the okey-doke but he understood what fellow progressives were thinking. Gore was the least worst. They were certainly right about that. But given the Gore/Lieberman Likudnik bellicosity during that campaign, could anyone make a case that those two were somehow not possessed of a villain's sang-froid?

Kelso believes that the state of Israel has the right to exist in any form it chooses but cannot advocate the Ohmert/Netanyahu/AIPAC point of view on any Middle-Eastern issue. He just is not that cold-blooded. But let Kelso admit to enjoying a cockfight...whoa, now you've gone too far. Wretched Palestinians are one thing, but come on, how could your heart not bleed for the poor roosters? Long prison terms in privatized prisons for small amounts of drugs is bad, but betting on a cockfight is a sin! The occupation of Iraq is like bad, but professional boxing is worse. It's sooooo violent. That's it, Kelso, you're outta here. Go over to the Romney campaign where you belong, you fascist!

If that's the consensus, does Kelso have a choice? He's ready to bite down hard and vote for someone far more cold-blooded than he is, Senator Clinton. There's no doubt in Kelso's mind that Clinton is another one who's an absolutist on no cockfighting but would never waver off her belief in the death penalty for human beings even if "we" make a mistake sometimes. Ditto Obama. Ditto Edwards.

May we please be adults here. If there's one thing to say about Pat Tillman --left of all of us politically -- that hasn't already been said, it's this: one may hold unorthodox views on subjects that certain organized identity groups disapprove of and still be consistent in one's belief in peace, social justice, workers' rights, a right to food, water, clothing, shelter, education, health, sex (inclusive of abortion and contraception), pay equity and on and on and on...

But if enjoying a night at the birds is the deal breaker, then count Kelso out -- he'll take Bloomberg or Romney or just give up the franchise. If that's the deal, though, you had better be ready to read the labels on the clothes you buy, as well as the electronics and food, because what's going on where most of that shit comes from makes an evening at the birds seem pretty close to an evening watching tivo-ed Ellens or whatever the fuck the show is called. Screw that. Ellen has been fairly daring in her life. It's like watching Barney. No? Do some research on the Marianas Islands. Or China.

We'll "do" Karl Rove in the next post. And -- advance warning -- Kelso may well say one or two positive things about the man.

Kelso's Nuts love you, but Kelso's not going away. He's just going to get more radical and crazier.