By An Anonymous Writer in Woodstock

    I noticed the incentive for a free coffee mug if I submitted a decent article to Woodstock Truth.  Despite the fact that this mug really wouldn’t have a place next to my matching set from Macy’s, I couldn’t pass up something free, being the Yankee that I am.  Besides, staring at the "truth" mug might be a needed reminder to me that the truth, whatever it might be, is often like hot coffee…sometimes is gets watered down, sometimes it is too bitter,  some like it straight up, others sweetened.  But regardless on how you take it,   if you let it sit too long it’ll get cold.  And no one likes cold coffee. 

    Forcing myself to write comes much harder to me than when the pen takes over my brain and develops a life of its own.  For me, thinking and writing are incompatible.  Much of what I write comes as an after thought to what I am reading at the time.  As I  often read up to four books simultaneously,  I am amazed that somehow it all sinks in and has a way of sorting itself out in my gray matter...only to come out later through my pen, or in this case, the keyboard.

    I'm reading this very funny book right now called "And Then We Came To The End" by Joshua Ferris.  It is his first book and he tells the story of a group of office workers in a collective "we" tense.  Anyone who has ever worked in an office or with people very closely will understand that the "we" is in fact how "we" often refer to each other.  Often "we" spend more time in the office with our co-workers than “we” do with our loved ones. Mr. Ferris is a very gifted writer and I find myself laughing out loud at his characters who either remind me of myself or my dysfunctional workmates. The office politics in particular are quite amusing.  Yes we are all political animals, even the passive ones who try not to be.  While this cast of characters balances between the politically correct and the politically incorrect,   I recalled a quote I had read earlier in the week:

    "Although political correctness arises from the laudable desire to sweep away the debris of racism and sexism and hatred, it replaces old prejudices with new ones.  It declares  certain topics off-limits, certain expressions off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits.  What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause of conflict and even censorship.  Disputants treat sheer force—getting their foes punished or expelled, for instance—as a substitute for the power of ideas.  Throughout history, attempts to micromanage casual conversation have only incited distrust.  They have invited people to look for an insult in every word, gesture, and action.  And, in their own Orwellian way, crusades that demand correct behavior crush diversity in the name of diversity."

    That quote has stuck with me all week. "Crushing diversity in the name of diversity".   Hey, maybe I found some truth after all this week.   And you'll never guess who spoke those words.  Someone I don't usually think as being an eloquent speaker.  Yep, it was President George H. Bush who spoke those words in a commencement address in 1991. A commencement address! How appropriate. I love Father Bush.  The Republicans had balls back then!

    I do agree that parts of the PC movement have been beneficial, at least in terms of making us all a little more sensitive to what we are saying and how it may hurt someone, but when we start to refer to the "hungry" as being "food insecure" or terrorists as "misguided criminals" or illegal immigrants "undocumented workers" we begin to enter the world of unreality where as my grandfather used to say "call a spade a spade” no longer exists and freedom of speech becomes censored by the fear of miss-stepping.  We’ve all seen politicians try to backstep from their PC faux pas only to find themselves being beat upon by the press like a screen door in a hurricane.  

    So the face of fascism begins to change and as it does we realize that fascism is not just a label meant for Neo-Nazism or the National Organization For Women but it is a word that describes any organization or belief that self-righteously discriminates against others for beliefs that do not coincide to the letter with theirs.   In reading the classic book by Hemingway, For Whom the Bells Tolls, we find a short story describing a band of communists who are fighting against fascism in the Spanish Civil War.  The main character, an American, Robert Jordan, states that he is not fighting for communism, but rather against fascism.  I found that a very telling statement that perhaps gives us a clue to the timeless battle between left and right in America.   Perhaps, I thought, Jordan is on to something.  Perhaps not all liberals are fighting for communism per se, but rather they are fighting against fascism which they may see in their foes.  I mean, have you ever seen a 1980’s Jerry Falwell sermon?  What saddens me in Hemingway’s book is that this band of communists are as ruthlessly stringent in their beliefs as the fascists are in theirs.   In present day America, can it be that the liberal PC movement has become as fascist as the people or causes they claim as their foes?  When the situation arises where fascism versus fascism exists, common sense and bipartisanship are often lost and we see a great polarization occurring.  Can we agree that common sense has been lost in our government and an unprecedented polarization has occurred in America over the last 20 years?   But what is this polarization all about really.  Whether at work or at play or at Sweet Evalina’s Stand, I find most of the people I meet are more like me than against me…Republican or Democrat.  It is my belief that most Americans are not quite so different.  We share many commonalities and some of them are common sense, a good work ethic, and goodwill.    When we see our government lacking these attributes we tend to throw up our  hands and  continue on with our lives, knowing that despite the odds against the middle guy, we have something they don’t have…integrity, common sense, and goodwill.   We somehow view ourselves as better, smarter, and more astute on the problems affecting our country than our own government.    

    We laugh at the gaffes our politicians make and revel in the blood sport that their game has become.  We know we are above it all and somehow we can sleep better at night because of it.   We go to work, we take care of our houses, we raise our families in the midst of this fascist war, because we know that fascism is only for “other people”, something that mainstream media and politicians have created.  Well as much as I never liked collectivism, I find myself borrowing form Joshua Ferris and using the “we” tense to describe us as ONE.  But in a sense Ferris is right on target, as much as we strive for individualism, it is often that “we” that brings us together.  It is the “we” that, despite ourselves, moves life along.  It is the “we” that makes us laugh, it is the “we” that makes us cry, it is the “we” that allows us to accomplish amazing things throughout history.   Now don’t get me wrong,  you won’t start hearing me quote from Hillary Clinton’s It Takes A Village, but I will borrow from Joshua Ferris’s book the “we” tense in terms of his ability make us laugh at ourselves.   We need to laugh at our own politics here in Woodstock, we need to laugh at our own cast of characters, and we need to sometimes step back and laugh at ourselves.  As far as I know, laughing at ourselves is still politically correct.  So go for it.