Shrugs

I haven’t been writing lately. Frankly, the run-up to the 2008 election and the election of a President who thinks that the US constitution is flawed shook me to the core. The cult of then candidate and now president Obama’s personality, all hinging on vague concepts like hope and change and Marxist inspired posters as well as the inability of the opposition to mount a coherent defense of the core American value of a constitutionally limited government, brought back such horrible memories of the Cuban tragedy, that I resorted to burying my head in the sand for over a year, playing ostrich, barely sticking it out on occasion to mutter “I’ve seen this movie before.”

At times, I’ve threatened, in desperate jest, to go back to Cuba. I tell my life partner that I already rode the runaway train of socialism down once and have no desire to do it again. At least Cuba has already hit rock bottom.

And so here I am today, writing. Head out of the sand and squinting. Grimacing at all that my senses are taking in. Surrounded by an all too familiar ugly, foul smelling, painful reality that’s leaving a bitter taste in my mouth.

I was watching TV and they were talking about the tea party activists. Whatever. They wear t-shirts and hats, make signs, wave them at the TV cameras, pat themselves on the back and tell each other what great Americans they are and then they go home and nothing changes. A stupid waste of time, really. Kind of like going to a Star Trek convention.

And they were referring to these folks as “tea baggers.” Apparently this is offensive.

Sheesh! Everyone is way too sensitive these days.

Then, I read on a blog that “tea bagging” was a “sexually” offensive epithet and Hah! that made me interested enough to Google “tea bagger” on my miraculous 3G smart phone and Oh My God!, or OMG in 2010 text lingo. Who knew?!? I certainly didn’t. Wow, right there on Wikipedia! It takes a lot to make this old “gusano” blush.

Oh, pardon my spanglish. Lemme esplain what a gusano is…

Ah yes, “gusano”, Spanish for worm, a lowly, belly crawling creature that feeds off rotting carcasses and refuse. That’s what I was called in Cuba when I was a kid. That’s what all of us who didn’t think Fidel Castro had all the answers or was the only one with the right to ask questions were called.

I mean if you didn’t think that government, Fidel’s or Batista’s or Pepito’s, could abolish the constitution, or had the right to force you to do things you didn’t want to do, like “volunteer”, or that it had no right to take your property and give it to someone else, you were a “gusano.” You were a “counter revolutionary”- against the party, against Fidel. So you were ridiculed and shamed with an insulting moniker made to conjure up a disgusting image...a “gusano.”

Some of “gusanos” were lucky enough to escape Castro’s totalitarian amusement park to a place where you could, if you wanted, wear funny t-shirts and hats and wave signs that mostly say hooray for our side and we cherished this more than anyone will ever know. Being allowed to do so, really, even in this day and age, is a rare gift…an unalienable gift endowed by our creator…that’s denied to so many.

And the best thing about this country was that its constitution was so respected that whenever harmless kooks carrying signs and screaming at the tops of their lungs for whatever reason got together and demonstrated, everyone just shrugged.

Imagine that.

Some nut standing in the middle of the street screaming the total opposite of what you believe in and you just shrug.

Amazing!

And why? because of the flawed, according to our president, piece of a paper that founded our government.

Really amazing.

And so I shrugged, starting in November of last year. Because I believe in the constitution and its “negative powers.” I believe in elections.

But when I see celebrities, folks in the media and some elected officials calling these tea party nuts an offensive name like “tea bagger” just because they’re carrying signs and wearing funny t-shirts and hats and patting themselves on the back for being patriots. Damn-it it breaks my heart because it hits way too close to home for this old “gusano.”

These folks aren’t doing anything more than a Trekie does at a Star Trek convention, really. Then, they go home and pay their taxes. I mean, most people shrug off the Trekies (ok some do give understandably quizzical looks), but these tea party folks get called names-a hideous, insulting, sexually charged epithet just because they have a different concept of the role of government.

And really, that you just can’t shrug off.