Shocking TV images, frightful news stories, skis to tune

 As American democracy teeters on the brink of self destruction, we're still renting ice skates and sharpening and waxing downhill skis and snowboards, and working on the odd and occasional fat bike. Potential customers still come in hoping to find snowshoes, cross-country skis, and even bicycles in their size. It's hardly a mob scene since the hot rain on Christmas obliterated three feet of snow in 24 hours, but people are finding things to do. The snowshoes were gone before the end of December, but we've actually managed to put together some cross-country ski sets for lucky Cinderellas who come in and find that our selection of glass slippers happens to fit them.

The contrast is strange. Very little of the violent political unrest seeps through to us, despite the persistence of flag-waving disciples of authoritarianism who still keep their banners aloft. It's been interesting to see some of the really long-stranding ones disappear, though. My middle finger is getting a lot less of a workout on the commute now. Instead I beam a little message of thanks that they finally found a line they wouldn't cross. Either that or the dang thing just rotted from a few years of UV exposure, and they didn't bother to replace it. But that can't be true of one of them, which was brandy new right before the election in November. It actually came down a while ago. I forget which atrocity had just preceded it. The comings and goings of the flag and signs at that house were an enigma anyway.

I don't want to find out how long we would be able to continue our business more or less as usual after the country became a fascist dictatorship. I'm afraid that we would barely notice. The heroes of resistance in World War II faced a different kind of conflict. Weapons were more primitive and the battle space was still somewhat defined. The fight appeared long and dangerous and difficult, but Allied forces were on the move. It was just a matter of holding out and helping out as much as possible in occupied territory. But there have been tremendous advances in killing hardware and sadism since then. Not that sadists have invented anything new, but there seem to be more of them, and they can communicate readily to coalesce in locations that currently do not depend on declared control of territory. No place is behind enemy lines. People who want to start something can just get in their trucks or hire some buses and go. Since their political ideology is founded on ignorance, paranoia, and greed, they offer no plan that can be critiqued, other than short-term plans to do harm to elements of society or specific individuals that they believe threaten them.

Racial justice matters little to communities that are basically all white. It's easy for a business owner in a situation like that to say that he doesn't care who is in office as long as he can take care of himself and his family. I could never understand the virulent racism in lily-white northern New England. What the hell do you people know about having to get along with other races? They rag on French Canadians, too. Frenchman jokes abound. The south hasn't gotten over the Civil War. New England still hasn't gotten over the Seven Years' War.

I wonder how many northerners went to fight for the Confederacy during the first Civil War. Based on the attitudes I see today, I would expect a lot of them would do it now.

Unwanted kindness

White supremacists can all go fuck themselves with a stick of dynamite. Their philosophy has no place in the government of this country. Their dream of a monoculture may draw on threads from our country's past, but those should have been stripped out of the weave a long time ago.

As I rode home yesterday, contemplating what I'd seen and heard coming out of Charlottesville, I thought about how I wouldn't mind busting an ax handle upside some neo-Nazi's head. I know we should be trying to set a better example for the hopelessly primitive bastards, but they're immune to reason and have no negotiable points. Many of us are facing economic challenges and a government that has long been corrupted by corporate influence, but white nationalism is its own separate piece of unadulterated shit. You can solve all the problems of government corruption and the glorification of greed, and pathologically white people will still find reasons to be assholes.

Don't think I don't realize that greater acceptance of diversity will lead to its own problems through the weaknesses of human nature in general. But, taking race and ethnicity out of the equation, we will be more free to react to someone positively or negatively just based on whether they're an asshole. It really will be better. It's one baby step closer to discussing issues on their own merits rather than labeling them and assigning them to one side or the other of a polarized political atmosphere.

Giant steps would be better. We may be making baby steps out of the path of an avalanche.

So there I was, thinking my hippie-commie-peace freak thoughts and pedaling my zero-carbon-emissions vehicle down the side of the highway, when a big, black, battered, loud pickup truck came up from behind, with a huge Confederate battle flag waving over the truck bed.

I heard the truck's tires contact the centerline rumble strip, indicating that the driver was giving me as much room as he possibly could with oncoming traffic. His speed was steady. He did not blip the throttle, downshift, cut in on me, yell, or throw anything. As much as the implications of the flag made me want to lob a hand grenade into the truck bed, the driver was being admirably responsible. He did way better than the little old lady with the Jesus fish on the back of her compact car, who had squeezed me to the curb the day before. Not that I trust any religious symbols to guarantee saintliness, but if you saw those two vehicles, which one would you expect more trouble from?

Experienced riders know to expect trouble from all of them.

With the Internet and broadcast news, people can take sides in real time and spread a conflict at least symbolically to every corner of the country, and beyond. Doing nothing does not make you neutral. But conflicts are laid over conflicts laid over conflicts. If I had looked brown from behind, would I have gotten as much room? Or was the flag display a misguided piece of "free speech" by someone young and foolish? Sure, you have every right to interpret a piece of colored cloth any way you like. But it's piss-poor timing if you want to wave that thing around the day after murder and mayhem in the name of racism, and don't want to be lumped in with the racists.

I used to like rainbows. Then those colors in that order became a symbol of a movement. It's one I happen to support, but now every rainbow is suspect. The fucking spectrum has been politicized. We all have to make adjustments in the constant debate over our past, present, and future beliefs. The Nazis were sharp dressers and had some cool hardware. Not every member of the armed forces of the Third Reich was a foaming fascist fanatic. But the gang in charge was rotten to the core, and the cause was unjust. No piece of regalia can be separated from its origins. 

At some point, we have to quit arguing over how wrong the wrong sides were in past conflicts, and in what ways, and declare that from this point forward we will quit being shitty to each other. The parents in the front seat have to tell the kids in the back seat, "I don't care who started it, both of you shut up or I'm pulling this car over right now! Keep your hands to yourself!"

It's either that or ax handles, machetes, firearms, Molotov cocktails, IEDs, and never sitting with your back to a door or a window.

For hours after the incident -- or lack thereof -- I felt the conflict of suspended outrage. As a rider, I want every driver to pass thoughtfully, generously, and smoothly. Before the election, when the odds seemed to favor a different outcome, I wrote about the strangely good behavior of drivers displaying stickers supporting the candidate I hoped would lose. At the time, I hoped that basic humanity would prevail, and that we would get past the eruption of ugly sores that had become a trademark of the campaign. The months following the inauguration have shown that my hope was in vain. We're going from ugly to uglier, en route to ugliest, which could be terminally ugly. It does not have to be, but anyone close to the levers of power seems disinclined to prevent it.

Those of us opposed to racism tell ourselves and each other to confront it at every opportunity. I've done my share, working for years with someone who might, with little provocation, spout sexist, racist, homophobic drivel like some waste product no longer adequately contained by aging sphincters. When it's right there in front of you, you can have the conversation.

Most of the bigots I've known personally are passive aggressive. They would not go to a rally, burn a cross, or even openly discriminate against someone coming into their business. A small business can't afford to lose any sales, even from Satan-worshipping communist lesbian baby-murderering ****ers. Your average bigot, in addition to the truly destructive practice of voting for candidates who turn those beliefs into policies, will just say shit to be annoying. If they know that you don't like their point of view, they'll throw out remarks just to get a rise out of the opposition. Because they find your outrage amusing, the best reaction is deadpan.

On the day after the inauguration I wrote about the possibility of escalating violence. We seem to be getting there. I wouldn't ride a bike to a tank battle, so I'm still relieved when the tank gives me a wide berth. But if I plastered my jersey with inflammatory symbols that courtesy would probably evaporate. Not one for pointless sacrifice, I'll separate the rules of the road from the rules of engagement.