CPAC: I SEE WHITE PEOPLE

I don't hate white people. Some of my best friends are white. I'm even pretty sure that I'm white. And I thought I'd witnessed "white gatherings" by watching all the Republican National Conventions over the years, but those button-hatted celebrants were stewing in melting pots when compared with the audiences at CPAC. Had those folks laid down naked in my front yard, I doubt I could have discerned the difference between them and the snow. Yet they claim to be the "real Americans".

All the heavy-hitters were there: Mitt and Ayn, Rick and "She Who Must Bear Children", and Newt and Solyndra. Newt even had a jumbo monitor image of him flanked in descending fashion by famous supporters, all of them forming a toppled pyramid. (New World Order?) The whole thing was airbrushed and shades of silver and blue: A nearly monochromatic study of politics and power. In other words, it looked like the promo shot for the next season of "Project Runway". Newt was front and center, a chubby and ill-tailored Tim Gunn, ready to shout "Make it work!" to any and all black or brown men, women, and yes children, that he might happen to come across. Callista, had she been featured in the image, could have channeled Cruella De Vil or Frau Blucher and made an excellent Heidi Klum: "Auf weidersehen,  old sick wives!"

But we need not concern ourselves with the images any further for we have the power of their words. In particular, the words contained in the speeches of Mitt and Newt. Here are the "Off the Cliff's Notes" for Mitt, the unspoken but insinuated:

CODE: "We don't want any rules."
We just insist that you live and love as WE please.


CODE: "We want people to be free."
...to go broke, poor, uneducated, and unhealthy.


CODE: "Our beliefs are no beliefs."
...except to hate whatever others believe.


CODE: "I'll bring business experience to Washington."
I have not been paying much attention lately.


CODE: "Federal workers should be paid according to private sector compensation."
Anyone flying home? Want me to find someone to guide your plane for you?


CODE: "The founders principles should never be challenged."
This place was a lot better under rich white men.


And Newt didn't disappoint either. He was a regular "code-talker":

CODE: "I'm old, listen to me."
And I helped set a lot of the current crap in motion.


CODE: "We will make you rich and get you laid."
Just don't get caught doing either in Congress.


CODE: "Poor and dark people are robbing you."
Don't let them take yours when you can always take theirs.


CODE: "Give us our prescription drugs now."
...and our litigation later.


CODE: "Audit the Federal Reserve."
...but keep your hands off Wall Street.


CODE: "We need to adopt the Irish corporate tax rate."
Because Ireland's economy is doing so well!


CODE: "Reagan was a supply-side economics guy."
So he's the reason we're in this mess right now.


CODE: "We must move the American Embassy to Jerusalem."
We really need to dial up the hate of Arabs.


CODE: "We know who the real Obama is."
And you all know he's not "one of US".


And under the strains of an amorphous blend of music which can only be described as "Country-Rock-Hillbilly-Blues-Making-Time-Pass-Quickly-Bad-TV-Interlude-You'd-Hang-Up-On-Hold" music, were the constant cries for Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happine$$. Or, in CPAC shorthand:

LIFE: C-reating ~~~~LIBERTY: C-antankerous~~~~PURSUIT OF HAPPINE$$: C-orpoate
           P-olicies  ~~~~                   P-atriarchs ~~~~                                                     P-ower
          A-bolishing ~~~~               A-llowing ~~~~                                                      A-ttacking
          C-ompassion ~~~~             C-ensorship ~~~~                                                   C-itizens

And I'll have to admit, it's catching. I've never held a loaded gun in my life, but that's what they'll find if they shrink the government and come for my house: Me, in a rocking chair, shotgun across my lap, sitting on the front porch. And why would I sink to such hyperbole? It's personal. I've owned four houses and lived in dozens of others. Sure, it would have been smarter, perhaps, to stick in one spot all my life and have one house paid for when hubby has forced retirement at 56.  Especially if we're waiting until age 70 for Social Security. And he could get another job after 30 years of daily demanded perfection, or I could return to the workforce--but that's our decision to make. We'd just like the rules to stay the same. (And so would the private sector employees in Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio.) We don't want EVERYTHING, we just want to stick to the agreement, or come up with a fair and agreeable compromise. Mitt wouldn't understand that, according to the folks at all the companies he's closed. Newt wouldn't understand that, according to his first two wives. Rick doesn't understand anything un-sex-related.

After years of bad decisions, I finally got the house thing right. I used to fear I was cursed to never being "home". But, in the wandering years, I managed to contribute greatly to this economy, decided to have kids, showed them different lifestyles, and introduced them to all sorts, shapes, sizes, and colors of people. Will I have no mortgage in a few years? Not unless someone wins the lottery. Did I make perfect choices every time as hubby HAS to do at work? No, but we lived our lives. We haven't been irresponsible, we've been living, pursuing that elusive happiness.

The thought that people lost their homes and jobs "legally" but through unscrupulous practices saddens me. The realization that those same taxpayers were then forced to bend over and give what little they had back to their financial abusers, angers me beyond words. But as agitated as I get, as stupid as I think these "conservatives" are, I'll be damned if I can bring myself to the desire to suppress their vote, censor their voices, stomp on their civil liberties. I'm a softie, a hopeless case. I'm a DEMOCRAT.

I'm no Sharron Angle, thank goodness, but I love my house and I'm only leaving it feet first. Now I just have to remember to muster that same sense of purpose--unarmed, of course--to keep others in their houses. Especially President Barack Obama. Especially the White House. All our houses may depend upon that, no matter what color you or your house happen to be.