edwards block

So, like, since the vote last Saturday, I’ve been trying to figure out how to blog about the repeal by the United States Senate of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the law that was essentially a passive-aggressive ban on non-heterosexuals in the various branches of that country’s armed forces.

As a Canadian (a country in which queers have been accepted in the military for eighteen years without the sky falling) I hadn’t really paid much attention to the DADT issue in the United States, mainly because, quite frankly, I don’t really care. I read the news, so I’ve been half-consciously aware of what’s been happening, but I haven’t focussed on it, the same way I haven’t focused on news about Republican evangelical Ted Haggard snorting crystal meth off of the gluteals of gay prostitutes, or news about pre-pubescent boy-singer Justin Bieber. (Sorry about that last sentence – I just threw it in so that I can amuse myself later when I read the blog’s traffic stats).

Lately, though, DADT has kind of wormed its way more deeply into my news-cluttered brain, mainly because an American friend in upstate New York launched a blog dedicated to the subject in October. Harry has been writing a letter to Barack Obama every day, demanding that the President work harder to repeal DADT, and then posting the letters on his blog. I appreciate Harry’s efforts, even if at times I thought he was being a little hard on Obama. Harry’s a thoughtful, caring, generous member of his community, and I congratulate him on walking the talk, as they say. He’s participating in his government, and that should be a good thing.

As much as I admire Harry’s willingness to speak up for equality, I’ve been reading his letters with a continuing unease.

Now, there’s no question that I’m happy that progress is being made on civil rights: there’s absolutely no justifiable reason to deny equality to people because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered, particularly in a federal agency. I’ve been an enthusiastic participant in the queer rights movement for almost a quarter of a century. I support equal opportunity in all cases. Nevertheless, to say that I was excited to see the repeal of DADT would be slightly over-emphatic.

A big part of my problem is that the idea that a queer youth would choose to join the military just seems utterly incomprehensible. In my youth, we would amuse ourselves with the idea that if there were ever a draft we’d simply show up at the recruitment depot in dresses, likely guaranteeing quick rejections. [Trivia note: Did you know that the DADT law that requires that homos be kicked out of the military has a notable exception: that anyone who “engaged in conduct or made statements for the purpose of avoiding or terminating military service” are not required to be kicked out. In other words, if you get caught with your pants down, you're outta there, but if you affect a Max Klinger routine they might make you keep your job, and somehow your presence won't affect troop morale negatively. Attention Pentagon: logical weakness.] Of course, many queers, it stands to reason, might discover their homosexuality after they enlist. Standing in a shower with ten guys with buzzcuts ought to make a fag out of anyone.

But here’s where we have to think about why all of these people are in the military in the first place. Are there really all that many young queers who want to leave home, live in a desert, and risk having their heads blown off in order to defend the interests of the “oiligarchy” that is running their homeland into the ground? Not likely. Most of these kids aren’t in the army out of some patriotic desire to “serve their country” – they’re there because they can’t afford college, and they have a choice of joining the army and getting their education paid for, or working at KFC for the rest of their lives.

The word “pride” is closely associated with the queer rights movement, but I can’t help but feel that this word that has long been used (overused, some would argue) as a positive slogan in the pursuit of social justice is now being incorporated into the lexicon of the drum-beating patriotic rhetoric that pollutes much of American cultural conversation. To his credit, Harry has largely refrained from engaging in the pro-war language that we usually hear and sticks to talking about things like how institutional inequality in the the military reinforces homophobia in all aspects of civilian life. Other commentators, however, have been greater proponents of the sort of mindless patriot-speak that, while not new, has certainly become much more prevalent since 9/11. Pride, unfortunately, is often invoked by proponents of DADT repeal, who speak of being able to serve their country with pride, the word having dual meaning in this context.

In his speech at the signing ceremony for the repeal, President Obama said:

There can be no doubt, there were gay soldiers who fought for American independence. Who consecrated the ground at Gettysburg. Who manned the trenches along the Western Front. Who stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima.

He’s undoubtedly right. There can be no doubt, however, if we follow this logic, that there were also gay soldiers among those who tortured prisoners in Abu Ghraib, blew up 13 children and the rest of their wedding party in Iraq, or massacred hundreds of unarmed peasants at My Lai. If we’re going to accept that gays and lesbians are as good as anyone else, it seems reasonable that we should also accept that they are as capable of evil as anyone else. Are we doing queers a favour by helping them discover that evil?

In the same speech, Obama also related the words of a heterosexual soldier:

We have a gay guy in the unit. He’s big, he’s mean, he kills lots of bad guys. No one cares that he’s gay.

If, in order to advance civil rights, we have to resort to language that glorifies war and killing, perhaps we need to think a little harder about what we mean by “civil” and “right”. I’m tempted to quote Jane Rule out of context:

“With all that we have learned, we should be helping our heterosexual brothers and sisters out of their state-defined prisons, not volunteering to join them there.”

Putting guns in the hands of our young and sending them into peril in order to advance American hegemony is repulsive. It’s no less so if those young people happen to be queer. Now that DADT is officially doomed, I look forward to seeing all those Americans who campaigned for its repeal to turn their attention and energy toward the dismantling of the military-industrial regime and building a truly just society for all.

As I travel about the city, on foot, by bike, or on public transit, I regularly have a very appealling vision. I find myself imagining what life in the city would be like if there were no cars.

Just imagine sitting at outdoor cafes, newly enlarged to take advantage of all the extra space available now that the roads aren’t lined with parked cars, and enjoying your coffee and conversation without having to try to hear your friends over the din of roaring engines. Imagine being able to ride a bike without feeling (quite reasonably, on most streets) that you’re at risk of being mowed down at any moment by two tons of inattentively maneuvered steel. Imagine sitting on a comfortable train car on your morning commute, sipping tea and reading a good book, and arriving at the office relaxed and ready to face the day with optimism, instead of sitting in a car that’s creeping along the freeway at 20km hour, listening to universally dismal traffic reports, and arriving at the office tense, frazzled and ready for whatever other misery may arrive through the day.

I find that this is a particularly difficult thing to imagine for most urban, and especially suburban, people that I talk to. It’s not necessarily a lack of imagination that’s the problem, but negative imagination. People are imagining alright – they imagine what they think the phrase “public transportation” means, and they picture standing on a wet, mouldy bus next to a homeless psychiatric patient who smells of urine, being jostled back and forth as the bus continually accelerates and brakes. This is not necessarily an inaccurate scenario, but it’s not necessarily accurate, either. We do have buses like that, but forget that they don’t have to be like that. We’re provided with insufficient numbers of poorly designed buses by people who never ride them. The design of our public transit system is overseen by provincial government ministers who ride around town in limousines and SUVs. More imagination and committed resources, and less pandering to the billionaire owners of multiple car dealerships, and perhaps we’d start making some progress toward having a public transport system that people actually want to use.

We’re at an interesting point in history right now. The US government has already handed over some $40,000,000,000.00 to auto companies to bail them out and keep them from failing. And they are asking for billions and billions more. And what will come of this? We’ll have car companies that are – stable. That’s it. Oh, maybe we’ll get more hybrid cars and fewer Hummers on the market, but essentially, we’re in for more of the same. A government that is already trillions of dollars in debt is donating billions that it does not have to keep dinosaur businesses alive. It’s like bailing out the horse and buggy industry to keep it going. At the same time, they are asking auto-industry retirees to trade their future health care benefits for stock in the car companies. If I were a GM retiree, I’d be pretty leery of accepting pieces of paper that are almost certain to be worthless for health care.

The time of the private automobile is coming to an end, at least for the urban market, and a new order is coming to replace that tired old, destructive model. A model that is destroying our atmosphere, polluting our lands, encouraging war, ripping apart societies that have the oil to operate the machines, and generally making our cities less and less livable the more crowded they get with private, noisy, filthy, dangerous machines.

I have a more imaginative suggestion for Barack Obama, along with Stephen Harper and other western leaders. Instead of simply handing over all these billions to the auto companies in exchange for minor improvements in fuel efficiency, lets put this money to the most effective possible use. Let’s turn the whole industry on its ear and use it as an opportunity to shift the entire urban transportation paradigm. Let’s pay the car companies to stop simply making and selling cars, and pay them to build and operate a public transportation infrastructure like North America has never seen. Efficient, comfortable buses, streetcars, trams, and light rail for local transport. Rapid transit and conventional rail for longer and high speed routes. Build transit routes in cities so that no one need walk more than two block to access the system. It could be done.

In order to make this work, of course, cars would need to be gradually, but not too slowly, eliminated from city streets, starting with the downtown centres, and expanding in sections or belts to the external limits of cities. The effects of this would be monumental. We would become less insular and more social. Our housing would evolve to become more efficient, in terms of space, resources, and energy. Communities would become friendlier, more child friendly, safer. We would become much more attuned to our surroundings once we’re walking, cycling, skating, or looking out the windows of the bus while someone else looks after the driving than we do when we’re sitting behind a wheel staring at the bumper ahead of us, or trying to avoid being killed at every moment. We’d all relax, and the gods know, we all need to relax a little.

There is precedent for this sort of public works initiative. The Depression of the 1930s was the spark for all kinds of public works initiatives that provided new infrastructure and put people to work when there was little work to be had. We can keep auto workers employed, put more people to work building, maintaining and operating this new infrastructure, and generally end up with a quality of life improvement of which it is difficult even to imagine. But imagine we must.

One of the great things about imagination is that no action is required. We are not compelled to commit to decisions. All we have to do is sit down for fifteen minutes and imagine, just imagine, what life would be like if our streets were car free, and yet it actually becomes easier and more pleasant to get around. That’s all. I’m not asking you to get rid of your car, walk 20 miles to work, or sit in a bus seat that has a puddle in it. Just imagine. That’s it. Just imagine.

Just imagine!