DRIVING MISS CRAZY

Had a chat with a taxi driver in Boston just now. It was a very short conversation, but we covered a lot. He appeared to be from Northeastern Africa, because he possessed that dramatic beauty of one of Iman's cousins. I assume he was straight. Possibly muslim. We probably have very little in common, yet in the short drive from the Provincetown Ferry to Boston's South Station, I think we manage to sum up quite a bit.

He griped about construction causing traffic, referring to a road that was being dug up for new sewage for some deluxe apartment buildings. "Now the rich want to live inside city centers--they weren't too interested when the cities weren't as safe." And boring. We griped about chain stores and the fact that shopping choices were now only national chains. "Try to open a business today," he told me, laughing. I said that that both parties like to talk about the importance of mom & pop businesses being the backbone of the American economy, yet the government largely ignores them and takes money from huge corporations to do their bidding. "Both parties--they are the same," he said. I agreed, saying that both parities existed not to represent the people, but to start wars and lick the butts of the corporations who bribe them with campaign contributions. "Every time you drop a bomb, $1 million dollars," he said." I mentioned that it was a global problem and how NYC had become a shopping mall of chains and he said "Even in Africa! You go to the countryside and you don't see lions anymore. You see chain stores." To which I replied "It's a good thing there isn't more oil in Africa, or you'd see more bombs there."

Why am I taking notes in cabs? Well, I'm on a train home to Manhattan, and the ridiculously prudish Amtrak bans access on their wireless to Democracynow.org or any news site which might tell the truth because it has no corporate advertising. So I'm a little bored. But we're preparing for the idiotic, pre-paid dance that is our elections, where we get to select two parties representing basically the same thing: screw the working public in favor of giant corporations and have rich people send poor kids to war so that they can get richer. The two parties may muddy the water by having one shift more anti-abortion or one be more pro-gay rights, but you end up with the same policies. So we foolishly vote for which candidate we'd most like to have a beer with, based on the narrative the press and their campaign ads have created to deceive us. A drag queen can see it. An African cab driver can see it. I think we all can if we wanted to see. Too bad the people most affected by laws aren't the ones making them. All but the 1% would be a lot better off and a lot happier.