Golf and the Great Silence of 2009

My family visited a bunch of parties and people over Thanksgiving. Kids would eat and go off and play together, and the adults would sit around and BS about life. We hung out with a pretty diverse cross section of both Americans and immigrants, although the majority were supporters of Obama.

After several years of Thanksgivings where people were increasingly angry over the Bush administration, last year the mood changed. After last year's election we witnessed a giddy enthusiasm that change had come. The era of backwardness had given way to some change, albeit ill-defined.

At one gathering after another, this year, people laughed, shared experiences and talked about the recession. But what was new, what had not happened in my living memory, was the absense of any kind of talk of the White House or national politics. Nothing. It was the Great Silence of 2009.

People generally angry at Obama yet. They still have last year's bumper stickers on. Yet, things are rolling along, continuing to go backwards, life is getting harder and harder. People just don't know how to reconcile this to the Obama phenomena. They don't know what to say and are watching and waiting on politics.

This silence is in stark contrast to numerous secondary topics. At one party someone brought up the Tiger Wood's incident. The rumor mill had it that he had been unfaithful and that his wife had beaten him with one of his million-dollar-making clubs. Every angle of this phenomena was explored, as food was consumed and beer flowed: the issue of infidelity, the question of race and gender, the fall of a national hero, perfectionism in sports, parenting. Every aspect of this drama was pulled up, kicked around and eventually laid to rest.

One vehemently anti-golf individual lamented that this was golf's greatest moment of fame, that it was the kind of wide exposure golf needed to break through as a prominent sport. His perspective was that golf had been the musak of sports and he worried that now it would be on TV non-stop. At some point, tongue-in-cheek, he blamed the Scots for inventing golf and then Robert Logie Baird (a Scot) for inventing television, which opened golf up to the millions. A double crime in his eyes.

Well, however you feel about golf, or an incident of parental violence that children may have witnessed, one thing is for sure, people will eventually start talking about politics again. About Obama. Someone will say, "We've been sold out" and from there the search for a political alternative will gain ground.

That day will come sooner than later as the Administration moves towards massive federal spending cuts to pay for the banks' bailout party. The switch from "job-creation" as a priority, to deficit reduction as the number one priority, is just beginning. This is from Peter Orszag, Obama's White House Director, November 13th, 2009:

"We will have to take the tough steps necessary to return our nation to a fiscally disciplined and sustainable path. We recognize that the projected medium-term deficits are too high, and as part of the FY 2011 budget process, we are committed to bringing them down."

The war against the poor is only just beginning. This will end the silence. Then we will spoil the bosses' good walk.

Rob, unemployed in California, 9 months