Pubdate: Sun, 09 Jun 2002
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY)
Copyright: 2002 Lexington Herald-Leader
Contact:  http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240
Author: Larry Webster
Note: Larry Webster, a Pikeville lawyer, writes a weekly satire column, Red 
Dog, for the Appalachian News-Express.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)

MOUNTAINS BESET BY CYNICISM, CORRUPTION

Last Sunday was June Meeting, the first Sunday in June, when, contrary to 
regular Memorial Day, a gentle community of contrarians gathers in Knox 
County to honor its dead, worship, eat and sing the old music. June Meeting 
is much awaited, because it provides a potion to lift our spirits from 
political letdown, which has just occurred.

At the feed we go to, they had homemade hominy and poke, so you can pretty 
well tell that the property valuation administrator in the family would 
never have to worry that somebody's consultant was showing political ads 
with his hiney in them. Not all members of the political community go 
around showing their tails.

There are two kinds of tail showing. The other kind is broadcasting an 
opponent's arrest record or releasing scandalous information that letters 
your opponent scarlet, even while guaranteeing her landslide re-election.

The politicians who cannot afford Ray Stewart and Dale Emmons are lucky, as 
are their gentle communities. Those guys go from town to town and stand in 
the middle of Main Street and shrow. "Shrow" is a made-up word combining 
"throw" and what they throw. That may be entertaining down on Main, but it 
means only puritans or formalistic fools can survive the inquiry that these 
political consultants claim to have made.

It would be nice if gentleness were threatened only by cynicism. But in the 
mountains, gentle people are threatened by corruption, and it is corruption 
two or three layers deeper than an election in which two candidates were 
murdered, one candidate's former employee was murdered and all the rest 
shot at each other. Actually, we're not sure who shot what; it's all politics.

Drugs are not the root of the corruption, but a mere branch. In a culture 
in which permanent and total disability became the only thing a laborer has 
to sell, the mountain young of today grew up watching their parents take 
pain pills and not work. Now we are going to lock away their unfortunate 
offspring because they take pills and would even trade a vote for a few 
hours of artificial ecstasy.

Corruption spreads worse than information in a place where the predominant 
cash crop is illegal but largely acceptable to folks from a moral viewpoint.

Why not sell your vote in the mountains? What good have we done parceling 
it out on any other basis? No matter who we vote for, we are not allowed 
our own federal judiciary. We cannot prevent or get the rest of the state's 
votes to help in preventing environmental atrocities equal to the 
destruction of the rain forests of South America.

Corruption occurs larger when government is sold than when only votes are 
sold. Government is sold to the colonialists in the uplands. Our 
politicians rise highest who are best at serving the corporate interests, 
but the corporate interests are contrary to those of the people. If all we 
have to sell is a vote, how are we any different from the state's 
legislators, who sell theirs every day?

What we really need in the mountains is Tom Barlow. When does he start 
getting some credit? This guy was in Congress, gets a pretty good bang for 
his political buck and is honest enough that nobody will give him a 
political contribution. When he talks, he sort of sounds to the gentle 
folks as if he has a little more sense than his opponents.

Two mountain myths were shattered the week before June Meeting. One was 
that Gov. Paul Patton was supporting Lois Combs Weinberg. It must have been 
hard on her Hindman friends to see that they have been naive. The 
governor's inability to get rid of her more quickly must have embarrassed him.

The other myth is that there is a Bert Combs factor. She lost more votes 
because of her current last name than she gained by her first last name. 
She may be easier to get than either Patton or Sen. Mitch McConnell thought.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager