PRIME TIME AT CAFE LCTV

I’ve been wondering for some time exactly what political identity I have or should have. As a Viet Nam war protester in the late sixties and early seventies, I gravitated toward Marxism. But I no sooner started to understand what it was about that I also began to understand that its politics was obsolete. Since then I have remained actively apolitical at least insofar as I’ve not been engaged in the community or on the state or national scene as some sort of ‘player’ or ‘participant.’

Watching LCTV’s latest installment last night brought the question again to the fore regarding political identity. It occurred to me that the ousting of Tom Christy was motivated by an attempt on the part of the Republican/Business crowd in Niagara County to consolidate the image/identity that they have of themselves and that others in the county also have, although not in the same positive light. Christy threatened that identity, even if ever so slightly, enough to invoke their wrath and set in motion the political correctness purge, always justified of course by handy administrative rules and the blessings of some state bureaucratic functionary.

But oddly it seems that the image that the Christy supporters and various Democratic critics of the Republicans had of the Republican/business crowd, call them the “Rebizzlicans,” contributed to the perceived necessity of saving that political identity. So before the Christy phenomenon actually consolidated into an identity of its own--whether Democratic or possibly even authentic Populist, or, maybe Libertarian or some unnamed breed—the Rebizzlican machine, be it as it may be, kicked into gear and cleansed its Lockport staging ground. Lockport is now kind of the Green Zone of Rebizzlicanism in Niagara County.

So with the oh so smoothly nice and conciliatory, if not somewhat nauseating, manners of Jackie Davis, LCTV Board Member and host apparent of Access to Government, the Rebizzlican damage control machine got under way. Whew! Back to bizziness as usual! What a relief! I was starting to worry that honest and open critical political discourse might actually take hold in Niagara County. Never fear! Politics has been safely sublimated as business problems soon to be solved by the IDA and Center for Economic Development and ethical concerns quickly cleaned up by the county “Ethics” committee. It’s kind of like the Beckett play, Waiting for Godot. Godot never seems to get here. Vladimir and Estragon are played by lawyers of course.

So you may continue to fire away at the Green Zone but you’ll never get in now. The occupation is secured. I’m not sure it could have been avoided nor that the critics of the Rebizzlicans could have done anything differently.

By the way, did anybody else get the feeling that Jackie Davis’ head would start spinning around at any minute like the Linda Blair character in the Exorcist and she’d start screaming at Edwina Luksch something like, “Go die in hell and fuck yourself while you’re at it!!!”