A Note to My Readers
As a lot of you have probably noticed, my take on politics and life in general has taken a turn for the darker, and that’s saying something considering my typical frame of mind. Of all my readers, only Ray, Stu, Neil, Claiborne, Alex and Kate, and maybe one or two others knew me before the whole Sam thing hit the fan. And those folks will tell you that even then, I was a pretty angry guy, but it was… well, it was different. But I’m not writing about that issue right now. Sam or no Sam, the situation in America politics has me so disgusted, so bitter, and so deeply, intensely angry, that it is hard to express without spiraling into an incoherent stream of curse words and spittle.
I have grown cynical and frankly hopeless about the future of the country, never mind the world. Yesterday I cited Hugh’s comment at FDL, “It is still seen as politically more important to appear to address a problem rather than actually solving it” in my post on the absurd “no confidence” vote. No one is going to do anything. There is no leadership anywhere in the United States. I don’t see it coming from anywhere. Even the most “progressive” candidate for president is a creature of establishment Washington. The press is, by and large, is owned by massive stateless corporations, all who have a stake in the status quo, all who operate in their own self interest. The promise of the 2006 elections has proved to be meaningless, one capitulation after the next, because there’s a stake in the status quo, in self-interest.
I already know the Republicans are out of their minds, just senseless jingoists and fear-purveyors with no solutions but incarceration for all, but I’m just disgusted by what seems to be willful timidity and cowardice on the part of the Democrats in pushing a progressive agenda. As I’ve said before, it’s one thing to say “we are powerless” when you’re in the minority (and even that’s bullshit considering the Dems gave up the filibuster on their own, which the Republicans certainly haven’t, eg the joke -ass and easily defeated no confidence vote): it’s a different story when you have the majority. Sorry: it ain’t flyin’.
I have no faith in the Democrats and have no faith in the system at all: it’s a load of garbage, something to be dealt with with plugged nose, or better yet avoided at all costs. I don’t know if I can even vote at the national level anymore, although on the local level I still feel there a chance for an ordinary person to have a voice.
And I have no faith in the media to tell me the truth either: tonight I heard a paean to Ronald Reagan delivered by uber-right wing Rich Lowry of the American Standard (I mean, National Review, American Standard is a toilet manufacturer) on NPR’s “All Things Considered”. How blatant can you get?
And so it is that I cannot stand to see any of these strutting barnyard fowl clucking and begawwwking as pompously and pointlessly as any rooster, pretending to represent anything that has to do with anything. It makes me sick.
It just makes me sick. And so that’s why I’ve been so bitter and angry lately: like Kurt Vonnegut, I feel like a man without a country.
4 Responses to “A Note to My Readers”
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June 13th, 2007 at 7:18 am
I happened to catch the Rich Lowry piece on my way home from work. Its revisionist stupidity was mind blowing. Why would his “commentary” be on NPR? What was in the news yesterday or this week that would drive a communism = evil, Reagan = greatness screed? Is it some kind of malignant group-think at NPR or just a right-wing cocksucking embed who slipped it in for laughs?
The dissonance can certainly make you want to walk away.
June 14th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
You took the words right out of my mouth. I was in Italy last week and described the political situation to my colleagues there in much the same terms.
The cause? It’s the educational system that’s teaching us to think in 10-second sound bites. If the solution to a problem can’t be explained in 12 words or less, it can’t be correct. Of course, if it can be explained in 12 words or less, it’s also wrong.
We’re hosed.
June 14th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Isn’t it depressing?
I think you’re right Archie, about the educational system. kids don’t learn to think critically in many cases, and in Philly at least, the public schools are a disgrace, which means that if your folks can’t afford to send you to private school, you get a substandard education.
The tell on the problem with education is the ATROCIOUS spelling among people 10-15 years my junior. I just don’t get it: I read pieces by Lincoln, Paine, Franklin, men who didn’t even attain a high school education, and yet the power of their writing, the depth of their thought far outstrips anything I hear from my contemporaries.
I just don’t get it, but it makes me very unhappy. My dad and I were just discussing the problem a few minutes ago.
June 15th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Thinking is hard work and we’re being trained to believe everything is easy. Therefore, anything that’s hard isn’t worth bothering with.
And why should we work hard? Look how well everything is going! Everywhere we turn, we’re told things have simple solutions and we only need to wait for the right simple answer to come along.
MTV, Sesame Street, tabloid TV, even MSM all feed the failure of Americans to probe in-depth and to think critically about solutions to serious problems. Mankind is intrinsically lazy and nothing in current American society serves as a counterweight to it.