are we on the road to doomsday?
I ASK THAT QUESTION SIMPLY BECAUSE..
THERE SEEMS TO BE A GREAT DEAL OF political paranoia running around in the minds of Americans these days. We no longer have trust in government, think of politicians as hoodlums who abscond money for things they don't believe in with techniques resembling the Mob, in order to remain in office. Year after year there is no significant legislation passed by either the Senate or the Congress, and the history of gridlock grows ever more turbulent. Over at Fox News and MSNBC, various hosts fuel the fire of division, as Rachael Maddow giggles and gestures and Sean Hannity groans and growls, while the radio chatterers like puffball Rush Limbaugh unleash ferocious barrages by manufacturing lies in order to keep his ratings up with the intellectually deprived who are paying his bills; while the Democrats slink slowly away and think of the current president as the enemy, never seem to have heard of him when it comes time for their own re-election; and the orange-hued John Boehner licks his lip prior to another tirade about how evil the Executive Branch of Government seems to be.
Observing the felonies and betrayals on both sides of the political aisle, it ought to come as no surprise that we Americans have grown even more cynical and no longer choose to vote. Even in a world now safe for lobbyists and cynicism, and with the persistent allegation of personal abuse by our current President, which seem to be more a reflex than thought and analysis, this is a country that has elected a Warren G. Harding and Richard Milhous Nixon twice, and one would think that we would have grown used to mindless destruction by now. But we haven't. These days, escalating by the hour, most members of the Washington press corps now seem to wear a self-absorbed sneer. They sneer at any expression of idealism. They sneer at gaffes, mistakes, idiosyncrasies. The assumption seems to be that everyone has a dirty little secret, and one's duty as a journalist is to sniff it out. Lost in this rancorous process is any regard for compromise.
I ASK THAT QUESTION SIMPLY BECAUSE..
THERE SEEMS TO BE A GREAT DEAL OF political paranoia running around in the minds of Americans these days. We no longer have trust in government, think of politicians as hoodlums who abscond money for things they don't believe in with techniques resembling the Mob, in order to remain in office. Year after year there is no significant legislation passed by either the Senate or the Congress, and the history of gridlock grows ever more turbulent. Over at Fox News and MSNBC, various hosts fuel the fire of division, as Rachael Maddow giggles and gestures and Sean Hannity groans and growls, while the radio chatterers like puffball Rush Limbaugh unleash ferocious barrages by manufacturing lies in order to keep his ratings up with the intellectually deprived who are paying his bills; while the Democrats slink slowly away and think of the current president as the enemy, never seem to have heard of him when it comes time for their own re-election; and the orange-hued John Boehner licks his lip prior to another tirade about how evil the Executive Branch of Government seems to be.
Observing the felonies and betrayals on both sides of the political aisle, it ought to come as no surprise that we Americans have grown even more cynical and no longer choose to vote. Even in a world now safe for lobbyists and cynicism, and with the persistent allegation of personal abuse by our current President, which seem to be more a reflex than thought and analysis, this is a country that has elected a Warren G. Harding and Richard Milhous Nixon twice, and one would think that we would have grown used to mindless destruction by now. But we haven't. These days, escalating by the hour, most members of the Washington press corps now seem to wear a self-absorbed sneer. They sneer at any expression of idealism. They sneer at gaffes, mistakes, idiosyncrasies. The assumption seems to be that everyone has a dirty little secret, and one's duty as a journalist is to sniff it out. Lost in this rancorous process is any regard for compromise.
Even if we don't vote in every election like we once did we still, of course, remain a people that wants the whole loaf or nothing out of our president and our elected officials. Make me feel better. Make me happy. Make life perfect. And above all else, don't tell me that the world is complicated. In foreign engagement, we remain in the thrall of Ronald Reagan's Hollywood worldview, the Big Dumb Ox theory, using naked power to get our way. After all, if a president won't smash his foreign opponents with icy dispatch, how can he deal with the blacks and the Mexicans and the immigrants and the feminists and the Cubans and the poor and the rich and the disabled and the guys with the hyphens in their names?
If this continues, our country is doomed. We are in the midst of the largest immigration wave since the turn of the last century, while our politicians continue to succumb to their own form of tribalism. They seem unable to want to absorb and assimilate new arrivals. And if they do, they also insist that to be an American, one must accept the status of victimisation, to hate the government and the president, to fear one's neighbor, to reduce all discourse to the most primitive level.
Perhaps it's time for we Americans to think about what we have done to ourselves, time to forever erase the sectarian swine from our political system by voting, to honor good taste and hard work and honor only those who cherish human decency...
...We have to stop shouting for a little while and learn how to listen...
I
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