the downward slide from statesmen and giants to midgets and gnomes:
THE SLOW DOWNWARD EROSION INTO THE...
THE SLOW DOWNWARD EROSION INTO THE...
POLITICAL OBLIVION WHICH NOW IS OURS, has come upon us like a slithering rattlesnake unhurriedly moving out of its nest toward its prey, leisurely leading us into the undoing of the past and into the present, where we have now come to expect without complaint, the awful and bewildering continuation of a variety of political factions out to batter one another for position and power.
Empowered by our own ignorance and sheer lack interest, it all began when we twice elected an intellectual Drone and former television spokesman for the General Electric Company as the President of the United States, who introduced us to a Dumb Ox theory which he liked to call Trickle-down economics. It all went downhill from there. The well-to-do prospered and gained political power - and although we all were aware of the old idiom that absolute power corrupts absolutely - we became sluggish and inactive, to the point where we have allowed ourselves to have little or No Say at all in all things political. For all intents and purposes,we now only serve the goal of dominance of the capitalist, who maintain a take no prisoners attitude described by Carl Bernstein as, shoot the wounded and keep on going until the enemy is trampled into utter defeat.
The unraveling of the political process, as we now know it, has many names: gridlock, gerrymandering, filibuster, immigration, disintegration, voter suppression, as well as a false pretence war led by another Buffoon, where thousands of innocent lives were lost. Thoughtful men and women who actually could have become our future statesmen, grew tired and disgusted with the political process, looked at the battlefield from different positions, and came to the conclusion that it is not even worth their time to consider running for office. One of the most obvious reasons is also the most disheartening: political networks built to shield donors.
A vast number of people within our society - including, sadly, the best educated - then began to identify themselves with the qualifying adjectives of race, religion, ethnicity, and gender. The idea of an American melting pot has seemingly forever been dismissed. The new political dogma seems to be that we Americans are no longer individuals but components of categories. Our identities have become slots and pigeonholes created by the U.S. Census Bureau and this ferocious logic of adjective insists that the individual takes sides.
The true tragedy of this unraveling process is that it has now extended into the conflicts of the so-called real world - the nonfiction world of news and society - we now demand that everything and all things must be simple, easy to follow, while we eat dinner and watch television and participate in other domestic activities - and, above all else, preferably violent. Watching the beatings of blacks by white cops have become the norm, along with television tabloid shows, feature-film gimmicks: and, of course, music to tell the viewer what they should feel by providing happy lighting and laugh tracks on The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. All we need to do is sit back and laugh and look and listen. Don't think is the message; feel stuff. Give us good guys and bad guys and a laugh or two now and again, so that we can feel better about who it is that we think we are. Don't give us serious discussions about the world of reality! Action, Buddy! We want Bang-bang C0nflict!
In the name of our self-inflicted vulgarity, we have become cruder, narrower, more parochial: wanting nothing more than to go back into the days of the past, the good old days of O.J. Simpson, Lorena Bobbitt, her moronic husband, Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco, the Menendes brothers; serial killers and heroic cops; priests who corrupt kids and kids who kill parents; drug warriors, gun nuts, and politicians getting laid. They in turn become subject for fictional docudramas of invincible stupidity. We have written our own book and gotten exactly what we deserved: three movies about Joey Buttafuoco and none on Leonardo da Vinci other than those where he only appears as a minor character.
The powerful voices of Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman or Winston Churchill or John F. Kennedy or Daniel Patrick Moynahan are now dismissed as relics of the past and have been replaced by the midgets and gnomes of the present by the names of Ted Cruz and Louie Gohmert and John Boehner and Trey Gowdy; while the legitimate journalism of the past with the trusted voices of Edward R. Murrow and Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite became bastardized in the whine and snarl of Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich and Chris Matthews and Rachael Maddow.
These days:
Political sway goes to those who pay.
The poor get poorer.
The rich get tax breaks.
May God have mercy upon us all!
Empowered by our own ignorance and sheer lack interest, it all began when we twice elected an intellectual Drone and former television spokesman for the General Electric Company as the President of the United States, who introduced us to a Dumb Ox theory which he liked to call Trickle-down economics. It all went downhill from there. The well-to-do prospered and gained political power - and although we all were aware of the old idiom that absolute power corrupts absolutely - we became sluggish and inactive, to the point where we have allowed ourselves to have little or No Say at all in all things political. For all intents and purposes,we now only serve the goal of dominance of the capitalist, who maintain a take no prisoners attitude described by Carl Bernstein as, shoot the wounded and keep on going until the enemy is trampled into utter defeat.
The unraveling of the political process, as we now know it, has many names: gridlock, gerrymandering, filibuster, immigration, disintegration, voter suppression, as well as a false pretence war led by another Buffoon, where thousands of innocent lives were lost. Thoughtful men and women who actually could have become our future statesmen, grew tired and disgusted with the political process, looked at the battlefield from different positions, and came to the conclusion that it is not even worth their time to consider running for office. One of the most obvious reasons is also the most disheartening: political networks built to shield donors.
A vast number of people within our society - including, sadly, the best educated - then began to identify themselves with the qualifying adjectives of race, religion, ethnicity, and gender. The idea of an American melting pot has seemingly forever been dismissed. The new political dogma seems to be that we Americans are no longer individuals but components of categories. Our identities have become slots and pigeonholes created by the U.S. Census Bureau and this ferocious logic of adjective insists that the individual takes sides.
The true tragedy of this unraveling process is that it has now extended into the conflicts of the so-called real world - the nonfiction world of news and society - we now demand that everything and all things must be simple, easy to follow, while we eat dinner and watch television and participate in other domestic activities - and, above all else, preferably violent. Watching the beatings of blacks by white cops have become the norm, along with television tabloid shows, feature-film gimmicks: and, of course, music to tell the viewer what they should feel by providing happy lighting and laugh tracks on The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men. All we need to do is sit back and laugh and look and listen. Don't think is the message; feel stuff. Give us good guys and bad guys and a laugh or two now and again, so that we can feel better about who it is that we think we are. Don't give us serious discussions about the world of reality! Action, Buddy! We want Bang-bang C0nflict!
In the name of our self-inflicted vulgarity, we have become cruder, narrower, more parochial: wanting nothing more than to go back into the days of the past, the good old days of O.J. Simpson, Lorena Bobbitt, her moronic husband, Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco, the Menendes brothers; serial killers and heroic cops; priests who corrupt kids and kids who kill parents; drug warriors, gun nuts, and politicians getting laid. They in turn become subject for fictional docudramas of invincible stupidity. We have written our own book and gotten exactly what we deserved: three movies about Joey Buttafuoco and none on Leonardo da Vinci other than those where he only appears as a minor character.
The powerful voices of Franklin Roosevelt or Harry Truman or Winston Churchill or John F. Kennedy or Daniel Patrick Moynahan are now dismissed as relics of the past and have been replaced by the midgets and gnomes of the present by the names of Ted Cruz and Louie Gohmert and John Boehner and Trey Gowdy; while the legitimate journalism of the past with the trusted voices of Edward R. Murrow and Chet Huntley and David Brinkley and Walter Cronkite became bastardized in the whine and snarl of Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich and Chris Matthews and Rachael Maddow.
These days:
Political sway goes to those who pay.
The poor get poorer.
The rich get tax breaks.
May God have mercy upon us all!
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