Rush Limbaugh may get his wish and what used to be a viable, if flawed democracy may just disappear into the kind of thing that used to go on in Michael Vick's back yard. Barking, snarling bared tooth and bloody clawed madness is everywhere, in the wild, outraged e-mail I got last night showing Barack Obama "refusing" to salute the flag on Veteran's day, to a new attempt to propagandize small children into supporting mad-dog mentality and bigoted mockery against liberal political figures, Jews, and gays. Even Geraldo Rivera, of all people, is calling Fox and Gretchen Carlson "preposterous and irresponsible" for insisting that trial by jury is dangerous. That may be the first time I've caught him in an understatement.
It doesn't help any more to refer the hoax spreaders to Snopes.com or FactCheck.org, since there are ten thousand web sites telling us that these sites and the facts they cite are wildly biased against the Gospel ofObamahate and never mind the unimpeachable sources they reference. Fox news? The voice of God, of course and we never question it. I don't think we have any chance to survive it.
It's chic to disparage American products. We can't make cars Americans say, but in China? They'd really rather have a Buick and the US is seen as an innovative technological leader with a competitive advantage over the rest of the world. We have the best health care we insist although our nation's capitol has a higher infant mortality rate thanSri Lanka . Socialism and terrorism are our biggest fears yet acetaminophen alone kills many times more people in a year than have ever died in all the terrorist attacks on our country while the healthiest, happiest, most prosperous, free countries offering the most opportunity for advancement are described as Socialist, third world hell-holes by people who can't find Denmark on a map.
The nativists are restless, the bigots are howling like banshees, the Christianists are speaking in tongues while we roll our eyes and babble about birth certificates, our Muslim president and Sarah the Rogue Palin who wants to lead us into a future although she insists the end is coming any day and traffic accidents are the result of witchcraft. Millions of my countrymen are as out of touch with reason and objectivity as anyone languishing in a padded cell ever was and I'm without hope. There is a tide of hate and madness in the lives of men and countries and I'm beginning to think we're surfing it straight to hell.
I've been around long enough to see many bad times in America, and its people get a little testy with each other.
ReplyDeleteThe race problem, the assassinations, war protests, political division beyond rationality, and the Saturday Night Massacre had to be the closest to a Stalin moment, but I never thought any of that would destroy America.
Pain in progress was my thought. We have been through worse, but the anger and irrationality we are going through now, is taking the common sense out of people. Without that, what do we have to fall back on to ride out the episodes of mental defect?
I still think we will ride this out, but it will get worse before it gets better. It will get uguly, and will leave us scared.
It will leave us 40 years behind in doing what's good for the country, not what's best for a political party. It has already left us near bankruptcy. Future generations will hold us (rightfully) responsible for the mess that will take another 3 generations (or more) to get out of, if then.
Who is responsible? We all are, but I put more blame on the Republicans and especially the far right. History will show the harm their actions have done.
I hear ya Capt.Fogg!
ReplyDeleteWe all need to rant and vent, so much bullshit going down its ridiculous!! I blame the far right extremists for all the hate and stupidity, sorry for those who don't agree, it's my humble opinion.
Yep, riding the wave to hell...
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tom in the sense that this country has seen its share of ups and downs...
I remember living in Detroit during the riots and having a row of stores just a mile from our home get torched...
I also remember my parents watching all of this on television and my Dad acknowledging that the blacks had good reasons for being angry...
I remember my father coming home after his second tour of duty in Vietnam and saying to me that he would personally take me to Canada before he would let me get drafted and shipped off to Vietnam.
I am probably the only son of a Command Sergant Major who had his father tell him NOT to register with the draft board...
He was not all that educated but he respected intelligence...
Now we seem to glorify anti-intellectualism. We do not want to think and ask questions...
Its almost as if we have lost a base sense of what is right and wrong and have to rely on sound bites and anger for direction in our lives...
When the smoke clears, you'll see a great big teabagging failure of a conservative movement. The rest will be self-parody, and that's sad.
ReplyDeleteTom:
ReplyDeleteWe have not lost a base sense of what is right and wrong. We still have one, intact and functional. It is our job to use it and not sit in silent frustration while the Teabaggers and their newest patron saint, Sarah the Impalinator, spew their lies.