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Politics As The Playground
Okay. So I'm at the mall doing some much-needed financial transactions today. I stopped by the bookstore on my way to the food court -- cajun bourbon chicken, yum, haven't had that in a while! Even if it was, you know, food court food.
In the bookstore I meander through the piles, picking up Butlerian Jihad just to see how much Frank Herbert's son butchered the universe. Also picked up Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. If you liked Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum then you'll probably enjoy this one. It's sort of a prequel to The Da Vinci Code which I also enjoyed. It's stuff that's up my alley, I like these mysteries that draw on various bits of historical minutia. It's not the best-written book in the world, but it's a relatively good read.
On my way to the counter, I was rather surprised to see a book entitled Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because there was a book not terribly long ago titled, Rush Limbaugh is A Big Fat Idiot.
Prepare to Rant.
So now it looks like the far-left-of-center liberals and the neo-conservatives are reduced to pretty much how most people know what they are: children in the playground calling each other names. You know, I would swear that these people were at one point adults. At least, they seem to have graduated from high school. After this, I expect congressmen to be throwing pencils and shooting spitballs at each other while the Speaker raps on his podium and threatens to turn this Congress around and go right back home.
Is there a reason why both sides are acting like not-even-charmingly-rambunctious children? Or is this some weird form of escalation where the arguing degenerates into name-calling? Granted, Michael Moore is not exactly the person I would hold up as an ideal poster child for the "patriotic opposition" to the current administration. And I suppose that the liberals "had it coming" when the Rush Limbaugh book mentioned above was published.
Is it too much to ask for sane, reasoned, debate? Okay, maybe it is. the MTV generation is grown up and they'll be attracted to bright shiny things like Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? and the luridly-jacketed MMIABFSWG. But for gods' sake, is there even an iota of rational debate going on somewhere? I'm guessing there isn't. Both sides are far too entrenched and viewing the other as the Enemy. The opposition that each side throws in the face of the other makes the other just dig in all the more. They said somethign abd about us? Oh, then we must be even MORE right! We're in the right, and they're so clearly in the wrong. Not all cycles are beneficial or natural. I'm wondering on what verbal equivalent of Zhan's escalation ladder this meme war is at.
You know what? Forget that. I'm not even going to grace it with such a super-keen phrase like 'meme war.' This is jeuvenile. It's idiotcy. It's stuff I thought ended with grade school. It's adults giving each other raspberries during lunch break. It's pointing and shouting: "He hit me!" "He hit me first!" "Well he called me names!" "Well he started it!"
I may as well admit my bias here and say that I fall on the left side of the house, mainly because of my personal beliefs but also because, at this time, I frankly don't trust the current administration. But really, that's besides the point. This is about supposedly grown men and women resorting to writing books about each other with stupid titles and filled with spun stories. I know politics has always been dirty, and that political slander and libel and spin has been around since bread and circuses. I mean, dear gods, I know I'm as much a victim of cultural consolidation as the next person, but am I the only one wishing that there was some semblance of calm, rational reasoning here? Some sort of erudite way of cutting through all the bullshit and malarky that politicians and pundits throw around? Am I just imagining that once upon a time, words were used like rapiers and maingauches, in subtle, direct, erudite yet passionate duels of ideas... and that now it's become verbal MOABs and Daisy Cutters instead? When the hells did the pundits get the idea for a "Shock and Awe" campaign themselves, 'cause it sure didn't just come from MTV!
Anyway. Miserable thoughts that kept me awake. Yaknow, everything would be so much simpler if I were in charge! ^^ Seriously, though, some things have got to change in our political/social culture. I can rattle off 'solutions' but there'd be even non-neocon conservatives who might take umbrage. Short of that, I'd settle for a moderate who isn't in the pocket of some corporation or special interest and honestly wants us to survive on this blighted ball of rock spinning 'round a sun. Somehow, I don't think that'll happen until something truly awful happens and there is a, as some corporatist said once, a 'dramatic reduction in population by several orders of magnitude.'
In the bookstore I meander through the piles, picking up Butlerian Jihad just to see how much Frank Herbert's son butchered the universe. Also picked up Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. If you liked Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum then you'll probably enjoy this one. It's sort of a prequel to The Da Vinci Code which I also enjoyed. It's stuff that's up my alley, I like these mysteries that draw on various bits of historical minutia. It's not the best-written book in the world, but it's a relatively good read.
On my way to the counter, I was rather surprised to see a book entitled Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised because there was a book not terribly long ago titled, Rush Limbaugh is A Big Fat Idiot.
Prepare to Rant.
So now it looks like the far-left-of-center liberals and the neo-conservatives are reduced to pretty much how most people know what they are: children in the playground calling each other names. You know, I would swear that these people were at one point adults. At least, they seem to have graduated from high school. After this, I expect congressmen to be throwing pencils and shooting spitballs at each other while the Speaker raps on his podium and threatens to turn this Congress around and go right back home.
Is there a reason why both sides are acting like not-even-charmingly-rambunctious children? Or is this some weird form of escalation where the arguing degenerates into name-calling? Granted, Michael Moore is not exactly the person I would hold up as an ideal poster child for the "patriotic opposition" to the current administration. And I suppose that the liberals "had it coming" when the Rush Limbaugh book mentioned above was published.
Is it too much to ask for sane, reasoned, debate? Okay, maybe it is. the MTV generation is grown up and they'll be attracted to bright shiny things like Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country? and the luridly-jacketed MMIABFSWG. But for gods' sake, is there even an iota of rational debate going on somewhere? I'm guessing there isn't. Both sides are far too entrenched and viewing the other as the Enemy. The opposition that each side throws in the face of the other makes the other just dig in all the more. They said somethign abd about us? Oh, then we must be even MORE right! We're in the right, and they're so clearly in the wrong. Not all cycles are beneficial or natural. I'm wondering on what verbal equivalent of Zhan's escalation ladder this meme war is at.
You know what? Forget that. I'm not even going to grace it with such a super-keen phrase like 'meme war.' This is jeuvenile. It's idiotcy. It's stuff I thought ended with grade school. It's adults giving each other raspberries during lunch break. It's pointing and shouting: "He hit me!" "He hit me first!" "Well he called me names!" "Well he started it!"
I may as well admit my bias here and say that I fall on the left side of the house, mainly because of my personal beliefs but also because, at this time, I frankly don't trust the current administration. But really, that's besides the point. This is about supposedly grown men and women resorting to writing books about each other with stupid titles and filled with spun stories. I know politics has always been dirty, and that political slander and libel and spin has been around since bread and circuses. I mean, dear gods, I know I'm as much a victim of cultural consolidation as the next person, but am I the only one wishing that there was some semblance of calm, rational reasoning here? Some sort of erudite way of cutting through all the bullshit and malarky that politicians and pundits throw around? Am I just imagining that once upon a time, words were used like rapiers and maingauches, in subtle, direct, erudite yet passionate duels of ideas... and that now it's become verbal MOABs and Daisy Cutters instead? When the hells did the pundits get the idea for a "Shock and Awe" campaign themselves, 'cause it sure didn't just come from MTV!
Anyway. Miserable thoughts that kept me awake. Yaknow, everything would be so much simpler if I were in charge! ^^ Seriously, though, some things have got to change in our political/social culture. I can rattle off 'solutions' but there'd be even non-neocon conservatives who might take umbrage. Short of that, I'd settle for a moderate who isn't in the pocket of some corporation or special interest and honestly wants us to survive on this blighted ball of rock spinning 'round a sun. Somehow, I don't think that'll happen until something truly awful happens and there is a, as some corporatist said once, a 'dramatic reduction in population by several orders of magnitude.'
no subject
Well politics has cycles of this. Read Strauss & Howe's "Generations: THe History of America's Future 1580 to 2066."
The level of discourse is certailnly in the playground, but the levels of hostility have been as bad or worse in this country. I mean congressmen and Senators you to shoot each other in the rotunda, or beat each other with canes. Hell, a duel in a park south of San Francisco was the reason California remained as part of the Union in the Civil War. And the ramp up to the Civil War was about as childish as it ever gets, because at that point there could be no compromise between sides.
On another note, I do miss reading your writings here.
Scott
no subject
Okay, that's good to know. I'd forgotten about the stories of duels that senators and representatives used to have, so I guess the mudslinging is really nothing new, and if anything is tamer than what we saw in previous years.