Joseph, I think yours is an excellent comment, though it leaves little room for hope that our democracy is salvageable. It's as if, as a society, we are afflicted with Dissociative Identity Disorder (commonly known as a split personality) and cannot find a cure.
In the past, we as a nation have been able to somehow pull ourselves togethe…
Joseph, I think yours is an excellent comment, though it leaves little room for hope that our democracy is salvageable. It's as if, as a society, we are afflicted with Dissociative Identity Disorder (commonly known as a split personality) and cannot find a cure.
In the past, we as a nation have been able to somehow pull ourselves together and move on even from the most divisive of domestic crises and international emergencies, usually with our Constitution as our guide and a number of human and social characteristics -- and a common language -- to unite us, even as we have disagreed profoundly over specific issues.
It used to be that in our spacious national terrain, we could always move around (literally, psychologically, metaphysically, whatever, you name it) until we found a comfortable spot and could console ourselves with our national myths and other distractions, no matter what sort of weird behavior our compatriots were indulging in. We were almost proud of how badly people could behave without it seeming to endanger the whole enterprise. I mean, we knew we were not all potential Charles Mansons. It was live-and-let-live, just as long as you don't break my balls (as even Italian women sometimes say in their musical language).
But it seems this has changed. What once seemed to be a kind of widespread superior aloofness with respect to those we disdained has changed into unending righteous outrage at every manifestation of "their" stupidity, ignorance, greed, selfishness, immorality, lack of self-awareness, culpable gullibility, pervasive perfidiousness and general hatefulness, resulting in a near universal reciprocal intolerance that renders futile every attempt to find common ground so as to save our nation and our democracy from ourselves. In fact, many of us do not believe there can be any common ground, not now, not any more, not with "them".
And, of course, a few blessed Americans are still trying figure what all this fuss is about.
How in hell did we get to this place? I would say it has a lot to do with unresolved racial inequality exacerbated by extreme economic inequality and uncertainty made intolerable by inadequate opportunity and substandard public education for all but the privileged, most of whom continue to be white, finally leading to... profound disappointment and sense of failure.
Then we are expected to endure all these uns and ins and subs causing dis, while addicting ourselves to simultaneous access to everything instantaneously via our handheld devices, the most insidious drug ever made available to the masses
Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock could get us to the end of this film in such a way that when it ends and the lights come up, and we stand up and stretch our legs and gather our belongings before we walk calmly out of the theatre into the fresh air, we'll be able to nod and offer a friendly wink to perfect strangers without wanting to strangle them instead.
I am hoping Joe Biden has a hidden talent as great or greater than the late director. If I believed in God, I suppose I would be praying to him/her/it daily, even hourly. I guess I will find out if just trusting in people's reason and hoping against all odds will do the trick.
No coup is the same as any other coup, but again, they are all the same. I think we've already passed the "normal" point of no return. It happened when the entire Republican party capitulated to Trump.
On the other hand, I'm not sure it will actually succeed. The Trumpites are very much in the minority, and their only hope of success is the inaction of the majority. Which is -- under normal circumstances -- a sure thing. But these are not normal circumstances, and as cleverly evil as the Steve Bannons and as lickspittle as the Kevin McCarthys may be, I don't think they can predict the outcome, either.
You didn’t mention the 40 years of non stop propaganda, painting people like me, old retired counselor as evil. The cult is, like most cults, bordering on the insane. Look around. BTW, Hitch made a film re the Holocaust that didn’t have a happy ending. He knew first hand how cults could take over many sane minds.
Joseph, I think yours is an excellent comment, though it leaves little room for hope that our democracy is salvageable. It's as if, as a society, we are afflicted with Dissociative Identity Disorder (commonly known as a split personality) and cannot find a cure.
In the past, we as a nation have been able to somehow pull ourselves together and move on even from the most divisive of domestic crises and international emergencies, usually with our Constitution as our guide and a number of human and social characteristics -- and a common language -- to unite us, even as we have disagreed profoundly over specific issues.
It used to be that in our spacious national terrain, we could always move around (literally, psychologically, metaphysically, whatever, you name it) until we found a comfortable spot and could console ourselves with our national myths and other distractions, no matter what sort of weird behavior our compatriots were indulging in. We were almost proud of how badly people could behave without it seeming to endanger the whole enterprise. I mean, we knew we were not all potential Charles Mansons. It was live-and-let-live, just as long as you don't break my balls (as even Italian women sometimes say in their musical language).
But it seems this has changed. What once seemed to be a kind of widespread superior aloofness with respect to those we disdained has changed into unending righteous outrage at every manifestation of "their" stupidity, ignorance, greed, selfishness, immorality, lack of self-awareness, culpable gullibility, pervasive perfidiousness and general hatefulness, resulting in a near universal reciprocal intolerance that renders futile every attempt to find common ground so as to save our nation and our democracy from ourselves. In fact, many of us do not believe there can be any common ground, not now, not any more, not with "them".
And, of course, a few blessed Americans are still trying figure what all this fuss is about.
How in hell did we get to this place? I would say it has a lot to do with unresolved racial inequality exacerbated by extreme economic inequality and uncertainty made intolerable by inadequate opportunity and substandard public education for all but the privileged, most of whom continue to be white, finally leading to... profound disappointment and sense of failure.
Then we are expected to endure all these uns and ins and subs causing dis, while addicting ourselves to simultaneous access to everything instantaneously via our handheld devices, the most insidious drug ever made available to the masses
Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock could get us to the end of this film in such a way that when it ends and the lights come up, and we stand up and stretch our legs and gather our belongings before we walk calmly out of the theatre into the fresh air, we'll be able to nod and offer a friendly wink to perfect strangers without wanting to strangle them instead.
I am hoping Joe Biden has a hidden talent as great or greater than the late director. If I believed in God, I suppose I would be praying to him/her/it daily, even hourly. I guess I will find out if just trusting in people's reason and hoping against all odds will do the trick.
Wish I felt more hopeful. I don't.
I see this balanced on a knife edge of unknowns.
No coup is the same as any other coup, but again, they are all the same. I think we've already passed the "normal" point of no return. It happened when the entire Republican party capitulated to Trump.
On the other hand, I'm not sure it will actually succeed. The Trumpites are very much in the minority, and their only hope of success is the inaction of the majority. Which is -- under normal circumstances -- a sure thing. But these are not normal circumstances, and as cleverly evil as the Steve Bannons and as lickspittle as the Kevin McCarthys may be, I don't think they can predict the outcome, either.
You didn’t mention the 40 years of non stop propaganda, painting people like me, old retired counselor as evil. The cult is, like most cults, bordering on the insane. Look around. BTW, Hitch made a film re the Holocaust that didn’t have a happy ending. He knew first hand how cults could take over many sane minds.