Site Presented By
Friday, Nov 6, 2009
My dad is a brilliant self-educated man, a dramatist, recipient of prestigious awards for his art. When I was a teenager, I turned him on to old-school cranks like Nietzsche; he in turn made me aware of modern radical thinkers like Noam Chomsky. He was an armchair radical, for God's sake, whose reserves of contempt for George H.W. Bush seemed limitless.
What happened? It had something to do with contempt for Clinton, which I shared to some degree, but which grew in him to exceed all rationality; it had something to do with the pat smarminess of the P.C. academic/media types of that era ... the vagaries of radical feminism, yadda yadda, the humorless intolerance of certain types of leftist idealogues, sure, gotcha, but George W. Fucking Bush? And these fundamentalist hillbilly retards (mixed in with a few fat industrialist pigs) they claim as their "base" (a double meaning there, I'd say)?
Sweet balls of Jesus, it's anyone's guess what happened, but it's grisly is all I know. I try to stay mum; not worth it. Political discussions have been our bread and butter for so long, and we live in such politicized times, that silence on the matters at hand feels like about a four-ton hippo. He doesn't resort to personal insults, aside from the occasional patronizing tone, but he does grow bulge-veined and spit. You'd think the Democrats were armed Stalinists, to hear him.
How do O'Reilly, Limbaugh, et al, hippa-mo-tize otherwise intelligent people? The "got-something-to-lose" explanation doesn't quite add up, since this is more than, if you will, your grandfather's conservatism. This is a collective red-faced harrangue. Maybe Bill O'Reilly is like a Barney for the middle-aged, he sends some kind of awful thought waves that glaze the sensibilities.
I'm heading up to Northeast Texas for Christmas with my family, including my Bill O'Reilly-loving father and uncle. After a couple of glasses of wine, they both like to bring up my ties to the ACLU (I was on the Board in Houston) and how stupid liberals are.
I am so glad I'm not the only one. I, too, want to remind my father that he raised an intelligent, compassionate, thoughtful, critical thinker daughter who fulfilled his unfulfilled dream of becoming a lawyer. Not my conservative brothers, me. That smart, liberal girl (as I was known in law school).
And I'm 43, Wil. It doesn't get that much better. But we love them, don't we?
So, 33-year old Wil, in spite of his appreciation of his father’s considerable accomplishments and intelligence, is unwilling to consider that perhaps, just perhaps, his father’s wisdom might extend to politics as well. No, dear old dad been taken in by talk radio, which means that Wil can dismiss any ideas that do not conform to his own narrow, liberal world view as espoused by the “impartial” media (NY Times, CBS, et al). Polarize the country? Hey, here’s a clue, Wil: the country has always been polarized; we just never used to hear the non-left point of view. Now we do, and the left doesn’t like it one little bit, do they? I especially like how he managed to slip in that dirty (to liberals) little word, “profit” as if that’s all the evidence any thinking reader could possibly need to confirm the nefarious right-wing plot to destroy America.
If you think it's bad now you should have been there when us "liberals" were screamed at and physically threatened on a daily basis. Back then it was obvious just by the clothes and hair what side you were on.......The difference is that nowadays the right wing hatred is spread over the airways, there was always an audience for this in bars and places where unhappy people congregate. Since Reagan eliminated the fairness doctrine we now have personal self hatred projected on others as a way of life.
A lot of people need to hate because they have never really come to terms with basic flaws in their personal character and have turned to cultish hatred of others (blacks, gays,liberals et al) to avoid their own personal crisis of humanity. For parents approaching late middle age it is particularly disconcerting as they have really gone into a kind of reverse development. At some point in their lives when faced with making some real choices about "love tolerance and truth" they opted for the easier achieved position of blaming and fear. Age should confer wisdom based on life experience, not a retreat into a self absorbed general hatred of things one does not understand. I saw this happened with my parents, my mother moved toward the light and my father moved toward the darker vision. In a way he became a errant child from then on.
The good news is that one can usually keep a sense of humor about it. Just hold fast to the cardinal rule: NEVER TALK POLITICS OR RELIGION with family members. Although it may be tempting and fun it always results in the kind of nastiness that Wheaton experienced, usually fueled by booze and hormones.
The holidays are a time for reflection, and a barometer - provided by our families, of the effects of common culture on our most intimate realtionships. So, this author writes a fine essay on the state of things that we'd do well to heed. But he shies from the abyss.
Going down?
We can't even talk to our families. Ditto co-workers, lodge brothers, sometimes even spouses or children without risking an instant, painful game of full-contact label-slapping.
"Liberal!" "WingNut!" "Moonbat!" "Racist!" "Sexist!" "Homophobe!" "Pervert! "Terrorist sympathizer!" "Coward!" "Fascist!" There's one for all occasions, folks. No more than six to a customer. After awhile, you stop trying. And that is death for a participatory republic.
When we decided that television was where we were going to get our understanding of what was going on in the world, we got television's values as part of the super-size, mediated society package. Maybe you're patting yourself on the back, dear Salon reader, because you have some other sources to tell you what side you're on, but the magic 51% out there might as well have an umbilical attached to the corporate headquarters of BigMedia, through their TV set.
And 51% is all it takes.
The TV society has TV values: 1) Consume, 2) Compete for Status via what you consume, 3) Be sometimes entertained, or tangentally informed, but always anesthetized and 4) What is pleasing to the majority market share is all that matters. Therefore, the politicians who succeed are not the ones that make us think, they are the ones that make us comfortable. The bearer of disturbing news will not be admired for his candor, he will be punished for harshing the media buzz.
The recent downturn in Bush's popularity has little to do with his policies or the illegality of his actions - the groundlings have just gotten tired of his schtick.
When I visited my folks recently, I watched them watch four straight hours of sitcoms. The same ones they watch every week. They didn't laugh once. They hardly moved. Try the experiment. Watch someone watch TV. Does that look like a perceptive, participatory citizen to you?
So what plays better on TV - Careful thought and deliberation with courtesy for the opinions of others, or a nice entertaining round of playground level name calling?
But do the mediated have political opinions? Certainly. I have been screamed at like the author of the article many times by my TaliBaptist family. Their votes far outnumber mine, and they are willing to do great emotional harm to prevent any disturbing opinions from being heard. They will not hesitate to shout me down. After all, isn't that how we do things now? And isn't it fun?
It's not going to change, its not going to get better. The Conspicuous Consumers for Christ Party (not entirely synonymous with the GOP) is in charge, and its going to stay there. They will continue to rule the world through their "gut" (read: cherished prejudices) and ignore the input of those who just don't get why we don't just have faith the great heart of America and the voice of the Living God.
You know the answer.
I don't discuss politics, or any other adult topic, with such people for the same reasons I don't crack nuts with my forehead. It doesn't work, it makes a mess, and at the end you've got more knots on your head than you have nourishment.
As for the author, it is your dad, and not you, that is actualized to the current way of living and reacting in this society. It is you and I that are the dinosaurs, soon to be extinct with our teeth meant to grind propositions slowly for nourishment, rather than slashing fangs meant to draw blood indiscriminately.
Can America survive this epoch of misrule? Of course not. The most casual student of history knows what happens when a country overstretches its economy in foreign adventures, makes enemies, alienates its allies, and teaches its citizens to value entertainment over achievement, and celebrity over virtue.
A Republic can survive anything but the death of the love of Liberty in the hearts of its people. When that happens, no amount of blood spilled, speeches made, or treasure squandered can bring it back. This week the President told us that he will set aside the rule of law whenever he thinks it fit to do so.
History is sitting in judgement, and the Rube-icon is about to be crossed.
America, what will you do?
I'll wager that you'll just change the channel.
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
Even when government officials purposely subject an innocent person to brutal torture, they enjoy full immunity.
The Maine fight was supposed to be the dress rehearsal for repealing California's Prop. 8 -- but gay marriage lost
Once one obtains Seriousness credentials in the Washington media, they are irrevocable no matter one's conduct.
Salon headlines in your mailbox
