Sunday, April 13, 2008

America is Karazy!

I had the epiphany today that the USA is crazy. And I mean this in more than just the flippant way we might say of someone "oh, he's crazy!" I mean that the USA (collectively anyhow) acts like a person living in what psychiatrists call a "delusional system."

We are now in what seems like the 10,000th month of the 2008 presidential campaign and nearly drowning intellectually in the cesspool of idea diahrea that issues from the cloaca of our national media. From the fatuous to the unfounded to the unfair to the irrelevant, nothing seems too idiotic to be reported, analyzed, dissected, and rebroadcast endlessly as regards the campaign. Like voices inside the head of a delusional person, the irrationality of this 24-hr barrage of idiocy threatens to overwhelm the saner part of the collective American consciousness and lead us as a nation dangerously closer and closer to a self-destructive act.

The media has turned its attention to discrediting Barack Obama. He's either not experienced enough or he's too liberal, or he has embarrassing associations with those who speak unpleasant truths about the land of the free and the home of the brave. There's more than an undercurrent of racism about this -- fear of black men, fear of the black community and what it might do if one of its own is president. But the mechanism is the same as with every other candidate the media decide to trash: sow doubts about experience, about competency, about moral fibre, about associations with people we're not supposed to approve of (eg Rev. Wright)

After the presidencies of Reagan and Bush II, it seems a bit late to make experience and competence a litmus test for the presidency. And on what basis could such a test be issued? Experience? Regan and Bush were former governors. Obama is a Senator, arguably a position even closer to the presidency. Competency? At one point, the Reagan White House was using an astrologer to decide who got to see the Presdent that day. And Bush II, an alcoholic whose poor use of the English language is, so far as I know, unique in presidential history, has "managed" the country into a war and what looks very much like the great depression of the 21st century.

Moral fibre? Let's see, our current president lied to start a war that serves no purpose and which has not only killed 100s of thousands, but may bankrupt our country for a generation to come. What defect in Obama's character can possbly compare to the things Bush has done?

Bad associations? Now we're getting closer to the nub of what is really scaring the media about Obama: the fear that he may actually represent one or more constituencies for change. Change of the kind that could threaten the elites who have managed to brainwash many Americans into thinking that lowering taxes on the rich is good for the poor, that attacking Iraq will make us stronger, that letting scoundrels plunder the economy is protection of "choice."

Unfortunately, while Obama is certainly to be preferred to McCain or Clinton, he is not Robin Hood and his election is unlikely to bring more than marginal change for the better. This fact alone should tell us that the firestorm of controversy over his candidacy is just more mental noise inside the collective head of our seriouslyh mentally ill country.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

ONCE AGAIN THE BLOGGER WHOSE INSIGHTS CUT TO THE QUICK ON ALL THE SALIENT ISSUES OF THE DAY! IF THESE COLUMNS WERE WRITTEN ON A DAILY BASIS I WOULD GIVE UP READING THE NEW YORK POST!