Thursday, September 20, 2012

Life In A Time Of Madness

I had the sad misfortune yeserday to read an essay penned by the daughter of a one-time school chum which was utterly dumbfounding.

These are some fairly smart folks, college-educated, they work hard to provide for their families and yet the essay in question was a stunning display of intellect strangled by a deadening diet of lies and distortions fabricated by the relentless machinery of talk radio and the one major cable news outlet mostly owned by a Middle Eastern tycoon.

I'm not linking to nor quoting the essay - I don't wish to either repeat the nonsense or further embarass the writer.

The writer's apocalyptic lamentations were due to the mere fact that Barack Obama is president and is seeking re-election. A cascade of illusory woes then followed - seems that every evil and myriads of sin-laden plagues were apparently created at the very moment in January 2009 when President Obama was sworn into office. The essay ended with a 'call to arms'.

I pondered and marveled at what I had read - a voluminous litany of horrors were presented addressing so many areas of life: history, economics, religion, and the basic elements of life in our nation, all now somehow exist absent any context or fact. The roll call of fear was the beating heart of this essay. For a few moments, I considered some reply, for none of us wishes to witness a person in writhing agony and pass them by as quickly as possible. But I reluctantly realized there was no salve nor poultice nor any surcease of pain for this person I might offer. Their agony was entirely imaginary, founded on nothingness. The enormity of their fantasy was an unscalable fortress. 

Doubtless there are those who hold views in opposition to the writer who likewise cling to perspectives absent any context or history or understanding and are merely the products of xenophobic rage. For too many people, histrionics has replaced reason - and such misalignment is not dependent on national geography or religious orientation.

I do have some remorse that I have no words or thoughts to share with such folk which might reorient them to rational, thought-provoking ruminations and discoveries. It is truly a sad loss, a bizarre madness which exists within the confines of certain political climates.

And such problems are not simply the loss of recent history, it is the loss of connection to all of history. It is as if all history, facts and truths are now a goopy unshaped mass which can be momentarily shaped into whatever might be expedient or utilitarian and which easily returns to its shapelessness.

1 comment:

  1. OXYMORON6:34 PM

    A right leaning writer and critic of Obama says this about the Modern Republican:

    At minimum, it’s possible to imagine a coalition where sound argument was valued enough to render the most vile ad hominem and the most hair-trigger heretic-shaming beyond the pale. Instead Rush Limbaugh and Erick Erickson remain among the right’s most influential voices. Fox News is movement conservatism’s go-to information source; its big boss, Roger Ailes, profited from airing lunatic conspiracy theories from Glenn Beck that no one can defend, but he hasn’t been discredited. And that’s just the realm of AM radio and cable television….
    National Review’s readers have been exposed to the argument that President Obama is allied with our Islamist enemy in a “Grand Jihad” against America; in Forbes, Dinesh D’Souza set forth the thesis that Obama’s every action is explained by a Kenyan anti-colonial ideology that overwhelms all else. I mention those magazines not because they’re worthless, but because both publish good stuff, and employ a lot of talented people who are more than smart enough to see through this nonsense….this madness gets published in venues where David Frum is deemed beyond the pale….
    Breitbart.com has spent much of the Obama Administration giving its readers the impression that ACORN, the board of NPR, and the question of whether or not the NAACP is racist are urgent priorities for the right. In doing so, it elevated a young man with a hidden camera who tried to lure a female reporter on a boat, intending to seduce her on hidden video and then humiliate her with the footage. Despite that, the young man remains a hero to many movement conservatives.
    Nuff said.

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