Paralysis of the Mind

Everything was supposed to change after 9/11.

We were going to be more serious in this country. We were going to shun frivolous news about Britney Spears (and her presumably new nicotine-addicted baby) and get back to basics, try to do a little learning about the world, and maybe, just maybe, be a little less insulated.

But did it happen?

Like most 'major' life-changes, what most people felt after 9/11 went away very quickly. We remembered partisan politics quickly. Right-wing crazies went back to being nuts on talk radio. The news channels let a little celebrity news back in, then more, then more, then more, and now we have Donny Deutch's 'The Big Idea' on in prime-time on a "news" channel. And God help us all, Nancy Grace is allowed on television.

What the problem was, though, is that we expected a change. Picture the teenager that just graduated high school and he doesn't really want to go to college. High school was fun, of course, but he got an easy job, still lives at home -- paying no bills -- and has it pretty good. One morning he wakes up and thinks "Jeez, I gotta do something with my life." He looks at colleges, he considers a new job -- but 90% of the time, he retires to the basement to beat Madden 2005 again instead. Typically it takes something bigger to move him.

Sadly, that's our country. High School? Was there anything more sophomoric than how O.J. and Clinton/Lewinsky were handled? And we were promised a nice graduation after 2000, but what really went on? Nothing. Bush has made Clinton look like the greatest American leader since FDR. And so we kept on with our easy lives. And 9/11? Yeah, that was a wakeup call for us. But have we really felt an effect? Some would argue the 'yes' point of view, specifically those concerned about civil-rights and anyone who knows someone serving overseas... but in day-to-day life, for the average citizen, 9/11 and the Iraq war have made no difference at all. We haven't been asked to pay, we haven't had to see coffins or anti-war perspectives (until recently) and we certainly aren't faced with fighting outside our homes.

In short, we have the opportunity to do something with our country, our world, our future, but we mainly sit in the basement and ignore it.

Politics is not exciting to most people, for many good reasons. But one of those reasons is the fact that politicians WANT people to be turned off to the system. When nobody is looking, it's a lot easier to get away with things that aren't right. Some have argues that today's conservative movement is adept at the old "Oh, it's not a difference of fact, it's a difference of opinion and it's just two sides squabbling" to keep people disinterested in the political system. The media is certainly good at making every decision into a "Kramer vs. Kramer" brawl without even remotely pointing out when one side either has bad facts or a ludicrious plan of action.

Average Americans are not going to learn about politics. The media is not going to take off Entertainment Tonight to educate us about Roberts Rules of Order. The National Enquirer isn't going to spend an issue on why the federal deficit is a major problem. Social Security policy debates are just never going to be as attractive as

The answer may lie in that drastic crux our teenager nation hasn't hit yet. Sometimes parents get sick of their lazy offspring and say "That's it, you're moving out." I fear that's what it would take in our country, something so massive, so destructive that we'd have no choice but to adapt.

What could that be? It might be economic; say the housing bubble pops, the unemployment rates begin to spike and suddenly the ridiculous amount of debt most people have come to live by becomes unaffordable, and things swirl in on themselves to create a depression.

It could be an honest-to-God war on our soil, the type of thing this country hasn't seen in almost 200 years. And I mean a full-out war; a terrorist attack will only entrench the hawks who believe that we need to take on the entire world to secure our safety. I daresay they wouldn't be as thrilled with war if their neighborhood was taking smart bombs.

It could be a mammoth natural disaster, something above and beyond just the next big hurricane. Maybe it's an attack of bird flu that turns deadly. Or another infection that can't be slowed by antibiotics.

I don't want to see these things happen, of course. I have no desire to be unemployed, under attack, sick, dead or even forced to be a refugee. But it's time to admit, fully and completely, that something is desperately wrong in our society. How else can we co-exist with people who gave billions to Hurricane Katrina relief, yet we happily allow the mother of our President to say:

"What I’m hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this -- this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."

And what's more, despite there being easily accessible audio of that moment, there are such reserves of bitter partisanship that people were defending her!

It's sick, and it isn't going to get better. President Bush has developed into a very unpopular leader... but it has nothing to do with his short-sightedness, his unbearable hubris or his poor decision making. No, it has everything to do with the fact that people are paying high gas prices, so now everything he does is unpopular. If gas went down to $1.50 a gallon, the ship would right -- I guarantee it. Because we're in it for ourselves, and if we're not directly affected, we could mostly care less.

And that's where we stand. It would be great if we could change ourselves, maybe go to college and learn a little bit about the world. But on dark nights, I know that it'll take something drastic to shake us up, and make us less self-absorbed. It's certainly not going to be nominating another snarky, angry, white-male-conservative to the Supreme Court. It isn't voting Democrat or Republican, it isn't putting up fences, it isn't buying a lot of guns and building a bomb shelter... it's simply getting off the couch, shutting off the reality TV and taking an interest in something that doesn't relate personally to us.

And the sooner, the better.

Lessee.

At least 100,000 show up for a massive anti-war protest in the Capitol on Saturday.

Unlike a few years ago, when Bush was untouchable and Iraq's conflict was more popular than World War II, this one was covered by the media. Fairly widely, even -- the wire held pieces from AP, the WaPo, the Times, etc etc so forth, so on and into infinity.

And today?

From AP:

WASHINGTON -- Support for U.S. troops fighting abroad mixed with anger toward anti-war demonstrators at home as hundreds of people, far fewer than organizers had expected, rallied Sunday on the National Mall just a day after a massive protest against the war in Iraq.
"No matter what your ideals are, our sons and daughters are fighting for our freedom," said Marilyn Faatz, who drove from New Jersey to attend the rally. "We are making a mockery out of this. And we need to stand united, but we are not."
About 400 people gathered near a stage on an eastern segment of the mall, a large patchwork American flag serving as a backdrop. Amid banners and signs proclaiming support for U.S. troops, several speakers hailed the effort to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan and denounced those who protest it.

400 people? Interestingly, AP and the news services covered this little get-together in the same fashion that they did the big Saturday rally. OK, I believe in fairness and everything, but a gathering of 400 people in Washington DC isn't news unless it's the House of Representatives.

But the scary bit are the things they said. Cobbled from several wire sources:

"The group who spoke here the other day did not represent the American ideals of freedom, liberty and spreading that around the world," Sen. Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, told the crowd. "I frankly don't know what they represent, other than to blame America first."
One sign on the mall read "Cindy Sheehan doesn't speak for me" and another "Arrest the traitors"; it listed Sheehan's name first among several people who have spoken against the war.
---
"If we don't stand behind our troops they will lose this, but we're not going to allow that to happen like they did in Vietnam," said Ann Faucheax of Annapolis, Md., whose son flies C-5 cargo planes in Iraq. "We're not going to back down this time, because we are the majority!"
---
"A lot of these people want to live here, but they don't want to defend where they're living," said John Horrigon, a former Army Ranger whose identical twin brother, Robert, died in combat in Iraq this year. "I think our forefathers are wondering what happened to the country they once knew."
---
Deborah Johns, the mother of an Iraq war veteran, has been traveling across the country speaking in support of the war. She directed some of her comments Sunday at anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, saying Sheehan speaks neither for Johns nor the U.S. people.
After praising President Bush, Johns said she knew what she'd like to do with Sheehan and the anti-war protesters who descended on Washington on Saturday: "I'd like to ship them to Iran." The comment earned applause.

Because America can do no wrong. Because we're entitled to shapre the world in our image. Because dissent is wrong (unless you dissent someone named Clinton) and anyone who dissents must leave.

Because THAT'S the country our forefathers intended.

Apparently.

Lookie, the thought police have invaded my blog!

Check out the upper-right corner. It used to just be the button that allowed you to skip to another blog. But now, Blogger has given us the right to "Flag" a blog for objectional content.

Hey, y'know, I'm all for dropping those blogs that are set up as advertisements just so Google will find them in a search. But content issues? That's ridiculous. People in this country are already blindly opinionated enough; we really don't need to give them another outlet to try and force their values on anyone else. Or in other words: Go to Amazon.com and read reviews of books that are politically non-mainstream (aka anything slightly liberal or by Michael Moore). People are so set in their view that they trash anything REMOTELY away from their viewpoint -- often so blindly that they end up lampooning themselves more than anything. And believe me, it works on the other side too; It's so easy to slam someone like Anne Coulter because she lies for a living, but most people end up looking like fools for trying.

The entire fun part of Blogistan was that you had creative control, and if you pissed someone off they had the right to either leave you a nasty comment, or to never view your page again. Nasty comments can be rebutted; those who ignore will be ignored in kind.

But offer Americans the chance to appeal to some unknown higher authority, and they will, big time. There's a reason why our courts are choked with cases... its the same reason why Amazon is choked with willfully ignorant reviews: We see our opinion as tantamount, and no matter what fact, piece of evidence, ruling or statute that stands in our way, we will stampede through them to make OUR opinion the one that matters. And then we'll browbeat YOU into thinking our opinion is the only one that matters. We don't reason, we just try to scream the loudest.

Which leads me to wonder exactly what the process is for flagging blogs. So, as soon as I'm done with this post, I'm going to flag my blog and see what happens. I'm sure either way, I'll just end up screaming about it.

... is basically where my blog has gone for the past month.

But fear not, all 0 readers; I'm back, and I've been buuuuuuuusy.

For now, just a quick thought on Bush's speech tonight:

Does wearing a work shirt indicate to anyone that Bush has actually been working? I wear a Red Sox uniform; this should not make people look at me and think "Hot damn, that kid should be at Fenway right now." Most Presidents look solemnly and nod at things... and our leader, in a fit of weird Texanism, plays dress-up. I suppose if the disaster had involved tea that he would have shown up dressed like a lady in the Red Hat Club? I suspect he would look fetching.

Now, if he could clean up the disaster of his last 5 years in office?

Since Katrina is going to be the big story for a while, I feel compelled to write about it. Not like Jacko, where the Blog-people had to come physically make me, but in general, I don't have a lot to say, other than the very basic: It's a shame.

The aftermath, though, reminds me what I love and hate about America.

There's a million ways to help, and a lot of people willing to do some helping. Big fan of our culture in that regard. Newspapers, TV, the 'Net... you can't go 30 seconds without catching a place to send money, or a donation, or even hop a caravan to head South in the hope that maybe you can help out.

That's fantastic. We can be very thoughtful and giving people when disaster strikes. The tsunami relief efforts were pretty good, and that wasn't even IN America.

What's not to like, though:

-- Hurricane hits, and the oil companies respond by jacking up gas prices 30 cents or more? Oh, that's not fucking price gouging, that's 'the market' as some asinine analyst on CNBC said today before going back to his other job -- fanning the CEO of Exxon/Mobil with a palm frond and feeding him grapes by hand. Give me a break. Oil companies are worse then drug cartels. And I can back that up -- I know the price of heroin didn't shoot up (har har) 10% when the Afghanistan war started. And where do we get the opiates? That's right, 'Ghanistan. It's a total crock, and I was warmed to hear Hillary Clinton today say she wants the government to look into. Grand. You and I both know the government won't find anything so long as an oil tycoon runs the thing, but the oil companies are seriously pissing off Americans, and as long as it's a softball, politicians will be all over it.

-- Okay, I have no problem with you if you clung to your house, your possessions and your life as the waters rose. I hope you're OK. And I have absolutely no problem with you hopping a boat and breaking into a grocery store to forage for food. None. But when I see people wading through the floods with 20 pairs of jeans slung over their shoulder? Fuck you, okay? Nothing gives you the right to steal, and Americans -- as always -- prove that there's no disaster big enough where the really intrepid can't find a way to make some person profit. Food, fine. But designer jeans?

-- Thank goodness we've got the National Guard on the scene. What's that? A major contingent are guarding Iraq? Ah. Good call there.

-- If 9/11 was the fault of the abortionists, homosexuals and Godless (Thank you, by the way, Messrs. Falwell and Robertson), then I guess Katrina was... the fault of the anti-abortionists, heteros and God-fearing? I hope not; that would mean we're all gonna get smushed.

-- Finally, I'm sorry I might have missed my chance to see New Orleans as... gosh, dare I say it... it once was. But this is what you get when you think you're smarter than nature all the time. Building a city in a valley 20 feet under sea-level with only levees holding back the water? It sucks that the levee went. But didn't we all know it would happen eventually? In the same fashion that people who built on the beaches of Florida, or the barrier islands off the Carolinas? I'm not saying you can't build there, I'm not saying they deserved what they got by any means, but if build where the natural disasters strike... you're going get your home destroyed by a natural disaster. It is very simple cause and effect. As for the people farther inland in Mississippi? That's just unbelievable. Nature's kind of a bitch.

I hope the death tolls are not as high as expected. It's a sad and senseless way to die. And, for once, I'm with the Right: I reaaaaaaaaally hope that global warming has absolutely nothing to do with the uptick in hurricanes, because if it does, we're going to be in for a long and stormy next few decades.

But that's for the scientists and Rush Limbaugh to figure out. For now, kick a few dollars toward the relief effort. You'll feel good about it. And hey, chances are pretty good it'll go to someone who didn't feel the need to knock over the Old Navy before the levee burst.