Everything sublime is as difficult as it is rare. Baruch Spinoza

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Daily Dose Of Demagoguery

It's overcast. Something like my own mindset.


Allegra was right, this is the summer of our discontent. I don't feel well. I am sure I don't feel well because I am exhausted. Mentally worn out by the daily grinding of harsh voices telling the great unwashed we need to take our country back. A constant barrage of fear and hate mongering.

Brown people are over-running the country. It's not trade policy that has caused you to be jobless, it's them.

Beware of the pregnant brown woman. She is either carrying an Anchor Baby or she is incubating a Future Terrorist to be born here and raised over there. Only to return eighteen years later to kill you.

A community center in Manhattan, yet to be built, will be funded by Islamic terrorists and is a Victory Mosque, intended to spit in the eye of all the red-blooded real Americans. It is no great stretch of credibility to compare this to Nazi Germany rolling into Poland. Ask Newt. We are at war with Islam. And as Rush so sagely said, you won't find a Hindu Temple on the site of Pearl Harbor. Cause everyone knows Japan is a Hindu country. Everyone also knows two blocks away from Ground Zero is on the site of ground zero. C'mon.

If the evil Socialist Congress allows Bush's tax cuts to expire on those hedge-funds and Wall Street bankers, there won't be any jobs. Because this is a known fact, supported by all of the jobs which were created over the last decade. You know that Communist Obama made all of the jobs disappear. He did. And he took America away from the Real Americans. And he is borrowing money. Unlike what we did. Thank our God that we will be back in a couple of months to make things straight. 

On and on this goes. The mainstream media types look sincere as morons with a motive spew the unbelievable and unsupportable all day long. Aimed at the people who believe critical thinking is thinking about how to criticize your best friend's new dress without actually saying it's ugly, it strangely resonates with large blocks of people. It seems we are very susceptible to bigotry wrapped in the flag.

So I don't feel well. I am suffering from an infection of the soul.


11 comments:

Cyndi and Stumpy said...

"...I am suffering from an infection of the soul..."
I think that's true for so many of us... Out here in dirtville, it's pretty easy to hide my head in the sand. I'm kind of dreading the immersion I will soon be making into civilization.

Missy said...

WoW! Very strong opinions...

Sandra said...

gsc, I could hide my head in the sand, but all of this would still be happening. So I would rather know about it as not.

Missy, yes. Although much of this was not my opinion, but rather what comes over the airwaves all day long. My opinion comes in on what I think of it and why I believe it is happening and why I believe it has some measure of success. But it was not my opinion that a community center in Manhattan that is to be built by Muslims is comparable to war with Germany and Japan. That is an opinion that falls squarely on the shoulders of the radical right. A PhD in history (Dr, Newt) knows better, so it is my opinion this is demagoguery at it's worst. Or depending on the point of view, best. A daily dose of shoveling fear, hatred and anxiety. It works.

Elizabeth said...

Ah, no. Your soul is clearly NOT infected. It's fighting the infection and doing so admirably and strongly. I support you.

Sandra said...

Elizabeth, it is the exposure to the disease which is infecting me. It is relentless.

A.Smith said...

You know that you are speaking for me so I can add little to this. Indeed the patients have taken over the asylum and reasoning is not something they understand or even are aware of as a process, their motto continues to be "don't confuse me with the facts".

What is truly amazing is that they have the right to spread their venom and share their mental incapacity with others over our waves. Freedom of speech to vituperate against the King is one thing. Disseminating garbage for the sake of noise and political positions is quite another. But what can we expect? When the haves tell them that this is true, the have nots follow their lead right off the cliff while misspelling proudly their signs against reason.

Let's blame it on the Year of the Tiger. Lets see...next year is the year of the Rabbit. Maybe all this crazyness will be less...crazy?.

Ganeida said...

Blame the public schools. They have failed to teach people HOW to think. We are voting on Saturday. *sigh* Can't go there. Just makes me wild. However I have been intrigued to watch how the media [suppossedly so neutral] has been subtley supporting one party more than the other. I can't be the only person to notice this, surely. I just can't be....The world is going to Hell in a basket & no~one seems to care.

Unknown said...

I don't have a problem with compassion, but I have a problem with other people not having it.
which messes with my head.

Unknown said...

I am not an American,
the only time I remember getting upset by the political climate , really upset, was with all the Quebec referendum stuff. At the end, I was like... let 'em go.
democracy works, but at what point does it become a mob mentality.

Bonnie Zieman, M.Ed. said...

Such a discouraging, demoralizing, almost embarrassing situation on the national scene in the US.

Rome is burning people ---

Other countries own your biggest assets, carry your loans, produce your products, give their people superior educations and social services, know more about other nations and global concerns, and shake their heads in disbelief at the degree of fundamentalism driving your choices.

Yes the US is the most powerful military nation, but now has a vested interest in being at war to provide employment for many of your young.

Hanging by a thread ... how long before it snaps?

Sandra said...

Allegra, It is easy to have a vehicle for their venom considering who owns the media outlets. The term Fascism makes people go crazy, so Corporatism is the current term. Multi-nationals run the show. I'm happy to see you are strong enough to write something so feisty!

Ganeida, I can only speak for the US school system. We had a public system second to none. It's what pulled vast numbers of people out of poverty and brought them into the middle class. It was the base of what made America a strong and vibrant nation. And it has been under assault for 30 years. There is a pervasive philosophy which doesn't like the idea of a strong middle class. The best way to dismantle it is to undo the schools. Since most of the people spewing the bile are older, I can't blame it on the schools. I blame it on a 24 hr assault to the mind by radio and cable 'news'. If it's said enough, a lot of people will believe it.

deb, in this country there is an opinion that compassion equals weakness. There is very little of it to go around.

Bonnie, you said that as well as it can be said. A culture which honors ignorance, brutality and greed has nowhere to go but down. We are, by definition, a third world country. We export our raw materials and import the finished products.

I know I can be seen as crazy, but we really have lost our democracy. We have the outward appearance of such, but the real power lies in the pockets of multi-national corporations. We go through the motions and then business is done as seen fit for them. We are on our way backward to the day when there were a large number of poor people willing to work for whatever is offered them. A two class system. I really don't see a way out. It is difficult to put one foot in front of another.