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Lady McSham: If she's ready ... please shoot me
Ready to run - in a hamster wheel.
Ready to smile and lie - through pursed tongue - on Day One.
Ready to curl up in a ball - with clenched, shaking fist.
America has apparently marched on without me. Somewhere along the way, I was supposed to leave my mind behind - and march on without one.
National Farce is an understatement to describe the Republican side in 2008. Words fail - as my mind descends deeper and deeper into unreadiness. You'd at least like to see people with some humility. But a clenched fist and threats of war, while expressing "no second guesses," seem to be the "special of the day."
I'm not sure whether to volunteer myself for a prime time interview where I recite difficult to pronounce names of world leaders with Charlie Gibson - and try to plead for sanity. Or whether I should volunteer to be first in line for the firing squad - cuz I'm simply not ready to face Day "One More" of Lady McSham.
Things like the Constitution and Habeas Corpus and Honor and Dignity and Humility seem to have gone right out the window on the Republican Side this election season. I guess I'm supposed to get ready for de facto dictatorship of the worst sort - where people willingly submit to electoral lobotomies and cheer vapid ghosts and pretty heads - who shake fists while nearly curling bodies in a ball.
I'm ready to eat my last meal. And say my goodbyes. Before they shoot me. I'd rather die - if she's ready - and they loose her.
Ready to smile and lie - through pursed tongue - on Day One.
Ready to curl up in a ball - with clenched, shaking fist.
America has apparently marched on without me. Somewhere along the way, I was supposed to leave my mind behind - and march on without one.
National Farce is an understatement to describe the Republican side in 2008. Words fail - as my mind descends deeper and deeper into unreadiness. You'd at least like to see people with some humility. But a clenched fist and threats of war, while expressing "no second guesses," seem to be the "special of the day."
I'm not sure whether to volunteer myself for a prime time interview where I recite difficult to pronounce names of world leaders with Charlie Gibson - and try to plead for sanity. Or whether I should volunteer to be first in line for the firing squad - cuz I'm simply not ready to face Day "One More" of Lady McSham.
Things like the Constitution and Habeas Corpus and Honor and Dignity and Humility seem to have gone right out the window on the Republican Side this election season. I guess I'm supposed to get ready for de facto dictatorship of the worst sort - where people willingly submit to electoral lobotomies and cheer vapid ghosts and pretty heads - who shake fists while nearly curling bodies in a ball.
I'm ready to eat my last meal. And say my goodbyes. Before they shoot me. I'd rather die - if she's ready - and they loose her.
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I feel your pain, truly. What we are realizing is that we are creatures of logic and reasoning and the other side are creatures of emotion and aggression. Since we don't see the world as they do and we don't speak the same language, it's impossible for one side to convince the othe side of anything. I hate to say that in just the last week I have lost respect for three people that I have loved for a very long time because of their cheerful ability to ignore any and all danger signs of McCain and Palin so that they can feel justified and safe in continuing the status quo, even though the status quo sucketh mightily. I have a new shock statement I use on people: If MCCain gets elected you're going to yearn for the days when gas was $4 a gallon. Puts a look of shock and thought on faces that just moments before were smug with certainty, cuts right through the bullshit.
Sarah Palin lacks humility and she seems to be almost a cartoon character, some have suggested perhaps sociopathic with her ability to smile and lie and move on. Whatever she truly is, one thing is clear: She is enormously attractive to a certain type of voter. There's nothing we can do about that except worry and wait to see if there is a subset of that group who will begin to see her as a danger and either not vote at all or change their mind and vote for Obama. Thankfully, I have been able to get past my paranoia to a state of calm, so I can endure what comes even though I fear and loathe it.
September 12, 2008 8:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lovely comment, Jane! You hit all the right notes!
September 12, 2008 8:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Plus I fear you're right about the sociopathic part. And the American public ... sheep.
September 12, 2008 8:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have been trying to reconcile Palin's supposedly devout Christian beliefs with her ease in lying. I've been unsuccessful.
September 12, 2008 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Same here:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/09/lying-is-not-a-virtue-sarah-1.php
September 12, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Palin may yet sink McCain's campaign.
September 12, 2008 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
There was no book that ever scared me as much as 1984 by George Orwell. Doublespeak seems to be the new language that Americans have learned to unquestioningly accept. Our brains keep trying to scream that this is wrong, but we are choked off by the pundits "spin" of reality. Who knew that it would be the loss of the Fourth Estate that would herald the end of freedom and justice in America? If most Americans still read newspapers, this might not have happened, but the siren song of television and, in particular, the blatant lie of Fox News as being "fair and balanced," was the beginning of the end of the common man's ability to be presented with information that was not lies and cacophany.
September 12, 2008 8:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Common people still retain their ability to reason in other countries. There is something very sick in our society right now. I've been thinking "decline and fall" since bush... now it's speeding up!
September 12, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jane, I don't know if you saw this blog yesterday. The server quickly bumbed it from the list due to all the repeated posting problems.
RECLAIMING THE FOURTH ESTATE
There is much frustration and worry being expressed about the present state of news reporting and analysis. The whole lip-stick on a pig media diversion has peaked this concern for me. As Obama said, it was like cat-nip for the media.
This, of course, is not a new situation. The value of news reporting to our democracy has been steadily eroding for years. The press' role is totally unique. So much so, that the press is specifically protected under the Constitution. The only profession to have such protection. The press must stand apart from influences beyond serving that protected role. Serving the public.
The problem seems to have begun with the free-market polices of Ronald Reagan. Those policies allowed the consolidation of news media in to large and few media empires such as Newscorp and Clear Channel, and also under huge conglomerates such as GE, Microsoft, and Disney. Throw in the elimination of the fairness doctrine and we had a recipe for the dramatic dimishing of the critical public service value of the "fourth estate". The problem hasn't just been Reagan either. Those policies have been continued by every president since.
I believe the answer to the nearly useless state of news media, especially TV news, today is that we need a reversal of those Reagan policies. I'm talking about drastic measures here. I'm talking about an anti-trust style reverse consolidation.
Why is that necessary? Because media today is driven to maximize their contribution to the corporate bottom line by a degree they never were expected to in the past. This is the root of the problem. News departments were often allowed to operate at a loss.
The natural pressure to contribute profits to large corporate parents, who themselves have shareholders breathing down their necks, is the force behind the problem. News show producers have discovered - as have TV entertainment show producers - that reality programs are the most profitable form of TV show. What is the key to every successful reality show? It's conflict.
Conflict creates drama, which creates entertainment, which creates viewers, which creates profits. Conflict = Profits. That's why the news has become so useless. They are more interested in creating and sustaining conflict than in public service. They are now totally profit driven.
Yes, there are also ideological elements at play, most obviously at Fox News, but ideology doesn't explain the behavior of so many other news organizations. Maybe, solving this problem doesn't require a massive reverse consolidation of news organizations. Maybe, there's a better way.
What are your thoughts on re-establishing the public service value of the news media?
September 12, 2008 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
new10, I concur completely with your analysis. Thanks so much for posting it here!
Yes, we need to "free" the news media so that it does its job of ferreting out information, not whipping up soap operas.
I'm not sure how to do this. I think the web is contributing somehow to a better conversation. But how to get the MSM to do its job? Not sure.
September 12, 2008 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, TheraP! I suspect that the biggest hurdle to setting things right with the Fourth Estate is getting Americans to understand where things went wrong, or even realize that things ARE wrong.
September 12, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've concluded that the mcSham campaign (circus?) is based on two simple principles:
1. Lying
2. Crying - wolf
If we can just count the lies and count the times they cry wolf, and get the media to do the same, I think we can win!
September 12, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
My thoughts are that it would be a step back in the right direction, but the biggest problem is with the electorate itself, their lack of education and intellectual curiosity, the American Idolization of this country. This was not accidental, by the way. There was a conscious decision made by a small group of idealogues to replace the liberal arts eduction system in America, which was based on the English system, and replace it with a German system meant to produce submissive workers for whom intellectual pursuits were not given importance. Therefore, we are seeing today the culmination of a philosphy put in place years ago. I believe that each one of us here right at this moment can clearly see the ways in which our own lives may have immunized us from this educational policy. In my case I taught myself to read before I went to school and have always been a voracious reader, self-taught, so I escaped the brainwashing of the typical American education. So the task of changing the game is both much more serious and much more difficult than any of us have realized up till this moment.
September 12, 2008 10:17 AM | Reply | Permalink