And I do not feel fine. It is a strange, sad period in our history. Oh, how many times has that been uttered. I cannot help but feel the resonance from history, yet feel a sense of newness to the bizarre behavior we are witnessing.
Let me just start with the notion of change. We recently elected a president in the U.S. on the platform of change with a stolen slogan, Si Se Puede. Or for the xenophobes, yes we can. A mere two years later, I hear the shouts of "throw all the bastards out," bastards meaning incumbents. Since we have not recovered from the worst recession since the Great Depression in less than two years, we need to get rid of incumbents in favor of people who are associated with the economic catastrophe in the first place. Okay, so let me get this straight. Cutthroat conservatives threw us into two wars, stripped us of our wages and benefits, deregulated the economy, plunged us into recession, but they are just the change we need because our economy should have already recovered from the colossal ass-fucking at the hands of the wealthy. Isn't the ass-fucking and economic meltdown the reason you rejected these assholes in the first place?
Because the public has such an incredibly short memory and little understanding of the world around them, they are gladly eating a juicy shit sandwich. On an intellectual level, I understand this process. The people who own the media tend to side with those that ass-fuck the rest of us out of our hard earned cash. They tend to present us with simple messages of hate, fear and cataclysm. Since the problems are simple (immigrants), so are the solutions (wall). This gives the public easily definable enemies to be conquered with swift action.
Unfortunately, I cannot stomach the fact that so many people are so easily manipulated. Not only manipulated, but outright hostile to rational discussion that would help them understand the issues. I find that even friends and family feel perfectly justified, if not obligated, to send me the most outrageous, factually inaccurate, misguided attacks on some person or issue. When I, or others, respond with factual information, not even in a confrontational tone, people explode in a rage of righteous indignation that you have somehow questioned their intelligence. YOU are the offender for correcting their error, while they are simply the messenger of bad news. But, when you return the favor and send out information, you are perceived as pushing an agenda and invading someone's private space.
One thing I cannot pinpoint is the origin of these problems because they cross age, income, and sometimes educational lines. Young people who are subject to increasingly appalling secondary education seem no more susceptible than adults with better educations. Wealthy as well as working class folks gobble this shit up with a gusto I cannot contemplate. It is truly sad to watch.
What is even more disturbing to me is that these hostile feelings tend to be directed between two groups of people that are barely distinguishable from each other, especially when it comes to economic and foreign policy. The public is up in arms about one party or another, but has very little understanding that they are choosing between a nectarine and a peach. The fact that these small distinctions can raise so much fervor among the population indicates just how pitifully uninformed people really are.
I am at a loss.
