Path to Madness
Dennis Perrin has a thoughtful post well worth reading and gives us much to think about.
Carousing around the internet today only reinforces Dennis’ concerns about our war culture and the damage it has been and is doing to the world around us. It really has nothing to do with human intelligence but everything to do with perception. I don’t want to get into “well so and so said this and boy is that dumb” because I still read essays and posts by obviously smart people who continue to hang onto the Democrat Party, indeed continuing to make excuses for them in the face of overwhelming and documented evidence that the Democrats fully support the Iraq War but rather would end the occupation of Iraq if only they could. Some of the more prevalent excuses are the Dems don’t have enough votes to challenge Bush and that they are playing a clever political game in order to attain the Whitehouse where upon reaching this goal they will suddenly turn about and end the century long practice of American imperialism. There is also an assumption that the Democrats are practically assured that they will win the Whitehouse despite that many Americans feel that we now need a third party though it seems to me that a third party might start out as an opponent to our war culture but would soon end up being quite similar to the parties that exist as they are today. The reason I say that is because our political parties are an end product of American perceptions and culture not to mention the influence of corporate America that would soon be brought to bear upon any new party.
If you live in an urban setting you might well believe that we may be progressing toward a time in our history where Americans question the value of robotic patriotism but you only have to spend a little time in rural America where flags wave from half of the houses you see and people live in a fantasy past of a false history which they constantly reinforce in there own minds. I realize this is a gross generalization yet I believe it has a certain amount of validity. I also realize that I am not immune to fantasies, false perceptions and the influence of the culture I live in yet how can we ignore the horrendous results of imperialism embodied by needless death in Iraq and the erosion of our basic rights as described in our constitution?
Personally I hope I am completely wrong about all of this. I would be thrilled to find that the Democratic faithful are correct and that the Dems shall save us from destruction and once again return us to some semblance of a democracy but I doubt it.
We continue to grasp at false hopes, at the beginning of our adventures in Iraq liberals grabbed on to Collin Powel, “the steady hand behind the wheel” who turned out to be a self promoting whore willing to do anything to advance his career. There have been a parade of other saviors that liberals clutched at like a drowning victim clutches at anything that might save them from a watery death yet they have all proved to be false hopes. And so it goes, the path to madness is a twisting one full of false hopes, false perceptions, fantasy, and wishful thinking that will return us in a great loop to where we are now and only a change in our culture can remove us from this fatal loop.
Depressing? Yes it is.
Carousing around the internet today only reinforces Dennis’ concerns about our war culture and the damage it has been and is doing to the world around us. It really has nothing to do with human intelligence but everything to do with perception. I don’t want to get into “well so and so said this and boy is that dumb” because I still read essays and posts by obviously smart people who continue to hang onto the Democrat Party, indeed continuing to make excuses for them in the face of overwhelming and documented evidence that the Democrats fully support the Iraq War but rather would end the occupation of Iraq if only they could. Some of the more prevalent excuses are the Dems don’t have enough votes to challenge Bush and that they are playing a clever political game in order to attain the Whitehouse where upon reaching this goal they will suddenly turn about and end the century long practice of American imperialism. There is also an assumption that the Democrats are practically assured that they will win the Whitehouse despite that many Americans feel that we now need a third party though it seems to me that a third party might start out as an opponent to our war culture but would soon end up being quite similar to the parties that exist as they are today. The reason I say that is because our political parties are an end product of American perceptions and culture not to mention the influence of corporate America that would soon be brought to bear upon any new party.
If you live in an urban setting you might well believe that we may be progressing toward a time in our history where Americans question the value of robotic patriotism but you only have to spend a little time in rural America where flags wave from half of the houses you see and people live in a fantasy past of a false history which they constantly reinforce in there own minds. I realize this is a gross generalization yet I believe it has a certain amount of validity. I also realize that I am not immune to fantasies, false perceptions and the influence of the culture I live in yet how can we ignore the horrendous results of imperialism embodied by needless death in Iraq and the erosion of our basic rights as described in our constitution?
Personally I hope I am completely wrong about all of this. I would be thrilled to find that the Democratic faithful are correct and that the Dems shall save us from destruction and once again return us to some semblance of a democracy but I doubt it.
We continue to grasp at false hopes, at the beginning of our adventures in Iraq liberals grabbed on to Collin Powel, “the steady hand behind the wheel” who turned out to be a self promoting whore willing to do anything to advance his career. There have been a parade of other saviors that liberals clutched at like a drowning victim clutches at anything that might save them from a watery death yet they have all proved to be false hopes. And so it goes, the path to madness is a twisting one full of false hopes, false perceptions, fantasy, and wishful thinking that will return us in a great loop to where we are now and only a change in our culture can remove us from this fatal loop.
Depressing? Yes it is.
posted by Unknown at 4:32 PM
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