My oldest son shared a link to a YouTube video with me last recently. He found it amusing and posted it on my Facebook page. As it turns out, it wasn't a unique video.
As I watched it, it became apparent that videos like it are all-too-prevalent on the web and in the media. It had to do with a Teabagger event which shall remain unpublicized in my writing. It was an 11-minute video, and 3 minutes in, I realized that I had already lost 3 minutes of my life that I would never get back watching ignoramuses espouse the same dreck you hear on Fox News, without even a modicum of intelligence to back it up, much less give it considered thought before vomiting back the same uninformed opinion.
I listened to people offer ignorant non-answers to the question repeatedly posed by the interview: what specifically do you oppose about the current administration's policies. The answer given more often than not was that it was tyrannical and taking away our liberties and there was too much taxation. When probed as to what specifically about it was tyrannical, the answer given was the same ... crickets chirping.
When did we abrogate our thought processes to the likes of people who make their living by sensationalizing polarizing topics, untruths and misinformation without regard to facts?
When did we decide it was okay to incite civil uprisings and make homicidal, terrorist threats about our elected officials, and then make jokes about it?
When did we put looks and cup size above education and awareness?
Seriously, we suck.
I've had the opportunity to travel to other places outside of the US lately, and the question I'm repeatedly asked by many in casual conversations is "what is your take on what is going on politically in the US?" My answer is the same: I'm embarrassed for my country, more so even than in the previous 8 years when it was obvious to the world that the cowboy in office had a screw-the-world-and-the-people of-the-US attitude.
That doesn't mean, however, that I want the ignorant and uninformed to have harm come to them. Rather, it means I would dearly love for them to have the opportunity to GET IT; to understand and appreciate that though they say they are fighting for their liberties, that their liberties have certainly not been taken from them as illustrated by the fact that they still have the opportunity to go on-air or in-print and espouse their opinions with no fear of repercussion, retribution, or oppression by the very government they are condemning.
I would love to know what their definitions of tyranny, liberty, oppression, and freedom really are.
Maybe they think it's that they have the right to record reality tv and play it back any time they want on their flat screen tv's while they're being fed the pablum of ignorance by those who have more control over their lives than they're even remotely aware of.
Those people make my ass twitch.
What the bleep, wombat? You must have fallen down the rabbit hole at some point. You're truly cosmic.
Really, I heart you. xo
I think you had it right the first time when you suggested that the partiers are entirely enveloped in self-interest. The irony of that is that the same could be said of those gaming the entitlement system. In fact, those two sides of the self-responsibility coin have an immense amount in common.
first, we have to overcome our inherent distrust of the different...and the automatic assumption that we are good people because we follow moral a and religion b. Hell, christianity itself tells us that we are fundamentally flawed creatures...but that doesn't seem to sink in to some people. It's the attitude of "My flaws have been forgiven, therefore i HAVE no flaws but boy you sure do". We have to be willing to accept the bad parts of ourselves instead of just polishing the good ones. Each of us is capable of great kindness and great harm to others. To ignore that is to allow your own darkness free reign under different guises and excuses to infilct itself upon others. It comes down to personal responsibility(i know, a conservie mantra...but they don't have it right i don't think). You're responsible for everything that comes from you. You're responsible for your prejudices and yoru acceptance. You're responsible for everything you loose upon the world, because without you it would not be there. You're responsible for your opinions, and more importantly the reasoning(or lack thereof) behind them. It's up to you to know when your better nature is speaking and when your worse nature is shining through. When the truth as you know it is being presented and when your fear and hate(qualities we all have, we ARE human after all) are cloaking themselves in the righteousness of some Cause. Abdicate this responsibility in favour of religion or custom, and the ugly takes over like crabgrass will your lawn.
In my opinion, if humanity had a more cosmic view of the universe instead of this narrowed focus of everything having been created for us by some all-powerful sky daddy specificly for our use...we'd spend a lot less time dividing amongst ourselves and a lot more time clinging together for comfort and in celebration of our rarity. Given the unknowable vastness of the universe, and the unfathomable distance and emptiness we wizz past on our way to the great whatever, our petty differences are more infinitesimal than our tiny speck of a planet is in relation to our solar system alone. When you get right down to the short and curlies, absent some divine intervention we're all we've got. We're all we're ever going to have. We're all responsible for eachother, because there is only one humanity...and only one planet we have to live on. Each person is a unique perspective on existence, so we really ought to stop trying to be more like eachother.
or maybe i should lay off the coffee.....
Scott,
You're talking about money as power, but intelligence doesn't translate to power easily. The power families may have had that one light bulb notion that carried the day for them (with a generous dollop of sheer luck and PERSONALITY). Legitimate intelligence tends to stay in families barring natural disaster that wipes the family itself from the face of the Earth. Of course, grading on the Bell Curve against the influence of nurturing can raise or lower an individual's odds of manifesting the concrete results of their intelligence.
Bravo, Mr. Wombat! I agree, until we develop some humility and respect for people who cross our paths, we will continue to devolve into chaos and mayhem.
We used to teach that individual freedom ends at another's nose - a lesson thrown over by people who want to know exactly what you do when they aren't there with you - what do you do with your body, with consenting adults, with your medical doctor.
We used to teach that being a Nosy Parker or a busybody was a bad thing - now, we have, by executive order, DADT. It seems to me we used to have more people who had enough good sense to not intrude into the subject of another's religion - and certainly to never judge. To these same good sensical people, success was valued, failure was ridiculed. The highly educated were admired and their advice, valued; the dropouts were relegated to menial labor and while they were allowed an opinion, were not allowed their own "facts", and their advice was worth what you paid for it. Honesty, good character, integrity, trustworthiness, tenacity, perseverance, truthfulness, good works, working hard, patience, kindness, respect, honor were concepts that were discussed, acknowledged, openly strove for, by, I believe, more people than do so now.
and I believe GREED, both for power and for money, was what overwhelmed us since 1980. I believe it started with Reagan and our culture is a culmination of the republican political culture spilled into every area of our common culture. "I've got mine - go get your own" mentality. Millions of people who now believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is actually a Bible verse. Millions who believe there are "welfare queens" who "push out babies" for more money. Millions who believe that welfare aid is a "disincentive to work". Millions who believe there are thousands of women who wantonly "murder" their own babies by abortion or even by birth control. Millions who believe that someone's religious beliefs makes them "anti-Christ" or terrorist or superior. To be that cynical, to be that jaundiced, you must have no respect for your fellow man. You believe in the worst of people. You have to be pretty dead inside.
I think we need to learn to value the divine in each other - the special qualities each of us brings to this world - and celebrate our goodness together and be helpmates to each other. If we could just figure out how to be helpful, thoughtful and kind to each other, how to forgive each other when we mess up, how to find joy in each other's presence - we could, IMHO, build a better, more perfect, union.
I think it is a combination of things already mentioned here by you and others (and maybe even myself before, it has been a long day)
1) As Wombat and RHM have said, there have always been idiots and there probably will always be idiots. There were idiots in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, so the 21st should be no different.
2) With those inventions you listed our access to idiots is better than it ever was before. Think of it as having a webcam on I-45 on 24/7. If I watch that camera I'll see the proverbial pile up. Without it, I just have to happen upon it when I'm actually on I-45.
I think a couple of things we have neglected is population growth and genetic fade. When the country began there were maybe 30 million people here. Now there are nearly 350 million. Even if we assume the same rate of idiocy we are talking about more than ten times the idiots. That's a lot of extra idiots.
If you want great examples of genetic fade (and from both sides of the political spectrum) take a look at the Bush's and Kennedy's. Prescott Bush was a pretty bright guy and good guy (voted for the Civil Rights Act). His son George was a good guy if not quite as bright. Then you get his grandson. Well, you're getting the picture. You could work the same way from Joe Kennedy down to his grandchildren and great grandchildren. Some families don't experience the genetic fade, but it seems our prominent ones do. Those prominent ones are the movers and shakers. Unfortunately, it looks like we have the occasional Caligula and Nero thrown in.
I think Wombat has hit on a very salient point. Too many of us think that "we" are special, that we have special rights given to us by God or something; that we are above all other humanity and somehow "better" than everyone else. We've all heard about "the ugly American" and probably we've all seen them in action. And Wombat is so correct....what other country sends so many missionaries around the world to convert other peoples to Christianity. Who the hell said those people want or need to be converted?
How many native peoples did we (oops!) kill by bringing in viruses and diseases to natives that had not been exposed to them?
Read all about the Cherokee's Trail of Tears. The Cherokee people had a thriving, sophisticated society. We took it from them. Read about all the Indian wars. It hasn't been that long ago that most white people thought that "the only good Indian was a dead Indian". I still get mad when I hear about "Columbus discovered America". No, he didn't. There were people here. And even if you consider foreigners landing here, the Norsemen were here long before Columbus (Eric the Red, Leif Erickson...).
We've got a serious ego & arrogance problem.
We all know that there are people who are afraid of change. They want to pull their nice little, safe walls in around them and hide out. It was a lot easier back in 1955, before the term "global village" became something to deal with. It was easier back when everyone thought America was safe because we were separated by two huge oceans. Air travel has shrunk that safety net and 9/11 put a finishing touch on it for many people. I think there are a lot of people - and ALL of the Teabaggers - who are simply scared shitless. They feel so much "safer" by trying to turn the clocks back to those days. But progress will always happen. With them or without them.
I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that these people get air time now that they never could have gotten years, decades, centuries ago. Thank you, Al Gore, for inventing the "internets" and thank you, Philo Farnsworth, for inventing the television, and thank you, Tesla, for inventing the coils so we could have radio ... or whoever it was.
It's continues to beg the question: just because we CAN make an ass of ourselves in the media, does it mean we SHOULD?
Why don't we turn off the television, put the paper down, walk away from the computer more often? We have the ability and the right.
For some reason, we just can't turn away from the train wreck, and we eventually BECOME part of the train wreck.
She's a Louisiana native which was the origin of the content. I stayed out of the smoking thing because I see both sides. I enjoy an occasional cigar (more since my wife has been out of town) but understand the rights non-smokers.
scott better break it to your wife gently, the tea party likes WHITE rice lol!
I quit that habit for many years but picked it back up, as well as, several others when I got divorced. Now, when I smoke a cigarette I feel like I did in the 60's-70's smoking a joint. Look both ways, and if the coast is clear...toke! What HAVE we become???
perfect!!!
Good point.
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Let's look at the cigarettes. My recollection is people who smoke were generally polite. They always asked ME if I wanted one. Maybe the nicotine has somethihng to do with it. If nothing else, it DID make you look "cool".
P.S. These comments from a non-smoker.
Another observation, I don't think they put fluoride in the water over there.
I used to be a travel agent and travelled overseas quite a bit. I "played the Canadian" many times, EH. If you don't talk like J.R Ewing it's easy to pull off. Just have to avoid saying ya'll.
sorry for the rambling diatribe....
how did we get here? How do you know we weren't always here? The nature of our society hasn't changed, ever i think. The people we see tea partying like it's 1999, 50 years ago would have been moaning about state's rights during the civil rights era. RHM but it best the other day when she took them all the way back to the tories. We've always had people who see change as something to be afraid of. People who feel comfortable under the status quo, and see any shift in that as an attempt to take away something from them. People for whom "from my cold, dead hands" is actually a logical statement.
Who knows, maybe people all over the world are like this...i'm no world traveller, so i don't know. Humanity seems to have an in-born inability to just let other people be. We gotta send missionaries to change their religion becuase we and only we have the real one-and-only hula-hooping word of god. We gotta send the army because surely they want a democratic government...even if they don't know what the hell that is and are happy under their current system. In short(and i'm sure you're breathing a sigh of relief) we're really good ad seeing how other people need to change, but have little ability to see how we should.
How do we turn this around? Man if I knew that I'd have already written the book and you'd be watching me on Oprah right now. I think it has something to do with the human tendency to stake out a patch of particular beliefs and morals, and call it good. That which is outside must be bad, becaue i've already decided what is good and that's final. Folks need to realize that there are innumerable ways to defur a feline...and it's a personal decision as to the best method. It's one thing to respect the past, and quite another to try to live in it. Time is linear, and if you refuse to move you get left behind...then you're left bemoaning a past that will never come again and confronted with a present that is strange and fearful to you. That only makes folks more angry and bitter.
Wombat, my love, I seriously HEART you!!!
xoxoxoxoxoxox
Having compared the odor of Manhattan in the summer with that of many major European cities, including Paris, Vienna, Munich and Amsterdam, a bit of laxity with the bathing (and changing clothes) doesn't seem to be where the problem lies.
"When did we put looks and cup size above education and awareness?
"Seriously, we suck."
When have we ever been known as a nation for our superb erudition, self-knowledge, and excellence in international affairs? We're an international embarrassment in certain respects, but that's nothing particularly new.
It would sure be nice, though, to be able to travel abroad and not to be tempted to claim to be Canadian.
I see you carefully avoided the bathing and cigarettes debate.
Also, You weren't around in the sixties, if I recall. Everything was OK until VietNam.
Let's not get carried away with the nostalgia. The Federalists wrote a song about Thomas Jeffersons exploits with his slave to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton had that famous duel followed by several by Andrew Jackson. Then you have that little skirmish called the Civil War. As my wife is fond of saying, we like our politics like we like our rice: dirty. However, interspersed with our boorish moments have been of high brow discussions at their finest. The Lincoln-Douglass debates, fireside chats, and Kennedy-Nixon debate were high water marks. A long quote from Jack Stanton (John Travolta in Primary Colors) "Dont you think Lincoln had to tell his backwoods stories and wear that cheap grin to get the opportunity to lead? Then he could appeal to the better angels of our nature. This is the price we pay to lead. Some people aren't in it to lead. They just want the prize. Can't you see that we do these things to get the opportunity to lead. Then the bullshit stops." Yet the BS doesn't stop for those that will never lead.
You know, Europeans don't bathe as often as we do. And most of them still smoke cigarettes.
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Just an observation. Now that I think of it, we WERE a better people and a better COUNTRY when everybody smoked cigarettes.......Worth looking into.:-)
7 paragraphs. I think you pretty well summed it up. It's all true. It's all VERY disconcerting.
How did we get here? Not that it matters. Moreover, how do we GET AWAY from here? It will take a monumental change in our society to "cure" all these diseases. And cure them we must or our society will eventually crumble. Our forefathers founded this country on the "basic goodness of man". They had honor and courage and respect for each other. Today?
I feel like we have lost a lot of what WAS America in the past 50 years. And, I'm not sure how. I just know we have.
voice good point about the 3 minutes, they do add up when you consider how many 3 minute segments we've studied like anthropologists, trying to unlock the secret to a mutated species like the teabaggers. i recently gave up a couple of evenings trading fb postings with my brother, who is a fox cult devotee and teabagger. he is also waving the arizona flag daily, drooling about texas having the same. so i provided him some complex, well developed, articulated food for thought descriptions of illegal immigration. i went back to the 70's and thoroughly explained the ITIN which was designed as a loophole to specifically allow illegal immigrants to pay federal taxes. for my trouble i received basically monosyllable replies replete with fox sound bytes, tag lines and party of no chorus refrains. an exhausting exercise but at least now i feel i tried. but i'm taking a serious look at the amount of time i'm giving away to teabaggers, faux and conservative taliban antics. my causes could use a little attention i think. again, great post and i too find it refreshing and informative to check in with my sons for perspective. my older son (24) shared his bob marley biography with me last night, fascinating read. and my younger (19) showed me a black eyed peas video called "where is the love" which follows a peace movement. better utilization of time.
Wombat, standing ovation! Brilliant and spot on with what is wrong with our country - and yes - us!
Voice, I second Wombat - great post.
Thought-provoking post, Voice. My general belief is that i agree with Wombat; however, I want to add two things. . .1) We believe we are "exceptional" so we don't have to say sorry, and 2) I think other countries have some pretty high levels of violence, but we don't hear about them because we are "exceptional" so we don't need to know what is going on elsewhere. Watch the BBC if you want a take on how the rest of the world lives. thank God we are ExCeptional!
great post voice....one worth pondering.
It occurs to me that we spend an lot of time dealing with the symptoms of our fundamental flaws, but little time wondering "What the F is wrong with us?" No popular opinion is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with our society...it's just all the illegals, minorities, scapegoat du jour causing problems and wanting special treatment. We're the gosh darn US of A and we're #1! If you don't agree why don't you get the hell out!
But let's look at things...of the western societies that share similar cultural histories(relatively speaking) ours is by far the most violent. We blame movies, video games, those dang minorities and illegals(etc.) without ever stopping to think that other countries have all of those same factors operative in their societies but don't come close to the level of violence in ours. People in Europe play the same blood-spattered video games we do, watch the same gory movies and such...but they don't seem to feel the need to re-enact them on eachother like we do. Hell, their version of football is even rougher than ours...and they don't even wear protective gear! They have minorities, gangs and illegals too, but when did you last hear about the rising body count between the east coast/west coast English gangs?
There's something wrong with us at the core...something endemic to our culture, and until we identify it and change it we will never change. We'll remain the same bitter, resentful, gleeful douchebags we are now.(please remember folks, i'm speaking in broad generalities here...not specifics.)
In my opinion it begins with our values...our REAL ones, and not the ones we pretend to cherish because it's expected of us. We say we value individual liberty, but what happens when someone lives a lifestyle outside the norm? They're demonized and persecuted for being different....mocked for not fitting in. It begins in preschool and continues on to adulthood. Above all we want people to be "normal", even tho normal changes from person to person. We value style over substance, form over function. Everyone wants the flashy car and not the one that makes the most sense to drive depending on what it will be used for. We SAY we value freedom, but then treat any extention of freedom to people who are unlike us as some sort of personal loss(i.e. the gay marriage fustercluck)
We're children...children in big bodies. As a society we assume ourselves to be perfect, and blame all our own flaws on other people rather than take responsibility for them. We don't even take responsibility for our own history that we are nevertheless proud of. We didn't "settle" america, we stole it from the people who were already here...then forced the few that survived our depravations to live on sequestered parcels of nearly useless land, but now it's all okay because they have casinos? are you fucking kidding me? Even here in Texas, everyone's proud of the Alamo and the texas revolution, but lets call it what it really was...we moved into a foreign country, and instead of assimilating like we demand everyone else do we took up arms against the lawful government and forcibly took the land away from them. I think that deep down we're afraid of some cosmic reckoning...after all, what we're done to others could be done to us. So rather than deal with our past, we shade out the icky parts and cherish the parts that make us feel good.
Life(unless we have an excuse to hate you, then you deserve to die), liberty(unless you're unlike me in which case you should stop looking for special treatment), and the pursuit of happieness(unless that pursuit violates one of my personal religious beliefs, in which case you ought to be stopped you naughty bastard)
Our society has it's head jammed up it's ass and we're all standing around telling eachother how great the view and how fresh the air is....nothing will change because we steadfastly refuse to acknowledge our flaws and imperfections. We're god's special chosen country, and we can do no wrong(unless you're a godless liberal, in which case you hate your country and need to move to Cuba)
smeep....
As you said ... amusing, but highly depressing.
The sad part is, they're reproducing.
I do agree with the ass twitching part. But Marilyn also had it right....they make my eyes bleed!!!
Voice also wrote: Those people make my ass twitch.
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Life in these United States is becoming an endless episode of "JayWalking". Amusing, but highly depressing.
Blackwell: Specifics, you ask for specifics, that's unAmurkan! If we load the SCOTUS with knuckle-dragging Cro-Magnon men, that's "liberty." But if you load SCOTUS with intelligent, fair, and forward-thinking people, it's "unconstitutional and tyranny."
Jon Stewart is great!
Voice wrote: When did we put looks and cup size above education and awareness?
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1962. I remember, it was a Friday.
They won't listen to reason. They have made up their minds and nothing anyone can say will ever change it. For whatever reason, and I have my suspicions on that, they are against the current administration and nothing is going to change.
If it's any consequence, there is ointment you can get for "twitchy ass" ... Sadly, there is no such remedy for the Teabag Terrorists.
You know, that guy is black...Republican and out of his f*cking mind!
I've been listening for 3 minutes now and that guy hasn't said a damn thing!
It's actually encouraging to hear idiots blather like that because I know there's still hope when I hear co-workers (Hispanics) talk about how Obama is ruining the country. My co-worker is discouraged about the Space program but despite how I'm personally affected I think the President is headed in the right direction with us. And I still have faith that he will come through. It's all about how we FEEL!
Voice, you can offset that three minutes by watching Jon Stewart ask for specifics from Ken Blackwell (yes that Ken Blackwell, the Ohio Sec of State in 2004).
http://www.thedailyshow.com/