Start a blog! It might be fun! That much is true, with proper weight given to the “might be.” There are many factors involved. Blog about something that interests you! Blog about something that will go viral and get you a million hits a day! Blog about something that is socially relevant! It gets complicated as soon as you set any goal for the blog other than spending some quality time by yourself with your computer.
Something that interests me? That's a tough one for me to focus, because I'm interested in too many things. The only common thread in this blog is the music, but I do try to keep a personal aspect to those choices. The shared song must be: a) one that I love; b) a song or an artist that I believe to be underappreciated; and c) a song that I may be able to further illuminate by adding a personal touch. After those songs, the subject matter goes scattershot, big time.
I was not interested in politics at first. The start date for the blog was in mid-2008, the tail end of George W. Bush's presidency and the run-up to the election of Barack Obama. It was all so dull and, let's face it, stupid. Clinton was an embarrassment to himself, his family, and the country, and politically he did more to help the Republicans and the clampdown than he ever did for average Americans. What's a Democrat in name only? A DINO? I suppose that he did balance the budget, but the credit for that probably goes to the Soviets, for going tits-up and all. The great economy in the 1990s was due to the tech bubble. That leaves Clinton as a footnote to history. “You gonna finish those fries?”
W. Bush was a stooge and a front man, much like Reagan, but without the acting chops. Several expensive new wars, giant tax cuts for the usual suspects, nightmarish banking and real estate scams, the destruction of the world economy, blah, blah, blah. Who could stand it? Not me.
I liked Obama, and I was very happy about his election, but I wondered if he had what it was going to take to straighten this mess out. What was needed was an LBJ, a total son-of-a-bitch who could smile and aw-shucks above the table while he performed unnecessary surgery on your liver with a stiletto under the table. I didn't think that Obama was that guy, and I was right. He went with that “hands across the aisle” thing for way too long. He ended up with his honor and his reputation intact, and not much else to show for his time.
Hillary knew the game, and she does have a vicious streak in her, but we'll never know what she might have accomplished. So many things got in her way. Her essential unpopularity, for one thing, and her unlikeability, and her mediocre public speaking skills, and her lazy campaigning, and her big “basket of deplorables” mouth. In the end, some asshole legacy from a once successful real estate family who was making a living as a TV host at the time beat her in a highly dubious election.
I did, however, become fascinated with one aspect of Obama's presidency: his blackness. We knew what kind of opposition we could expect from watching Clinton getting knocked around by the Republicans, and that started up right out of the gate with Obama. But the fire burned a lot hotter for Obama, people went nuts before he was even sworn in, because, if you haven't noticed, Mr. Obama is BLACK. That window onto the fragile state of race relations in my country became one of my favorite subjects over the next eight years.
Then came the asshole, and the racism just got worse as he poured gasoline on the fire daily. He poured gasoline on all of the fires. The post-Reagan media went to town manufacturing lies and conspiracies that were all presented as “fair and balanced” news. The Internet became a very special kind of double-edged sword, where the edge that was useful was rarely used, and the edge that was cutting our throats was wielded mercilessly, creating great wealth for some. The asshole, a newly-minted Republican, and the rest of the Republicans, broke all records for self-interest and corruption and spent four years in a sincere attempt to destroy every democratic institution in America.
At some point in that process, I fell again into my boredom with the whole sordid mess. There's only so much a man can stand. Stacy Abrams is the only real bright spot in politics right now.
You may be taking heart from the results of this year's election. The House; the Senate (by a hairsbreadth); the Presidency. The results in Georgia were particularly encouraging, I will admit. After the events of the last week, I wouldn't get too excited.
Let's not get carried away by a couple of small successes in the face of total insanity. Consider a real world example: guns are very powerful devices in the right hands, but unless they are properly maintained, loaded, aimed, and fired, they are harmless. Let's say that guns are the recent successes. But a gun lying on a table is a mere objet d'art. A gun in the right hands is deadly. Extending this metaphor to today's political situation: which one do the Democrats possess? The deadly weapon or the objet d'art?
Do you trust the Democrats to pull the trigger?
I didn't think so. They're going to leave it laying on the table until some new asshole comes along to use it on them.
No comments:
Post a Comment