Skip to main content

Political Action II

Frank Zappa once said, "Politics is the entertainment branch of industry."  He seems to have foreseen the current political scene.  If politics has become entertainment, so too has entertainment become politics.  In fact , a large majority of folks get their news and political perspective from entertainers these days.As a horrified portion of our country is coming to realize that Donald Trump is not going away and that buttressed by the non-sensical monologues of Sarah Palin, he's got a bit more traction than they'd like to admit, we recoil.  Isn't this how Nazi Germany began.  The diatribes and ranting of people who dare to say repugnant and outrageous things to an angry mob all too willing to buy the simplistic version of political reality are a natural consequence if you look at the bigger picture.  What I'm saying here is that the rise of candidates like Trump isn't so mysterious given the course of history and this country's role in current affairs

We were due for this vitriol.  Our demographics are changing, we've supported dictators and armed the wrong side of other nation's rebels so many times that the whole we find ourselves in is no surprise.  As David Harris, the anti-war activist used to say, "when you do shit all your life, at the end all you've got is one big pile of shit."  What part of that isn't clear?
I see folks like Palin and Trump as a last gasp.  They bring a twisted smile to the lips of people who feel lost, small angry, frustrated and most of all incapable of understanding change.  Add to that their lace of the empathy gene and the desire to make right with might and you've got the perfect audience.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Quality of Optimism

 I've returned to The Book of Qualities, by J Ruth Gentler once again to meet the needs of one of the senior students in my little Writing From Memory class I'm currently teaching in my local community center.  This little volume personifies various concepts and personality traits.  The particular student "in need" seems to be fixated on writing about her past relationships.  Apparently, there were many.   I'm OK with that.  I only hope that she picks a few qualities that are as revealing about herself as those that might describe her Ex's.  There is much to be learned by writing about a quality.  The aforementioned book seems to have survived well over the years.  I first encountered it and its author way back in the late 1970s.  I took a journal writing workshop from her.  Then, a few years later, her book came out and I introduced these writing exercises to my students.  11th grade Juniors seemed to do the best with it. ...

Writing on the Wall

       The first time I saw graffiti that was memorable was in a middle school bathroom.  As 6th graders I often walked home with friends by the middle school we'd soon be attending.  A stop by the boys bathroom near the boys gym placed me face to face with a piece of graffiti that immediately madame and my friends laugh uncontrollably.  On the wall above the urinals, was penned a short poem that read"                     This is a Teepee to take a pee pee,                         Not a wigwam to beat your tom tom      14 year-old humor at it's best.  The laughter my friends and I experienced was cathartic.  Being bottom of the barrel Freshmen could have dire consequences in the boys bathroom.  Those unpleasantries would come later, but for the moment, we were ecstatic and proceeded to read all the g...

Mr. Greene v. Mr. Brown

I want to tell you about something. Something I've carried inside myself for a number of years now. Perhaps if I were a different kind of person I wouldn't need to talk about it. I'm not. My need to tell it is stronger than your need to hear it. Because, however, there are a number of teachers and former students of mine who may read these meanderings from time to time, I need to tell this story all the more. About 7 or 8 years ago I was asked if I would allow a university PhD. candidate to observe an English class. At first I decided against it because I was scheduled to have a student teacher placed with me the second half of the semester in question. After some urging, however, at the request of a respected colleague, I agreed. Soon I was committing to extra meetings, signing documents and explaining to the class in question who the young woman who thoughtfully pounded away on a laptop in the rear of the classroom three times a week was. I knew that the topic of ...