Journal CauseWithoutARebel's Journal: Politics... 2
... is the realm of idiots and charlatans, of this I'm convinced.
I don't generally like to be involved too much in it. Politics is a sticky morass of lies, ass-kissing, and intellectual dishonesty so thick and layered with empty dogma that spending more than a few spare moments of time in it might well be less healthy for your brain than drinking concentrated window cleaner. Nightly. For fifty years.
How anybody takes mainstream American politics seriously enough to consider it any more worthy of discussion than Hulk Hogan is beyond me. In fact, I apologize to pro-wrestling fans and gossip hounds for the comparison.
You deserve better.
Consider, for a moment, the sheer level of outright stupidity involved in a typical pop-poli diatribe on network TV. Bill O'Reilly's show recently included a mental breakdown that devolved into him calling a perfectly peaceful meeting of left-leaning individuals no different than a backyard Klan barbecue.
Really, Bill? A bunch of internet political junkies getting together in their plastic shoes and discussing their latest hypermiling accomplishments is the same thing as a bunch of white-hooded maniacs getting together to discuss their latest acts of murder and intimidation against innocent people?
Oh, I'm sure there are intelligent political pundits and analysts, but nobody watches PBS, much less McNiel-Lehrer (and I'm only guessing that's intelligent because it's an hour of coma-inducing doldrums). I'm sure that there are politicians who are unimpeachable and constantly strive to do what they believe is best for their constituents.
But, you know what? They're the minority. Most politicans are money-grubbing, power-hungry maniacs. They shouldn't be allowed to own dogs and we put them in charge of committees that steer the manufacture and deployment of devices that could end all life as we know it in a matter of a few hours. Most pundits are so ridiculously clownish, so utterly unapproachable in their unbalanced and narcissistic sophistry that attempting to dissect and refute their increasingly irrational mental spew can only result in a complete breakdown of any rational and intelligent human being. There is, ultimately, no reasoning with the likes of O'Reilly or Limbaugh or Savage or Coulter (and I apologize for not making a silly attempt at appearing fair just for the sake of it, but when a liberal pundit attacks autistic children, victims of child rape, or the widows of 9/11 victims and is rewarded with substantial book sales, advertising revenue, or major media exposure for their opinions we can start playing the scorecard game).
Ultimately, most political pundits aren't really trying to be smart, though. Smart is boring. Smart is "elite". What sells is confrontation, no matter how hard you have to work to coax it out of the most trivial or non-controversial the issue is.
I guess, in the end, what saddens me most is not so much that these fools manage to keep food on their tables, it's that there are enough weak-minded individuals around to do it for them by listening. Why is it that being outrageous - no matter how stupid you are when you do it - pays so well?
I'd answer that, but people don't generally take it very well when you feed them their bitter medicine with a baseball bat.
What can I say? (Score:1)
Animalism...Indifference to all but the physical appetites.
Re: (Score:1)
Perhaps.
More likely, I think, is that people are defeated and broken. Animals don't relish the suffering of others, they avoid it, or they become violent and active in response. Humans, on the other hand, are extraordinarily passive in their consumption of this sort of utter crap.
I think people have relinquished their animalistic tendencies, in fact. Animals are anarchic by nature. They're dominated only to the extent that their will permits them to be dominated by a superior that can provide them a benefit