2005-10-18

The Dilapidated Detachment of Disaffection

'We're fed up Arnold and we're not going to take it!" Everyone is taking to the streets these days. You have a problem? Great, no need to look in the mirror. Just sign a petition, they're everywhere now, and join a march! We have a whole selection of petitions, causes and marches for you to choose from. Wine collectors would be envious at what we have accumulated since Bush came to office. It's both impressive and substantive.

I've just about had it with the protest phenomena. Call me a censor, a zealot or a repressive communist. I don't care. I'm hardly one would call an extremist on any issue.

The protest industry has become so routine and absurd that one has to wonder about the credibility of the people who partake in these things. Do they really care about the state of man? Their country? What's truly, when we go to the core, their motive? Forget government and their interests. I want to know just how pure and just are these modern 'dissidents.'

Judging by their rhetoric and the 'facts' they use, one can assume they are not intellectually honest. Not when there are perfectly viable explanations for all the questions they ask. They just choose to ignore it.

Many make money off their efforts. There's nothing more offensive than listening to a Madison Ave. or New York Penthouse activist journalist. The system is fine when the check comes in for them. But what about that woman in Malaysia? "Halt the sewing machines! They are being exploited!" they cry. Yet, no one ever bothered to ask the little Malaysian what she thought. "Who are all these people defending me? I didn't know I needed defending. I just want to go buy medicine for my child and go home."

To me, outfits like Moveon.org, are not examples of a vibrant and functioning democracy. Democracy is indeed under attack but not for the reasons they scream about. Ironically, it's their behavior that's threatening democracy. Special interest is threatening democracy. Unchecked corporate power undermines democracy. They think they speak for the Constitution but I am sure the tactics they use would meet with disapproval from the real men of genius of 1776.

Instead, it stinks of bored unemployed activists and wealthy socialists who simply have misappropriated facts to fit their narrow and short sighted world view. It's not about Bush but about how depraved we've become in our collective ignorance.

Every time I read some press release from activists, or listen to various blogs on speed write as though they are right, I am reminded that history is a dead art. That critical thinking has been hijacked by a perverse form of cynical nihilism that passes as critical thinking. What the two Bush terms have shown me is how remarkably low our intellectual standards have become. No, I don't mean with Bush himself, but with the anti-Bush crowd itself. America is dividing itself and the world, like vultures, is waiting to pick up the pieces left behind.

They say that the key to Middle-East succeeding is to give a voice to the moderates. It's become clear the same has to apply to America. Americans, the quiet ones who do not pound their fists on the pavement smashing windows for a just cause, need to take back their democracy. Their country.

It's fine to debate things but at some point if people can't use an honest and objective approach the truth we seek will always prove elusive.

Say it Horshack, "we're fed up Arnold and we're not gonna take it!"

1 comment:

  1. Being a Californian, I can tell you that the problem with the Governator is that he so very quickly turned into the exact type of politician that he promised to fight.

    I guess a "special interest group" is only so called when it's a social movement. To sit in the pocket of big business is somehow different.

    Also, don't forget that Schwarzenegger was voted into office as a protest. It's difficult to take back your country in a representative democracy when you are misled about what you'll get.

    Both W and Arnold promised to be "uniters". Neither have even pretended lip services since being elected.

    ReplyDelete

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