The Mad House
Hey Folks –
There’s an old joke that suggests:
“The Earth is the insane asylum of the universe.”
I’m not sure it’s a joke.
If you get old enough and you’ve been paying attention, a lot of what once seemed a guarantor of sanity loses its credibility, becomes a joke, or disappears altogether.
Santa and the Tooth Fairy quit coming around – imaginary friends who go “poof” before you really get to know them!!
Too many religious leaders who seemed so strong and wise are shown to be weak and venal, tied up defending contradictory dogma for personal, political, or institutional reasons (if they are not just crackpots or shysters to begin with).
Business, the focus of all society’s love and expectation, turns out to be an ungrateful and greedy master, expecting blind fealty and gratitude from employees but feeling no lordly responsibility toward their serfs, the community, or nation; bereft of humanity except in the legal personhood granted by incorporation (see "Supremes" below).
The “City Fathers,” and the state legislature too soon reveal their utter mediocrity and craven subservience to the earlier-mentioned money interests. The governor and the courts shuffle not far behind, maintaining a system of men-not-laws, serving certain men at the cost of the people’s justice and livelihood.
And then the congress - who are just state legislators with more expensive haircuts and greater guile - are discovered fattening up the grossest financial pythons, serving up ever larger portions of the people’s interests. And all this with the blessing of the shameless Supremes dancing to the music of the ruling class.
And then there’s the President.
Apparently, 28% of Americans still think the slacker presently in the White House (see "Supremes" above) is looking out for them, but the rest of us (after almost eight years) know better. Unfortunately, most of us think – after more than 200 years – that most of the other presidents were looking after us. Which brings me to my point.
Every election is a psychological examination of the inmates, an evaluation of our mental strength and stability, a measure of our rationality, an indicator of our place in the order of creation. Unfortunately we consistently are shown to be weak, unstable, and emotional; filling a space somewhere between monkeys and cows.
Evidence? Well, as pointed out in the recent book What’s the Matter with Kansas?, we consistently vote against our own interests - at the request of those who run our Bedlam.
What's the Matter with Kansas? made a splash, but it’s nothing new. Mark Twain in his Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court addressed the same issue; the Yankee describes the behavior of Southern whites regarding the interests of wealthy slave owners and the betrayal of their own:
It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when the "poor whites" of our South who were always despised and frequently insulted by the slave-lords around them, and who owed their base condition simply to the presence of slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously ready to side with the slave-lords in all political moves for the upholding and perpetuating of slavery, and did also finally shoulder their muskets and pour out their lives in an effort to prevent the destruction of that very institution which degraded them.
Presently, the contemporary equivalent of Civil War era Southern whites seem pusillanimously willing to be manipulated by fear, patriotism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and obvious lies into voting for their continued degradation.
H. L. Mencken said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
That's why the owners of the asylum are rich.
- Uke Man
There’s an old joke that suggests:
“The Earth is the insane asylum of the universe.”
I’m not sure it’s a joke.
If you get old enough and you’ve been paying attention, a lot of what once seemed a guarantor of sanity loses its credibility, becomes a joke, or disappears altogether.
Santa and the Tooth Fairy quit coming around – imaginary friends who go “poof” before you really get to know them!!
Too many religious leaders who seemed so strong and wise are shown to be weak and venal, tied up defending contradictory dogma for personal, political, or institutional reasons (if they are not just crackpots or shysters to begin with).
Business, the focus of all society’s love and expectation, turns out to be an ungrateful and greedy master, expecting blind fealty and gratitude from employees but feeling no lordly responsibility toward their serfs, the community, or nation; bereft of humanity except in the legal personhood granted by incorporation (see "Supremes" below).
The “City Fathers,” and the state legislature too soon reveal their utter mediocrity and craven subservience to the earlier-mentioned money interests. The governor and the courts shuffle not far behind, maintaining a system of men-not-laws, serving certain men at the cost of the people’s justice and livelihood.
And then the congress - who are just state legislators with more expensive haircuts and greater guile - are discovered fattening up the grossest financial pythons, serving up ever larger portions of the people’s interests. And all this with the blessing of the shameless Supremes dancing to the music of the ruling class.
And then there’s the President.
Apparently, 28% of Americans still think the slacker presently in the White House (see "Supremes" above) is looking out for them, but the rest of us (after almost eight years) know better. Unfortunately, most of us think – after more than 200 years – that most of the other presidents were looking after us. Which brings me to my point.
Every election is a psychological examination of the inmates, an evaluation of our mental strength and stability, a measure of our rationality, an indicator of our place in the order of creation. Unfortunately we consistently are shown to be weak, unstable, and emotional; filling a space somewhere between monkeys and cows.
Evidence? Well, as pointed out in the recent book What’s the Matter with Kansas?, we consistently vote against our own interests - at the request of those who run our Bedlam.
What's the Matter with Kansas? made a splash, but it’s nothing new. Mark Twain in his Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court addressed the same issue; the Yankee describes the behavior of Southern whites regarding the interests of wealthy slave owners and the betrayal of their own:
It reminded me of a time thirteen centuries away, when the "poor whites" of our South who were always despised and frequently insulted by the slave-lords around them, and who owed their base condition simply to the presence of slavery in their midst, were yet pusillanimously ready to side with the slave-lords in all political moves for the upholding and perpetuating of slavery, and did also finally shoulder their muskets and pour out their lives in an effort to prevent the destruction of that very institution which degraded them.
Presently, the contemporary equivalent of Civil War era Southern whites seem pusillanimously willing to be manipulated by fear, patriotism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, and obvious lies into voting for their continued degradation.
H. L. Mencken said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
That's why the owners of the asylum are rich.
- Uke Man
posted by Ukulele Man at 5:53 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home