If
you can’t beat them join them. My breaking point came slower than most but I can no
longer stuff my growing belief that the only rational voice I can trust to listen to
anymore is my own. After spending far too much of my rather limited time on this planet
wading through the media detritus known as the Clinton/Lewinsky affair, I can safely
report that whatever you may think about this entire sordid fiasco, one of the main
victims seems to have been the once prized concepts of common sense and rational human
discourse. Replaced instead by a ubiquitous cascade of inane opinion, irresponsible
speculation, and idiotic attempts at prognostication bearing about as much validity as a
ouija board.
Wandering through the elephant’s graveyard of cable show
punditry; trudging doggedly through newspaper and magazine op-ed column after column;
staggering through cyberspace searching for some shred of truth, the self-important
chatter has careened from comical to downright mentally unbalanced.
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"Who is Chris Matthews and is it possible he didn’t exist before
this scandal?" |
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An entire cottage industry seems to have sprung up around
this tawdry episode. From the endless news coverage to the talking heads who seemingly owe
their entire existence to this whole affair- (Who is Chris Matthews and is it possible he
didn’t exist before this scandal? Why do I know Susan Carpenter McMillian’s
name?)
And yet it seems
that the people generally referred to as the so-called "elite"- those alleged
intellectual visionaries in politics and journalism that the media turn to for divine
guidance in times of national crisis- are even more clueless than I would have suspected.
These so called individuals (and I use this term loosely) in Hollywood and Washington and
other centers of "elite opinion" seem so comically disconnected from the
population in general, so awash in their own grandiose delusions of self importance; so
intoxicated by their exalted positions within the incestuous confines of their self
contained intellectual biospheres, that they seem to have "superiorized"
themselves out of relevance to the rest of us. Some even appear offended that the
"rabble" don’t share their self righteous outrage. Like inbred
intelligentsia who haven’t left the castle for forty years they seem shocked that
people with actual jobs and families have other things that are worrying them other than
the fact that the countries’ CEO has been reenacting "Deep Throat" with his
intern. The chasm between the average citizenry and the "elitocracy" has been
revealed in all its fascinating glory and it seems to be wider than Marlon Brando’s
sherbet dish.
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"Why do I know Susan
Carpenter McMillian’s name?" |
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Everywhere I look in media land, everybody seems so
completely wedded to their own rigidly entrenched ideological positions that there appears
nowhere to turn for anything even approximating truth or wisdom. Clinton’s haters
seem so fanatically rabid in their venomous distaste for this president that to them,
anything that brings him down is justified. On the other hand his defenders seem so
blindly myopic; so comically and disgracefully lacking in any sense of right and wrong
that you sometimes get the feeling that if Ken Starr discovered Bill Clinton has been
running a kiddie porn ring out of the Oval Office, their only response would be to roll
their eyes and accuse Starr of once again being obsessed with "nothing but sex, sex,
sex!".
OK, I can’t take having my intelligence insulted
anymore. Having immersed myself in the squalor for an extended period, I have only been
able to draw one single conclusion: EVERYONE IS WRONG! So there! A plague on BOTH your
houses! Has everybody gone nuts? In their self appointed role as arbiters of wisdom for
the "bewildered herd" the media’s infantile need for conflict positions
every debate within a Jerry Springeresque framework of absolute right vs. absolute wrong
and reduces political discourse to the level of a cockfight.
The entire national conversation has degenerated into an
insufferable moronfest replete with an apparently inexhaustible supply of ideologues of
both right and left. It seems like the only necessary element for being a part of this not
so elite group nowadays is to cart around one of those eerily ambiguous graphics
underneath my head that serve as my qualifications for being listened to: Assistant Deputy
Media Director Of Legal Communications For The Consulting Policy Advisory Commission In
Charge Of Political Action For The Liberal Thinktank Advocacy Watchdog Eagle Foundation.
Like baby egrets straining their necks for nourishment, these human sock puppets seem
desperate for any droplets of media attention their narcissistically parched souls can
manage to slurp up. Many somehow find their way onto 2 and 3 different shows a night like
insatiable, trench coated cretins hopping from porno shop to porno shop on a late night
bender.
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"...these
human sock puppets seem desperate for any droplets of media attention their
narcissistically parched souls can manage to slurp up." |
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Okay I can’t take it anymore. Does every issue have to
be debased by this World Wrestling Federation mentality of Right vs. Left, Liberal vs.
Conservative, Us vs. Them hostility? When did everyone on the planet get so sure of the
divine rightness of their particular positions? Does anybody in media land allow any room
for even the possibility of further personal evolution of their ideas? I know its just
show business, but does anybody on Crossfire ever have any doubts like the rest of us or
are they the only fully formed, thoroughly enlightened beings on the earth? Just once, in
the middle of a heated debate, wouldn’t you love to see one of these philosophical
troglodytes suddenly say "Wow, I never thought of it that way. You’re really
turning me around on this one!"
Maybe I’m a little wacky but am I the only one in
America who can’t stand the extreme positions of both sides? Am I the only one who
gets as nauseous watching Jesse Jackson as they do watching Jerry Falwell? Am I the only
one who can’t mute the TV fast enough whenever Pat Buchanan or Maxine Waters appear?
Who gets creeped out by Patricia Ireland and Phyllis Schlafly? Am I the only one who can
enjoy reading P.J. O’Rourke and Noam Chomsky? Who can laugh at Rush Limbaugh and
still dig Howard Zinn? Who is pro choice but doesn’t feel that right about it and is
moderately anti-death penalty for reasons that I can’t quite understand? Am I the
only one ………OK enough self-centered, solipsistic grandiosity.
Well I figure if political mongoloids like Alan Dershowitz
can actually delude themselves into believing that their every inane rambling is worthy of
a forum then so can I. If you see yourself as something other than just another
ideological lemming being led over the cliff by these Pied Pipers of Polarization, perhaps
this column can provide some kind of oasis. Or maybe not. Either way….. Into the
breech my friends!………
Your comments always welcome!
