Smoking Mirrors

Trish and I are in the process of laughing riotously at a letter printed in a recent Enterprise Record. I don't know if it is from a lack of submissions, editor “discretion,” or what, but the Letters to the Editor lately have been closely resembling the random and anonymous babblings that make up the infamous “Tell it to the ER” column. Great and entertaining stuff – our King sitting his royal ass on a bejeweled throne, black supremacy, a thumb up, or a thumb down for the whacked out, maniacal, and desperate “plan of the day.” Come to think of it, it is sort of starting to resemble the fall of the Roman Empire around here - I can smell something, burning in the air.

But that's a myth anyway – the Roman Empire didn't collapse overnight; more accurately it broke up, or eroded away, over a period of time, centuries I think. The Soviet Union had a more abrupt collapse a few decades back, but they seem to be chugging along, a series of confederate countries.

Now the Middle East is on fire. Governments are being overthrown right and left. The latest leader to go is Moammar Ghadaffy – the infamously titled (by President Ronald Reagan):

“Mad Dog of the Middle East.” 

Reagan could turn a phrase. You can start to understand why people still hold him in such high esteem when you hear a phrase like that. It's got alliteration, action, tension. Never mind policy; nobody really has a firm grasp on policy anyway; that's all a bunch of smoke, and mirrors.

People are throwing around a lot of political terminology these days: Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchy, Direct Democracy, Radical Direct Democracy, Utilitarianism, Fascism, Horizontalism... It can make your head spin trying to keep up with the latest political philosophy to be making the scene on any particular day.

Isms, isms, isms... I'm not sold on all that stuff. All the “isms” seem  to ignore the potential for human miscalculation, confusion, and corruption. Folks act as if choosing the right political and economic theory is going to catapult human-kind into thinking and acting decently towards one another. Sorry y'all – it's entirely the other way around.

Out of Iraq

Well as of the end of this year we are out of Iraq, out military troops anyway. No one seems to know if this is a good thing or a bad thing – it's probably a bit of both. These times, man, there is no satisfaction. I had so many strong opinions ten years ago – now I don't know which way is up. It feels like we're treading in a pool of oil, slogging along, not sure which way to turn. I don't blame the President for this, or the Congress – they are only as confused as the rest of us. We hold something around a 40% approval rating for our sitting President, and around a Nine percent approval rating for the acting Congress. The headline I'm reading says: “Even Congress hates Congress,” and I don't think hate is the right word, but we don't understand ourselves these days.

madbob@madbob