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So, what lessons did we learn? And what does the future hold?
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Amid the all the hand-wringing, or wailing jeremiads, or triumphant op-eds
out there, *I’ll offer in this election post-mortem some perspectives that
you...
16 hours ago
2 comments:
Sorry I haven't been communicating with you lately, Bill. I've been down with a cold the last couple of weeks. This latest strain that's been working its way through really drags your energy level down, even when you're over the compulsory cough/sneeze/swollen sinuses.
I've been intellectually waterboarding myself lately. Go to MSN.com or Yahoo's newspage. Pick an article, any article. Then go to the comments section at the bottom and try to get through it without feeling the need to take a shower as the conserva-trolls dump their "intellectual" sewage on the rest of us.
Why would I subject myself to that, you ask? I guess I'm just looking to see how far down the sewer we as a country and as a society have sunk. You may say "don't feed the trolls," "ignore the trolls." I can't. I guess I'm approaching this from the standpoint of "we're only as strong as our weakest link." And it's pretty obvious that conserva-trolls are our weakest link. It seems like no matter how much we try to enlighten ourselves, the conserva-trolls find a way to drag us back into the sewer.
Like Michael Coreone would say, "I try to get out, they pull me back in."
I can understand the temptation, Jeff. But internet comments give a voice to the absolute worst people in our society. It's all anonymous, and they don't even have to slither out from under that rock first.
Obviously, they've always been under that rock, but they haven't been this visible in the past. Normally, they crawl away when the lights are turned on, but again, the internet is anonymous. It stays just as dark as they want it to be.
Anyway, I disagree with your 'weakest link' metaphor, because we're not a chain, we're a net. And a net can stay strong despite weak strands. They can't get too numerous, but a few bad links aren't worth worrying about, not when the rest of our connections stay strong.
I'm sorry to hear about your cold, Jeff, but you haven't missed much here. I've been blogging less and less all the time. Even the political stuff just seems like I'm repeating myself, now.
Maybe I'm finally getting tired of the election? Even the political comedians seem to be repeating themselves. The Republican Party seems to be unraveling, which is fun. But it might be spreading, and that's a bit worrisome.
Destruction is always appealing to people, because it seems simple, easy, quick. But destruction doesn't create anything. It's easy to imagine reweaving the strands of society - somehow - after slicing through the tangles, but that's hard, and rather boring, work.
It's a lot more fun watching the Republican Party disintegrate than imagining what might take its place. It's a lot more fun to be a fire-breathing revolutionary, a hero of your own imagination, and just... fantasize about the phoenix that's going to rise from the ashes.
OK, have I mixed my metaphors enough, now? :)
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