It is possible to write about how silly our “politics” has become and never run out of new material. That much has to be obvious by now. But it is still amazing how far from reality the election year chatter has become. Dark Issues have taken the place of any sense of reality and rationalism.
Are we really that scared of what is happening to our nation that we’ll talk about nearly anything else?
At least we can say that the Health Care debate, once predicted to be the top issue in November, is not making anyone’s radar. No, we’ve put that one behind us, which is about what anyone paying attention would realize. The top three issues occupying media time appear to be:
• The building of a Moslem community center (not sure it even has a mosque) two blocks from the World Trade Center site,
• Foreign nationals in the USofA without papers having “Anchor Babies”, and
• A two parter – how Federal deficits are bad for the economy and yet how vital it is to extend a tax cut for the wealthiest out of the need for “stimulus”.
I call these “Dark Issues” for several reasons. First of all, they clearly are the talking points developed by some shadowy figures somewhere. In addition, any debate on them will generate heat but very little light. But most of all these “issues” are so far from reality that light leaving what is real right now will not strike them for many, many years.
The Dark Issues are obviously selected by someone, somewhere for their special dark properties. These are the issues that are not just the absence of light but actually suck the light and life out of normal issues. Otherwise intelligent people find themselves debating Dark Issues because the pull of the darkness is so strong.
What can we do about them? First of all, it’s obvious that Dark Issues are a kind of (Cow Puckey) because they fail the basic test – if it sounds too stupid to be true, it probably isn’t. Each of these issues has a small kernal of truth at the center of them but the stories are told by people who, clearly, do not care about things like “truth”.
Once we realize that this is just more (Cow Puckey) it becomes obvious what we have to do about Dark Issues. We have to not only ignore them, we have to insult people who bring them up. That may be rude and obnoxious, but Dark Issues are far more rude. Anyone who brings these issues up has to be challenged with something along the lines of, “Do you really think that is an important issue?”
If you want, that might be a good opening to change the subject to something useful such as Restructuring the economy or providing jobs. It’s a way of flipping on the light switch to chase away the Dark Issues once and for all.
Anything is worth a try.
This post was written byErik Hare and originally published onBarataria. Follow him on Twitter:@wabbitoid
The Right appeals to folks at the lower levels of the Maslow hierarchy (safety, clan belonging). The Left seeks to bring folks up to the higher levels (actualizing, other-regarding). By human nature, there is a constant gravitational pull toward the bottom. The Right’s specific, long-standing strategy is to exploit this and the corporate media abet it both because it is salacious (and therefore good for sales in the short term) and because it disables folks from resisting the ongoing concentration of private wealth (and therefore good for the longer-term interests of those who capitalize the media). This is one of several strong structural disadvantages the Left faces.
Anyone registered as a Republican should not speak about corruption, immorality, budget by pipe-dream, fiscal dissolution, hyper-government, anti-federalism, government needing to run more like a business and less like a brothel, etc. They should not demean the president, speak of the constitution at all or object to being imprisoned, tortured and murdered without trial by the government. These are all things Republicans defended when Republicans were in power.
But if Republicans were permeable to conscience they would be independents. I never wonder what Republicans will say about events as they transpire. I never have to wonder. It’s predictable and boring. Say giant space ants invade Russia tomorrow- I can already tell you that John Boehner will point out that the Obama administration has never developed the kind of strategy that will keep the country safe from Rusophone space-ants and is too reluctant now to implement one. Shawn Hannity will suggest that this is what happens when we elect Presidents who are more loyal to asteroid ant colonies than to southern Virginia. Sarah Palin will say, “Hey, I think I see one!”
Hmmm! I looks like those “dark issues” might be issues might be issues that are detrimental to democrats and the left if they are widely publicized and on the general publics radar.
What percentage of the population could tell you what an “anchor baby” was a year or two ago?