Is the American Ideal on the Ropes?
Living in Indiana, I was raised conservative by osmosis. People didn’t like Clinton; they liked the Repub revolution of 1994, and were for the death penalty. While the Bible Belt sentiment surely crept into the mindset of abortion, there were far too many white trash teen pregnancies to dismiss the idea as a whole. Around 1994, I was against letting a woman into the Citadel, I was pro-death penalty, and I hated the notion of affirmative action, and so on, I was not card carrying, but I would have voted red.
Yet as I came to believe in the arts, naturally I leaned left. Perhaps it affirms the notion that the media is liberal, I came to question what those around me said. I owe much of my philosophy in life to the introduction of one text, one that led me away from Christianity and from any notion of a god, and from the rhetoric of Republicanism. That text was none other than Jurassic Park, which is at the root of a staggering number of fellow agnostics and atheists I know from my generation. (I since have gone to a basic form of Buddhism, that maybe, in the mental connections we as humans make with our gift of consciousness truly unites everything) It was the simple question of where are the dinosaurs in the Bible that was the impetus, yet from the simple idea of fiction, it wasn’t the idea that most captivated me, it was the science.
And forever inspired by the movie and the book, I was captivated by science, and my two favorite classes (in terms of learning the knowledge were Biology and AP Bio). I have often pondered to myself, what if the second coming of Christ was not of a divine sense to assure the faith, but an act from the heavens which would cause humans to look at the true wonder of the world and how it happens in a empirical sense, and this “second coming” was Charles Darwin. It’s a truly convoluted idea, as it asks one to believe that God sent someone who would cause people to reasonably doubt his very existence, but moreover to understand the world which he created, and to take the moral lessons as the primer to a world which we were too primitive to understand the first time he intervened.
Buried in that sentiment are two ideas which should exist harmoniously if there were diametrically opposed in the beliefs of them who hold them, as science and religion tend to be mutually exclusive. I wonder, if maybe, one is to take lessons from both and meld them into one overarching principle, it could be the best path for humanity; that one must fully understand how everything works to appreciate it and achieve their highest state, and we must do so, because we are all part of a bigger system, divine or not, this world is a biological hegemony of which humans are the top species.
By the time I arrived in California in 1999, I was as liberal as I thought possible compared to my home state. Pro-choice, anti-death penalty, pro-homosexual rights, anti-corporations, tolerant, the whole shebang, I thought myself fairly progressive. Yet when I arrived and heard the leanings of those born in Blue states and their equally unintelligent diatribes on the fallacy of Conservatism, I was appalled. In Indiana, I had tied the ignorance of people reluctant to liberal ideals with Christianity, that people were prohibited by Faith to change what they believed in. Only last week was I met with another of such an appalling Liberal notions, a girl who proclaimed that any celebrity should use new found fame as a pulpit to spout their beliefs. We don’t pay money to see an actor in a movie so we can hear his views on Uganda poverty when he finishes first in the box office! We pay to escape. We shouldn’t wait for a brainwashed cult member who happens to be in a big movie decry psychology, that’s not what I or Americans pay to receive.
In the years since I have been here in LA in the wake of the events of this decade thus far, I have become noticeably more moderate and conservative. Not staunch, nor in any means Pro-Bush or Neo-Conservative, but simply by hearing the political lines of people I thought I agreed with, I can’t fathom how people can still believe with such fierce rhetoric, it almost sounds to me like Propaganda. I don’t feel like many of these people out here have earned the beliefs which they stand by, they haven’t come to them naturally, they have gained them by osmosis, and in a town as Leftist as Los Angeles, any dissent is so polarizing to the right, it would do little to convince them. Perhaps it is an internal instinct to question beliefs of people from my own highly opinionated mind to question not only the notion, but the validity of the speaker. Sometimes I denigrate an viewpoint by using my eyes more than my ears, but for the most point, I consciously try to hear them out in hopes of hearing an option which will open my perception.
Yet, perhaps the single most frequent reason I cannot stand by people from this city is the same reason I couldn’t stand with people in Indiana, they know not of the people they attack, and know only of the result of a voting record and judge accordingly. The Midwest is not flyover country, and it is filled with some of the most open minded, tolerant people in the country. In 1984, it wasn’t California, Oregon, or Washington that was the lone state to vote for Mondale, it was Minnesota, a state filled with Finnish, German, Polish, Norwegian, and Swedish immigrants who define the left stance of Euro politics. Californians think that the Midwest, Dust Bowl, and South are filled with uneducated, gun toting people who don’t care to see Brokeback Mountain or Good Night, and Good Luck. I can tell you with great authority that the art house cinema in Indianapolis was constantly filled when movies like Love and Death on Long Island, Shakespeare In Love, and In the Mood for Love played there. Just as there are people who come from LA who vote Republican, there are those in Red States that vote Democrats. And yet, in both regions, people lump in the outcome of the whole with the population of the state.
Far more dangerous is that people fail to see the view from the other side, dismissing personal politics as a belief in a system they are opposed to. Hoosiers could never fathom why Marijuana and gay marriage need to be legalized, and LA hipsters could never understand why having a gun or supporting our troops (and inherently the war) seems like a reasonable idea.
The cold truth is that neither side is wrong, it’s all a matter not of opinion, but how the outcome of one party vs. the other may help one’s life. The people of California are not free swinging, hash addicted, hybrid driving holier than thou’s any more than the Red States are Milita enlisted, Bible Thumping, racist farmers. There are cases where each stereotype rings true, but it doesn’t represent the whole, but mainly the more media prominent.
Phrenology was an 18th century scientific notion which reasoned, by wildly random and terribly documented statistics, that people were born into bodies which dictated their personality. The roots of the acceptance are surely linked to the Puritan idealism of Original Sin and preordained destiny, yet it held an attraction before being dismissed as quackery before the turn of the 20th century. Dismissed it may have been in the Scientific field, but in a nation as divided as the US, and in a town as ethnically diverse as LA, the mere practice as prejudice prevails subconsciously enough to mold iconography even without actual interaction
The part that bothers me the most is that people on both sides focus so intensely on how they are different that they don’t realize how their lives are drastically similar. With the ever widening gap between rich and poor, the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries, and the diminishment of the middle class as a feasible outcome for anyone without postgraduate learning, the impoverished on both sides of the spectrum are forced with a common enemy, the government itself which over the course of the last 5 years has done nothing but splinter the citizens against one-another, the world outside of us, and the economic divide.
I have been reading Reflections of a Ravaged Century by Robert Conquest recently. The book is a keen historical micro-spection on how Nazism and Communism were able to come to be, even in a world which seemingly became more intelligent than it ever was. In looking at National Socialism, Conquest puts the reaction due to national pride as much as it has to do with susceptibility to radical ideas, more so it was about establishing one self against the others, finding cultural roots, and maintaining a legacy for the future. With Communism, Conquest supposes that the dire states of poverty and the idea of a more perfect working world fell on wanting ears which wanted a better part. The underlying reason why both of these happened was greed, both for the individual, and the jealousy of the privileged.
Perhaps the most striking revelation was not about the mindset of those who bought in, but that those of the people who were part of the proletariat were akin to the feudal system of the middle ages. In the mindset of any working man, they see themselves as more advanced, and yet Conquest shows that, in most cases, the serf class of the Feudal times was much better off than the working class of the earlier industrial ages. That the serf class of the Dark Ages likely had it better than the Russian Proletariat of the Czars.
To get a firm look at America from an objective point I can think of few more solid starting points than the media we imbibe, and the natural choice of where to start is somewhat difficult. Desperate Housewives would be a easy lamb to attack as escapist need, yet the demographic is so skewed to one gender it’s out. So too would be crime shows like CSI, Law and Order, or any other procedural, as they offer a solid representation of the Red state (ideal) of wrong vs. right, criminal vs. the system. It doesn’t hold up because in the end, the people who watch these shows do it mindlessly, it’s escapism in seeing the process work, and it’s helped by having the characters be as vanilla as possible, and while an intriguing debate could be made about the desires of an older generation (the only ones who actually watch these shows) to see an American system prevail is a fascinating topic, it’s too skewed to a faction of our society. Cartoons are out on the same notion, though they do raise an interesting question of what the (my) younger generation chooses to view. Do Adult Swim, Comedy Central, and MTV2 shows cater to a demo which is waiting to disprove the boomers in an escapist and fantasy medium filled with political themes represent the undercurrent of a generation to not look at serious topics without a filter that removes them a step behind? Surely, but American and America may be best defined by a single show, a game show which creates and mocks our own idolatry in the quest for the best.
I cannot help but think that American Idol’s success is due not to the quality of the show (it’s certainly not the most compelling of the reality show genre), but due to the inherent promise embedded in it’s outcome. American Idol succeeds, I think, because it taps into three core veins in Americas heart:
1. Democracy: We as the viewers (seemingly) control the outcome.
2. The ability to be singled out for excellence while those who don’t amount fall by the wayside. For anyone struggling in a job with a glimmer of hope, the premise of seeing your skills tested against those of your caliber and being judged. For any person who feels they could shine if given the chance to prove it, American Idol represents a gauntlet to prove it.
3. Even if it’s a European import, American Idol works best in the States because of it’s very nature of making it big out of a field of hundreds of thousands of competitors. If American Idol isn’t the 21st century version of the American Dream, I don’t know what is.
America is in an amazingly enviable economic situation compared to the rest of the world. There is freedom of speech, religion, etc, and the minimum wage, while in dire need of updating, is still of an enviable rate compared to other parts of the world. Immigration to this country is likely higher on any scale than anywhere else in the world, the USA is still the land of opportunity.
And yet ingrained in the second generation is the notion of what is deserved, and it’s supposed to come naturally with a show of talent.
But with the growing gap of wealth, shown ad nausea with celebrities on E!, MTV, and VH1, the flaunting of wealth of people like Donald Trump and hip hop stars, America is almost vampire-like when it comes to the accruement of wealth, we want to suck the power to be given the power to live like them. We play the lotto in hopes of the quick fix, we hope for the handout, we wait for our chance to shine.
There are two divisions in the actual America, those who have made it, and those who are struggling. Yet there are three divisions that fight as sides, the rich, the poor, and the poor against the poor.
While the ideal of socialism has been proven time and time again to be a catastrophic way to run a country, the divide which is necessary to spawn it has never been closer in America than ever before, and the danger of such an idealism has never been closer to conception than now. The looming strike of May 1st of migrant workers will prove devastating to all sides of the cause, and it could be more helpful to an ideal of equally distributed wealth than ever before. Why shouldn’t the minimum wage be $10 an hour when the average salary of a CEO is approaching 100 mil? It’s an quick solution for hard times, and one that leads to short wealth.
The instance of getting what one wants can only lead to short term happiness, as it’s a one time payoff, shortly elevating the ease of living before the new pressures come, and then once again, the misery of the have’s vs. have not’s rises again over those who profited.
When it comes to American Idol, there has only been one true success, and that’s Kelly Clarkson. Rather than list the other failures, or the exploitative measures used by Simon Cowell and company to make the quick buck, looking at Clarkson may be the most beneficial. She got the world on a platter. She failed in the system that created her, and yet she is now more popular now than she ever was, even causing people to overlook the sequence that brought her to fame. In short, she got what she wanted, succeeded mildly, but then went and found a way to sustain her fame by the only possible way, to earn the chance bestowed on her. Clarkson may be the most recent example of the prodigal son (daughter in this case), and I think people like her not because she is famous, but because she finally made good on the faith of the people who voted her to the title, but she did so on her terms.
Which brings me to the link, which is why I started writing this in the first place.
Democrats suddenly have a newfound surplus of currency with the American people. And the point of the article is that Democrats can’t just wait this out because they have the chance, they have to create a rallying point. They have to create a slogan which makes people come back to the party.
And I think of where I am politically, and I know what has lead me in one direction or another in the last few years.
I am going to admit something which will probably give an insight into how I might have bought into an ideal of Republicanism in 2003.
Me and Steaze got into a huge argument that year about the war. As much as I was against it, I said I agreed with the idea of going to war with a Middle Eastern country like Iraq, Iran, or Syria, for fear that they would attack Israel and ultimately start WW 3. My rationale was that if we were to go in there (not to stop WMD’s) and were able to instill a capitalistic country, the political fervor of Islam would fall by the wayside, and Islam would become a religion/doctrine like in the EU, USA, or even China, where the impulse is to follow the rules of a previous region, but it would pale in the face of capitalist greed, and merely be a guiding light, not the sole premise for rule and life. While I still believe that this may be the only way to change the culture there, I know now the folly of my view: I didn’t know what the life was there. I was as guilty of branding small town folk fascists, or LA denizens as heathens as any typical misguided American in the 2004 election.
Looking at my folly, and feeling the shame in thinking my way worked for someone 10,000 miles away. And I realize the folly of Republicans, who are tied to an older world and ideal that may not exist, and they want to propagate it for the rest of the culture that doesn’t follow.
You can’t forcibly pose your opinions on people. It doesn’t work for them, and the intelligent mind will object the change from a system that is imperfect.
Just because someone doesn’t see your point of view, doesn’t mean that they don’t have a good reason to see so.
Even if a group of regressed bigots kill Matthew Lillard, it doesn’t mean that all people in Montana are ignorant.
Just because some zealots find it better to bomb people in a café in Iraq to protest the West doesn’t mean all Muslims are violent assassins who hate freedom.
Even if someone is striving to make themselves stronger, doesn’t mean they are gearing up to attack you or your friends.
Raised on the cinema, I feel that there may no greater good in humanity than the ability to love, and to believe in your fellow man.
Even if .1% criminals are going to be wretched all of their life, it doesn’t mean the remaining %99.9 are beyond saving.
Even if a man with a Turban crashed a plane into the World Trade Center, it doesn’t mean that all men with Turbans and beards want to.
I believe, in the end, we can count on the rest of the world just as we do our friends. In the final take, they are all we have, and I believe, facing any task, from the simple plight of getting to work to establishing a great nation and world, I believe we can do it.
Maybe I’m hopeless in believing in the good, maybe I have been oversaturated by tales of Redemption and heroes in fantasy situations.
There is good, and it’s worth fighting for. We need to come together before we designate outselves apart. We have to give up illusions and promises of singular greatness towards the intent of a better world which far supersedes any personal dream.
I never again will believe it's me against them, that's it's my way or the end of the world. Judgement is natural, and far too easy; rationalization takes time and introspection.
I will never give up on my fellow man.
That is why I will always be a Democrat. Link
Yet as I came to believe in the arts, naturally I leaned left. Perhaps it affirms the notion that the media is liberal, I came to question what those around me said. I owe much of my philosophy in life to the introduction of one text, one that led me away from Christianity and from any notion of a god, and from the rhetoric of Republicanism. That text was none other than Jurassic Park, which is at the root of a staggering number of fellow agnostics and atheists I know from my generation. (I since have gone to a basic form of Buddhism, that maybe, in the mental connections we as humans make with our gift of consciousness truly unites everything) It was the simple question of where are the dinosaurs in the Bible that was the impetus, yet from the simple idea of fiction, it wasn’t the idea that most captivated me, it was the science.
And forever inspired by the movie and the book, I was captivated by science, and my two favorite classes (in terms of learning the knowledge were Biology and AP Bio). I have often pondered to myself, what if the second coming of Christ was not of a divine sense to assure the faith, but an act from the heavens which would cause humans to look at the true wonder of the world and how it happens in a empirical sense, and this “second coming” was Charles Darwin. It’s a truly convoluted idea, as it asks one to believe that God sent someone who would cause people to reasonably doubt his very existence, but moreover to understand the world which he created, and to take the moral lessons as the primer to a world which we were too primitive to understand the first time he intervened.
Buried in that sentiment are two ideas which should exist harmoniously if there were diametrically opposed in the beliefs of them who hold them, as science and religion tend to be mutually exclusive. I wonder, if maybe, one is to take lessons from both and meld them into one overarching principle, it could be the best path for humanity; that one must fully understand how everything works to appreciate it and achieve their highest state, and we must do so, because we are all part of a bigger system, divine or not, this world is a biological hegemony of which humans are the top species.
By the time I arrived in California in 1999, I was as liberal as I thought possible compared to my home state. Pro-choice, anti-death penalty, pro-homosexual rights, anti-corporations, tolerant, the whole shebang, I thought myself fairly progressive. Yet when I arrived and heard the leanings of those born in Blue states and their equally unintelligent diatribes on the fallacy of Conservatism, I was appalled. In Indiana, I had tied the ignorance of people reluctant to liberal ideals with Christianity, that people were prohibited by Faith to change what they believed in. Only last week was I met with another of such an appalling Liberal notions, a girl who proclaimed that any celebrity should use new found fame as a pulpit to spout their beliefs. We don’t pay money to see an actor in a movie so we can hear his views on Uganda poverty when he finishes first in the box office! We pay to escape. We shouldn’t wait for a brainwashed cult member who happens to be in a big movie decry psychology, that’s not what I or Americans pay to receive.
In the years since I have been here in LA in the wake of the events of this decade thus far, I have become noticeably more moderate and conservative. Not staunch, nor in any means Pro-Bush or Neo-Conservative, but simply by hearing the political lines of people I thought I agreed with, I can’t fathom how people can still believe with such fierce rhetoric, it almost sounds to me like Propaganda. I don’t feel like many of these people out here have earned the beliefs which they stand by, they haven’t come to them naturally, they have gained them by osmosis, and in a town as Leftist as Los Angeles, any dissent is so polarizing to the right, it would do little to convince them. Perhaps it is an internal instinct to question beliefs of people from my own highly opinionated mind to question not only the notion, but the validity of the speaker. Sometimes I denigrate an viewpoint by using my eyes more than my ears, but for the most point, I consciously try to hear them out in hopes of hearing an option which will open my perception.
Yet, perhaps the single most frequent reason I cannot stand by people from this city is the same reason I couldn’t stand with people in Indiana, they know not of the people they attack, and know only of the result of a voting record and judge accordingly. The Midwest is not flyover country, and it is filled with some of the most open minded, tolerant people in the country. In 1984, it wasn’t California, Oregon, or Washington that was the lone state to vote for Mondale, it was Minnesota, a state filled with Finnish, German, Polish, Norwegian, and Swedish immigrants who define the left stance of Euro politics. Californians think that the Midwest, Dust Bowl, and South are filled with uneducated, gun toting people who don’t care to see Brokeback Mountain or Good Night, and Good Luck. I can tell you with great authority that the art house cinema in Indianapolis was constantly filled when movies like Love and Death on Long Island, Shakespeare In Love, and In the Mood for Love played there. Just as there are people who come from LA who vote Republican, there are those in Red States that vote Democrats. And yet, in both regions, people lump in the outcome of the whole with the population of the state.
Far more dangerous is that people fail to see the view from the other side, dismissing personal politics as a belief in a system they are opposed to. Hoosiers could never fathom why Marijuana and gay marriage need to be legalized, and LA hipsters could never understand why having a gun or supporting our troops (and inherently the war) seems like a reasonable idea.
The cold truth is that neither side is wrong, it’s all a matter not of opinion, but how the outcome of one party vs. the other may help one’s life. The people of California are not free swinging, hash addicted, hybrid driving holier than thou’s any more than the Red States are Milita enlisted, Bible Thumping, racist farmers. There are cases where each stereotype rings true, but it doesn’t represent the whole, but mainly the more media prominent.
Phrenology was an 18th century scientific notion which reasoned, by wildly random and terribly documented statistics, that people were born into bodies which dictated their personality. The roots of the acceptance are surely linked to the Puritan idealism of Original Sin and preordained destiny, yet it held an attraction before being dismissed as quackery before the turn of the 20th century. Dismissed it may have been in the Scientific field, but in a nation as divided as the US, and in a town as ethnically diverse as LA, the mere practice as prejudice prevails subconsciously enough to mold iconography even without actual interaction
The part that bothers me the most is that people on both sides focus so intensely on how they are different that they don’t realize how their lives are drastically similar. With the ever widening gap between rich and poor, the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries, and the diminishment of the middle class as a feasible outcome for anyone without postgraduate learning, the impoverished on both sides of the spectrum are forced with a common enemy, the government itself which over the course of the last 5 years has done nothing but splinter the citizens against one-another, the world outside of us, and the economic divide.
I have been reading Reflections of a Ravaged Century by Robert Conquest recently. The book is a keen historical micro-spection on how Nazism and Communism were able to come to be, even in a world which seemingly became more intelligent than it ever was. In looking at National Socialism, Conquest puts the reaction due to national pride as much as it has to do with susceptibility to radical ideas, more so it was about establishing one self against the others, finding cultural roots, and maintaining a legacy for the future. With Communism, Conquest supposes that the dire states of poverty and the idea of a more perfect working world fell on wanting ears which wanted a better part. The underlying reason why both of these happened was greed, both for the individual, and the jealousy of the privileged.
Perhaps the most striking revelation was not about the mindset of those who bought in, but that those of the people who were part of the proletariat were akin to the feudal system of the middle ages. In the mindset of any working man, they see themselves as more advanced, and yet Conquest shows that, in most cases, the serf class of the Feudal times was much better off than the working class of the earlier industrial ages. That the serf class of the Dark Ages likely had it better than the Russian Proletariat of the Czars.
To get a firm look at America from an objective point I can think of few more solid starting points than the media we imbibe, and the natural choice of where to start is somewhat difficult. Desperate Housewives would be a easy lamb to attack as escapist need, yet the demographic is so skewed to one gender it’s out. So too would be crime shows like CSI, Law and Order, or any other procedural, as they offer a solid representation of the Red state (ideal) of wrong vs. right, criminal vs. the system. It doesn’t hold up because in the end, the people who watch these shows do it mindlessly, it’s escapism in seeing the process work, and it’s helped by having the characters be as vanilla as possible, and while an intriguing debate could be made about the desires of an older generation (the only ones who actually watch these shows) to see an American system prevail is a fascinating topic, it’s too skewed to a faction of our society. Cartoons are out on the same notion, though they do raise an interesting question of what the (my) younger generation chooses to view. Do Adult Swim, Comedy Central, and MTV2 shows cater to a demo which is waiting to disprove the boomers in an escapist and fantasy medium filled with political themes represent the undercurrent of a generation to not look at serious topics without a filter that removes them a step behind? Surely, but American and America may be best defined by a single show, a game show which creates and mocks our own idolatry in the quest for the best.
I cannot help but think that American Idol’s success is due not to the quality of the show (it’s certainly not the most compelling of the reality show genre), but due to the inherent promise embedded in it’s outcome. American Idol succeeds, I think, because it taps into three core veins in Americas heart:
1. Democracy: We as the viewers (seemingly) control the outcome.
2. The ability to be singled out for excellence while those who don’t amount fall by the wayside. For anyone struggling in a job with a glimmer of hope, the premise of seeing your skills tested against those of your caliber and being judged. For any person who feels they could shine if given the chance to prove it, American Idol represents a gauntlet to prove it.
3. Even if it’s a European import, American Idol works best in the States because of it’s very nature of making it big out of a field of hundreds of thousands of competitors. If American Idol isn’t the 21st century version of the American Dream, I don’t know what is.
America is in an amazingly enviable economic situation compared to the rest of the world. There is freedom of speech, religion, etc, and the minimum wage, while in dire need of updating, is still of an enviable rate compared to other parts of the world. Immigration to this country is likely higher on any scale than anywhere else in the world, the USA is still the land of opportunity.
And yet ingrained in the second generation is the notion of what is deserved, and it’s supposed to come naturally with a show of talent.
But with the growing gap of wealth, shown ad nausea with celebrities on E!, MTV, and VH1, the flaunting of wealth of people like Donald Trump and hip hop stars, America is almost vampire-like when it comes to the accruement of wealth, we want to suck the power to be given the power to live like them. We play the lotto in hopes of the quick fix, we hope for the handout, we wait for our chance to shine.
There are two divisions in the actual America, those who have made it, and those who are struggling. Yet there are three divisions that fight as sides, the rich, the poor, and the poor against the poor.
While the ideal of socialism has been proven time and time again to be a catastrophic way to run a country, the divide which is necessary to spawn it has never been closer in America than ever before, and the danger of such an idealism has never been closer to conception than now. The looming strike of May 1st of migrant workers will prove devastating to all sides of the cause, and it could be more helpful to an ideal of equally distributed wealth than ever before. Why shouldn’t the minimum wage be $10 an hour when the average salary of a CEO is approaching 100 mil? It’s an quick solution for hard times, and one that leads to short wealth.
The instance of getting what one wants can only lead to short term happiness, as it’s a one time payoff, shortly elevating the ease of living before the new pressures come, and then once again, the misery of the have’s vs. have not’s rises again over those who profited.
When it comes to American Idol, there has only been one true success, and that’s Kelly Clarkson. Rather than list the other failures, or the exploitative measures used by Simon Cowell and company to make the quick buck, looking at Clarkson may be the most beneficial. She got the world on a platter. She failed in the system that created her, and yet she is now more popular now than she ever was, even causing people to overlook the sequence that brought her to fame. In short, she got what she wanted, succeeded mildly, but then went and found a way to sustain her fame by the only possible way, to earn the chance bestowed on her. Clarkson may be the most recent example of the prodigal son (daughter in this case), and I think people like her not because she is famous, but because she finally made good on the faith of the people who voted her to the title, but she did so on her terms.
Which brings me to the link, which is why I started writing this in the first place.
Democrats suddenly have a newfound surplus of currency with the American people. And the point of the article is that Democrats can’t just wait this out because they have the chance, they have to create a rallying point. They have to create a slogan which makes people come back to the party.
And I think of where I am politically, and I know what has lead me in one direction or another in the last few years.
I am going to admit something which will probably give an insight into how I might have bought into an ideal of Republicanism in 2003.
Me and Steaze got into a huge argument that year about the war. As much as I was against it, I said I agreed with the idea of going to war with a Middle Eastern country like Iraq, Iran, or Syria, for fear that they would attack Israel and ultimately start WW 3. My rationale was that if we were to go in there (not to stop WMD’s) and were able to instill a capitalistic country, the political fervor of Islam would fall by the wayside, and Islam would become a religion/doctrine like in the EU, USA, or even China, where the impulse is to follow the rules of a previous region, but it would pale in the face of capitalist greed, and merely be a guiding light, not the sole premise for rule and life. While I still believe that this may be the only way to change the culture there, I know now the folly of my view: I didn’t know what the life was there. I was as guilty of branding small town folk fascists, or LA denizens as heathens as any typical misguided American in the 2004 election.
Looking at my folly, and feeling the shame in thinking my way worked for someone 10,000 miles away. And I realize the folly of Republicans, who are tied to an older world and ideal that may not exist, and they want to propagate it for the rest of the culture that doesn’t follow.
You can’t forcibly pose your opinions on people. It doesn’t work for them, and the intelligent mind will object the change from a system that is imperfect.
Just because someone doesn’t see your point of view, doesn’t mean that they don’t have a good reason to see so.
Even if a group of regressed bigots kill Matthew Lillard, it doesn’t mean that all people in Montana are ignorant.
Just because some zealots find it better to bomb people in a café in Iraq to protest the West doesn’t mean all Muslims are violent assassins who hate freedom.
Even if someone is striving to make themselves stronger, doesn’t mean they are gearing up to attack you or your friends.
Raised on the cinema, I feel that there may no greater good in humanity than the ability to love, and to believe in your fellow man.
Even if .1% criminals are going to be wretched all of their life, it doesn’t mean the remaining %99.9 are beyond saving.
Even if a man with a Turban crashed a plane into the World Trade Center, it doesn’t mean that all men with Turbans and beards want to.
I believe, in the end, we can count on the rest of the world just as we do our friends. In the final take, they are all we have, and I believe, facing any task, from the simple plight of getting to work to establishing a great nation and world, I believe we can do it.
Maybe I’m hopeless in believing in the good, maybe I have been oversaturated by tales of Redemption and heroes in fantasy situations.
There is good, and it’s worth fighting for. We need to come together before we designate outselves apart. We have to give up illusions and promises of singular greatness towards the intent of a better world which far supersedes any personal dream.
I never again will believe it's me against them, that's it's my way or the end of the world. Judgement is natural, and far too easy; rationalization takes time and introspection.
I will never give up on my fellow man.
That is why I will always be a Democrat. Link
posted by Indiana at
12:00 PM
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