Arteriosclerosis of the political mind.
I do need to watch what I'm doing and what I'm writing. I've been reading two books skipping back and forth between them. Lost and Found by Alan Dean Foster and Screening History by Gore Vidal. I've also just finished reading Williwaw also by Vidal.
Lost and Found treated me to some very interesting nightmares last night, but reading Vidal is much more dangerous. I end up attempting to write like him and since I possess neither his wit nor his facility with language the results can sometimes be a little less than inspiring.
I continue my attempt to differentiate between my own deterioration and hardening of my very own arteries and those of my country and its people no matter how young.
Today the local paper's headline (as it will be every day this week) told us about speed week, but never fear the secondary headline assured us that the president is "Chipping Away at the Deficit." On the other hand the republican's do not think that he has screwed the middle class enough and demand more cuts to what we laughingly call social services in this country.
I remember as a conservative teenager who was very interested in politics reading the rants which appeared in my local rural paper (a real paper at the time) about how the deficit was destroying our country and how it needed to be cut back and the country needed to be run as a business. Else we would be doomed. It came to me at the time that we were (then) the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world and had gotten that way while running a massive deficit. So began my economic education. I have been provided no facts that might cause me to change my mind since then.
In the meantime the right whose mindless twaddle merely clogged some minor blood vessels in my childhood seems to have managed to completely block the major arteries to the brain in my senior years so that we now all live in a kind country controlled by senile dementia.
1 comment:
On the rare occasions when I listen to TV news, I'd have to say you're right. It's as though the first rule of discussing any topic of consequence is that absolutely, under no circumstances, should anyone actually discuss what's really going on. The deficit discussion is a case in point - we have a deficit because so many people either out of work or earning less than they used to. We can either tax the rich more to compensate, or we can borrow, or we can cut spending. The first two possibilities are never mentioned, even though they are the most sensible in our current circumstances.
Oh well, what else is new?
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