OGRE-ON!

OGREFEST, U.S.A., JAN. 1-DEC. 31

This motto, a satirical version of the German Oktoberfest, has shown to be prophetic here just two weeks into the "new" year.  It may be a new year calender year, the hubris of clock time may keep the illusion of "progress" propped up for the masses, but, like an American convenience store, it matters not what hour, day, month, or year--the Ogre-oids pile on, the shelves of self-destruction full of ready-made, instant insanity.

How does one find common ground with hate?  Is not the essence of hate something intensely opposed to what it does not like?  If one objects to "hate rhetoric," then why find common ground with it?  Doesn't that automatically make one at least "half-hateful," and if so, how does that express any virtue of common ground?  How can anything "common" be compatible with "hate," unless, of course it is our collective obsession with hating ourselves?

Sarah Palin has taken her repugnance to a new level, while Barack Obama remains as flaccid and mute as ever, even with yet another prime rhetorical opportunity to expose the venomous agenda of those who oppose him.  Again I think of Yeats, and his own prophetic verse: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."  The only problem, now that I think about it, is that this line of reasoning implicitly equates Obama with "the best."  I would say he is a complacent, insulated figurehead, who wouldn't know how to improve the lives of everyday people even if he wanted to, which does not appear to be the case.

Palin hypocrisy: How can she claim journalists "serve only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn" while simultaneously rejecting the possibility her own speech could do the same?  What else does mass media communication do if not influence--which includes incitement--the masses?  Isn't that the point?  Evoking the Grand American Lord Ronald "God" Reagan, Palin echoed the mainstream American sentiment that individuals should be held responsible for their actions, including crimes, and that the idea that society influences individual behavior is a cop-out.  If this is true, then how can journalists who don't like her be capable of "inciting hatred and violence", while a loud-mouth spotlight hog like herself could never be capable of such a thing?  And what, may I ask, is the point of talk-radio and TV icons like Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly and their ilk if it is not to perpetuate a social influence on how others think and behave?  Yet Ogrefest never stops--their is never a renewal or reawakening--that might make for an uninhabitable habitat for the continued spawning of more ogre-oids.  So, of course, Americans will endorse the idea that society has no influence on individual behavior, even when that behavior is using a gun to shoot a politician. 

I would point out that if Palin and the rest of Republicans really believed their own words, there would be no war on terror.  It would be an individual responsibility for all us to protect ourselves from the wrath of terrorists.  With our 2nd Amendment Rights, there would no room for excuses, right?

Meanwhile, Obama responds once again to another episode of American dysfunction with more bland, stale words.  He calls for a "more civil discourse."  How about we stop shooting each other and stop letting mentally ill people get their hands on guns?  How eerily does this Loughner resemble the psychopath who took out over thirty people at Virginia Tech in April 2007?  If I didn't know any better, I'd say Americans couldn't care less about gun violence or what to do with the mentally ill.  And I'm betting that this call for "more civil discourse" entails neither that the Democrats will start calling out the Republicans to cut out their hateful, dishonest, psychotic diatribes against everything and everyone they think shouldn't exist in this world even they admit God--not themselves--created.

Americans, meanwhile, remain in their sterile, etherized dreamworld, holding up signs like "We Will Heal" during the Tuscon memorial.  Sorry, but the six dead people are past the healing stage.  Not even House, M.D. can get them back on their feet.  And I like House--watched six consecutive hours of the show over Christmas break . . .

Speaking of dead people:  insurgent attacks on international NATO forces in Afghanistan continue, bringing the total of dead to 16 this year.  That's more than one death per day.  Perhaps my impressive skill with numbers will lend me more credibility, as my expertise in discourse and language has long been consigned to obsolescence . . .

But the local media here in Kentucky continue their Walt Disney depiction of yet another deployment of "heroes" off to Afghanistan, saying good-bye to their families to slog on in a battle that never gets old.  Nine year olds who die from a right-wing psychos bullet don't get old either.