I was listening to Glen Beck the other day. One of his sponsors is for some food insurance company. I used to think it was bullshit. There’s a local talk guy, Jon Howell, who talks about the collapse of society in this Ayn Rand-ian sort of way in which those with the guns, and those who are not burdened by ethics or compassion for their fellow human being will be the ones who pervail when the apocalypse comes.
The debate over guns, the substantial threat from North Korea to shut down the power grid with a nuclear detonation in space, and Barack Obama have enlived their doomsday fantasies. I mocked them. having actually lived in a society, a city under siege, in which there was no food, water, gas or electricity, in which you could be killed without warning from a sniper, blackmarketeer, warlord or a waterborne illness, and yet people did not become self-directed zombie-like ne’r-do-wells, but worked together and strengthened communal bonds. But when the plumber shut off our water yesterday to install a new water heater, well, all of that changed.
At percisely, I’ll always remember where I was at that moment, at precisely 12:05, the water was shut off to our little condo. At first we didn’t notice much, but then, slowly and imperceptibly, things began to unravel. It began within a half an hour. Ana asked for a glass of water. The first crack had appeared.
By 12:20 I had to face some tough truths. Ana’s thirst indicated that she might not be strong enough to carry on. How long could she hold out? I was thawing chicken for supper, but should I set that other plate? Would or could both of us survive, or should I start coming to terms with stark and unavoidable truths?
“Can you do me a favor,” she asked, “just go up to McDonald’s and get me something to drink.”
There it was, the Lord of the Flies! The power play. Survival of the fittest. John Locke and Ayn Rand, and Rand Paul and Ron Paul were right all along. The relationship, the love Ana and I had cultivated these many years was crumbling before us, and we were helpless in the face of animal desperation.
I was trapped, struggling as much with myself as the lonely howling from the pipes that sang the demise of the civilation I held so dear. Still Ana pressed for something to drink. I felt as the very edge of existence, alone. I dreamt of water, cool, refreshing, but it was no more than a distant fantasy.
“You know what would be good?” Ana commanded. “Be a dear and run down to that place on the corner for some Pad Thai, since the stove is shut off too.”
The stove, indeed! The second pillar of civilization was gone. First the water, now the stove. I eyed the cats, luxuriating at their dish and thought that I could sustain myself through the darkness on cans of Friskies if needed. There was a squirrel in the yard, fattened by the bread I’d vainly and short-sightedly tossed out through the winter. I curse myself for not buying an AR-15 after New Town and converting it to a fully automatic assault rifle with a 40 round clip. I’d need it to battle back the hordes, and squirrels are small and move fast. I’d probably need a whole clip to bring the critter down.
By 1:30 my deoderant was failing. I was reverting to an animal, and smelled like one too. Ana mentioned that I needed a shower. The knives had come out. It was now every person for themselves. I was straining at the tension, which was driving me mad. Oh, Glen Beck and Gold Line, curse you that I should have listened to you sooner! As civilization crumbled around me, what I wouldn’t have given for a fist full of gold plated cugurands.
By 3 I was at the breaking point. Ana, sitting on the bed, tickering with a Facebook post appearing unmoved and unaffected. Who was she? Some sort of super woman, or was she toying with me? Maybe she was the strongest, and I would succumb first. Maybe in the days or weeks to come, upon those smouldering remnants of the world, she would be feasting upon my b…”
“Well, that’s about it,” said the plumber. “She’s in and your water’s up and running again. I’ll just take a check and be on my way.”
Oh, salvation, how bittersweet civilization! So perfect and yet so fragile that you can porvide us the grand illusion, only to reveal your mortality as well. I embrace you now more fully, knowing only too well what a commodity and rarity you are. Just in case, I’m keeping a can of Friskies in my pocket.
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I have strong opinions about guns. Though I believe the 2nd amendment is fairly antiquated-I’m not in favor of repeal, and I do acknowledge the utility of some guns- clearly the supreme obsession for purely political and money reasons by gun zealots, paranoid Righties terrified of every shadow and the national Rifle Association is both perverse and psychotic. I grew up around guns. I know to use them safely and sanely, but responsibility for a tool capable of quickly and all too easily in the hands of unstable persons dispensing a terrific amount of brutality requires oversight, responsibility and limits. The problem is that the NRA, to maintain gun sales in the nation-supported by Wal-Mart, the largest gun seller in the nation, assails any hint of limitations or oversight regarding guns. Any.
There is no such fervor when it comes to dissent against corporate interference and corruption with our government, or dissent against banks and their abuse of the economy, our money and the avalanche of illegal foreclosures. Those who occupied streets, sidewalks in front of banks, or parks to redress the government, as prescribed by the constitution, from an amendment the founding fathers believed so important they put it first-that’s first-those people were called hippies, smelly, communists. There was no cry from the masturbatory gun crowd or the NRA about unconstitutional ordinances limiting, curtailing or destroying the First Amendment utterly.
The reason…the Right doesn’t dissent, because they reflect the status quo, the force and weight of the nation resistant to change, such as Women’s Right to vote, Labor rights, or Civil Rights, those things that challenge and upset the status quo.
But the reason for this piece is to call attention to the Rightwing talk shows, which dominate almost entirely the media. WIND and WLS, the Rightwing, or better, the sociopathic radio stations in Chicago began assaulting the President even before he spoke on the shooting, accusing and projecting his potential politicizing of the event. They did this in typical, chuckling and smarmy fashion, throwing oblique insults at Muslims.
Mark Stein, in for Rush Limbaugh called the President’s decision not to politicize the tragedy by cancelling campaign events and pulling ads was in itself a political act. Glen Beck was much the same. Constantly the audience was reminded about Muslim terrorists as the Right, in typically nakedly racist fashion, desperately tried to divert insinuations on the violent tendency of white, and how most of these mass public shootings in America are perpetrated mostly by white men.
Maybe its time to start profiling all white men?
I’m not calling for legislation, and certainly not a governmental censorship on speech, no matter how inane, perverse or sociopathic in this nation, which the Right has become completely with their stranglehold on the media. What I am calling for is that good people stand up and tell this destructive and corrosive fools to shut the $#@%up! Call their radio and television stations. Flood and bury their phone lines, clog and overwhelm their emails, accuse and deride them at the mall, the gas station and bank. This isn’t a game they get to play on the radio, by pissing into our nationl discourse. There are consequences to their actions and words, as they constantly remind the Left. Those consequences should be the din of outrage that drives them from their potty pulpit into obscurity and shame.
We the reasonable and moral people of this nation, those on the sane and moderate Right, the Left and the vast majority in the middle need now to stand up, speak up and shut them down!
Leave a comment | tags: 2012 election, am560, aurora, colorado shooting, guns, john and amy, media, nra, Politics, wal-mart, WIND, wls | posted in Uncategorized
900poundgorilla 