Saturday, December 22, 2007

Randomness

What a drag it is getting old
I find it humorous that as the Boomers age, the thinkers and artists among them by and large still cling to their youthful pronouncements, unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge their often painfully apparent callowness.

I guess honest introspection hurts your chances of your work being reissued and distributed by Starbucks.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Politicization of Culture, or "It's 1968 All Over Again (Except Without the Idealism)"

"I am Legend as Political Manifesto"

Why Serious Films Aren't Making It At The Box Office


The Progressive movement hasn't been given as much to be angry about since Ronald Reagan. Deciding to embrace new media rather than ignore it, progressives in a position to advance their agenda feel that everything from sports articles to popular movies to advertising is fair game to carry the message. The messages try to grab you by the lapels and scream in your face:

Don't you see the awful things that are happening?

Our President is the triple embodiment of Pure Stupidity, Religious Hypocrisy and Pure Evil!

Global warming will kill us all in a few years!

Everybody hates us because we are so greedy and stupid!

Christianity is even worse than Islam and Israel is even worse that us, so shut up about terrorism already!

Our military atrocities mean we are worse than our enemies!
It would be flip to dismiss these sentiments out of hand. Progressives are the Canaries in our Coal Mine, sounding the alarm and speaking (selective) truth to power. I should and do consider their arguments. George Bush has a worldview antithetical to many on the Left, and his strengths are often blunted by his arrogance. In addition, his checkered record as president makes him an even better target than Reagan, whose many successes eventually silenced a few critics. War is a terrible thing, and this foreign proxy war seems like another Viet Nam to those for whom Viet Nam was a rallying cry, a clear sign that the people in power are evil and despise us. Christians are unfortunately people and as a result possess many of the failings of people - greed, sloth, anger and hypocrisy being just a few. I can see how it is tempting to lay much of our country's problems at their feet since the majority of our citizens (especially - as Progressives are wont to point out - the stupid ones!) profess a belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ.

By and large, people are not buying the Progressive line. But that just makes the Progressives even angrier. The rhetoric gets shriller and more unreasonable.

I am not sure where it all will end.