Mr. Premise
The Living Force
http://www.counterpunch.org/tripp03112006.html
Excerpt:
The Happy People Speak Out
My Night at the Oscars
By BEN TRIPP
The wedge issue that has split America in half like a jackhammered lemon is not race, nor class, nor religion. It is not political affiliation. It is a fundamental disagreement about the very nature of reality. For one half of America (a half comprised of approximately twenty percent of its citizens, mostly white, comprised of the very wealthy and clinical sociopaths, two groups that are largely interchangeable), everything is wonderful. We're skull-f*&*& the darkies and Jesus H. Christ is on his way. For the rest of us, for whom the Savior is not coming, for whom the preservation of the natural order on Earth is important, for whom such abstractions as peace and justice act as tangible safeguards, things kinda suck. It has come down to the Real World versus the Happy People. It is with no relish I confess to membership in the much-maligned reality-based half of this equation...
I quote from a February 27, 2006 letter to the Boston Globe written by one of the happiest of the Happy People, yclept Linda Gosselin:
"It would be difficult to consider yourself happy if you are convinced your country consists of imperialist occupiers trying to take over the world. But if you realize the true road to freedom happens when democracies lead to thriving societies, you're feeling pretty good right now."
See, this is what I'm talking about. It's as if somebody macerated a bunch of Republican talking points in a blender, then decanted the resulting ooze into a clyster and injected it in the author's right ear. Even Thomas Friedman couldn't garble a sentence that badly. Ms. Gosselin has never lived in a nation occupied by a foreign army, I suspect. Nor has she ever been investigated for sedition.
"We have a choice each morning we're lucky enough to open our eyes. We can look at our lives and society in a positive manner and work toward making a better world for our children or we can endlessly dwell on every negative aspect of life we've ever witnessed."
The key phrase here is 'look at', which I'm pretty sure is all Linda does with her life and society every day. Except maybe once a year writing a check to Unicef or sending some clothes down to the Salvation Army. And when she says, "a better world for our children", she means specifically her own children, Tiffany and Jack Henry, for whom life's main passage so far has been getting the braces off their teeth in time for the Homecoming Ball. And I'll bet Linda is white. I could be wrong-- she could be a poor black sharecropper working the tobacco fields of Braintree. But there's privilege in her remarks. She has never, I'm certain, had bad teeth or a bounced rent check or an itchy asshole because the water got turned off and she hasn't had a shower in four days. She has never left her kids with neighbors because she couldn't get out of work in time to put them to bed. For that matter, she has never watched her babies get eaten alive by rabbits, but this is happening less and less in all strata of American society since the barbaric practice of lettuce-baiting has ended.
"Could it be", Linda postulates in a reflective mood, "that we conservatives have a more positive world view? How about a more positive national view? A more positive view of religion? A more positive view of our careers? A more positive view of the future?"...
Excerpt:
The Happy People Speak Out
My Night at the Oscars
By BEN TRIPP
The wedge issue that has split America in half like a jackhammered lemon is not race, nor class, nor religion. It is not political affiliation. It is a fundamental disagreement about the very nature of reality. For one half of America (a half comprised of approximately twenty percent of its citizens, mostly white, comprised of the very wealthy and clinical sociopaths, two groups that are largely interchangeable), everything is wonderful. We're skull-f*&*& the darkies and Jesus H. Christ is on his way. For the rest of us, for whom the Savior is not coming, for whom the preservation of the natural order on Earth is important, for whom such abstractions as peace and justice act as tangible safeguards, things kinda suck. It has come down to the Real World versus the Happy People. It is with no relish I confess to membership in the much-maligned reality-based half of this equation...
I quote from a February 27, 2006 letter to the Boston Globe written by one of the happiest of the Happy People, yclept Linda Gosselin:
"It would be difficult to consider yourself happy if you are convinced your country consists of imperialist occupiers trying to take over the world. But if you realize the true road to freedom happens when democracies lead to thriving societies, you're feeling pretty good right now."
See, this is what I'm talking about. It's as if somebody macerated a bunch of Republican talking points in a blender, then decanted the resulting ooze into a clyster and injected it in the author's right ear. Even Thomas Friedman couldn't garble a sentence that badly. Ms. Gosselin has never lived in a nation occupied by a foreign army, I suspect. Nor has she ever been investigated for sedition.
"We have a choice each morning we're lucky enough to open our eyes. We can look at our lives and society in a positive manner and work toward making a better world for our children or we can endlessly dwell on every negative aspect of life we've ever witnessed."
The key phrase here is 'look at', which I'm pretty sure is all Linda does with her life and society every day. Except maybe once a year writing a check to Unicef or sending some clothes down to the Salvation Army. And when she says, "a better world for our children", she means specifically her own children, Tiffany and Jack Henry, for whom life's main passage so far has been getting the braces off their teeth in time for the Homecoming Ball. And I'll bet Linda is white. I could be wrong-- she could be a poor black sharecropper working the tobacco fields of Braintree. But there's privilege in her remarks. She has never, I'm certain, had bad teeth or a bounced rent check or an itchy asshole because the water got turned off and she hasn't had a shower in four days. She has never left her kids with neighbors because she couldn't get out of work in time to put them to bed. For that matter, she has never watched her babies get eaten alive by rabbits, but this is happening less and less in all strata of American society since the barbaric practice of lettuce-baiting has ended.
"Could it be", Linda postulates in a reflective mood, "that we conservatives have a more positive world view? How about a more positive national view? A more positive view of religion? A more positive view of our careers? A more positive view of the future?"...
