Reflections, Observations, and Analyses Pertaining to the Canadian Political Scene
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Blessed Are The Benighted
My good friend Dave in Winnipeg often rails sardonically against the twin curses of intelligence and critical-thinking. If you start the following video at about the 50-second mark, you'll see that some have 'blessedly' been spared such affliction.
I read a survey yesterday that illustrated how deeply divided American society has become. It is profound. That left me wondering what sort of cataclysmic event would be needed to restore social cohesion to the States.
My personal conspiracy theory is that the populace has been quite methodically groomed, conditioned, to fall into camps. From open mouth radio to FOX News, a lot of misinformation is being fed to their audience and the important thing about those people is their willingness to take what they're told on faith. Theirs is a belief-based construct in which any fact can be massaged into a new meaning or else simply dismissed as irrelevant. How do you possibly overcome that?
A couple of weeks ago Foreign Policy surveyed a group of American experts. Fully 30% believed a civil war is likely to break out within five years. 30% is an astronomical result.
Chris Hedges has long proclaimed America to be in a "pre-revolutionary" state.
My original question of what it would take to restore social cohesion to American society now becomes what it would take to fracture the strained bonds between these camps. Would a move to impeach Trump trigger, if not a civil war, some sort of insurgency?
There is a significant and growing segment of the American people that considers Washington - even with a rightwing Supreme Court and the Republicans firmly in control of both houses of Congress and the White House - their enemy. That, to me, is astonishing and ominous.
It's a good thing I just finished the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. It's quite a tome. He completed it on his deathbed to ensure that his wife got the $450,000 fee from his publisher. Here we are, about 160-years later, and the grievances and division of that Civil War still stand as open wounds.
I read a survey yesterday that illustrated how deeply divided American society has become. It is profound. That left me wondering what sort of cataclysmic event would be needed to restore social cohesion to the States.
ReplyDeleteMy personal conspiracy theory is that the populace has been quite methodically groomed, conditioned, to fall into camps. From open mouth radio to FOX News, a lot of misinformation is being fed to their audience and the important thing about those people is their willingness to take what they're told on faith. Theirs is a belief-based construct in which any fact can be massaged into a new meaning or else simply dismissed as irrelevant. How do you possibly overcome that?
A couple of weeks ago Foreign Policy surveyed a group of American experts. Fully 30% believed a civil war is likely to break out within five years. 30% is an astronomical result.
Chris Hedges has long proclaimed America to be in a "pre-revolutionary" state.
My original question of what it would take to restore social cohesion to American society now becomes what it would take to fracture the strained bonds between these camps. Would a move to impeach Trump trigger, if not a civil war, some sort of insurgency?
There is a significant and growing segment of the American people that considers Washington - even with a rightwing Supreme Court and the Republicans firmly in control of both houses of Congress and the White House - their enemy. That, to me, is astonishing and ominous.
It's a good thing I just finished the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. It's quite a tome. He completed it on his deathbed to ensure that his wife got the $450,000 fee from his publisher. Here we are, about 160-years later, and the grievances and division of that Civil War still stand as open wounds.
Given the tenor of the times, Mound, my disillusionment is turning me into a misanthrope. We are quickly becoming a species not worth saving.
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