From the (new to me) blog of Inspector Lohrmann
There seems to be a universal crises of authority in Murkan society, at all levels. Traditional social institutions are being redefined by challenging long-held cherished beliefs.
The church has lost face with its child abuse scandals. Socially sanctified heterosexual monogamy — aka marriage — is under attack by gays demanding comparable legal status. The definition of what constitutes a family has become fluid. One corporate scandal after another has eroded respect for business to the core. Scientists create new life forms in the lab which are patented and proprietary. The media is seen as either completely liberal by the right-wing, or as the corporate mouthpiece they are; in either case no one trusts them. And certainly no one trusts the government anymore, whether blaming Clinton for anything that’s ever gone wrong since the Big Bang, or BushCo for helping to hasten The Rapture.
Social institutions are falling apart all around. The cultural divide is widening and deepening. There is no civility, no commonality, no possibility for dialogue across the divide; debate has been reduced to finger pointing and barking; there is no intelligence, no thought, just reflexive bickering.
I can’t help but wonder if this is what society felt like shortly before the Civil War as the slavery issue deeply divided the society and reached incendiary levels of acrimony.
And I blame the right-wing attack dogs for it. They see all their revered institutions falling apart, and they are upset and pissed because, for whatever psychological reasons, they need them, they need the comfort of certainty such institutions provide.
They’re scared and worried. And so they seek to defend by attack, with their incessant beating of the drum of hate, their inability to listen to counter-arguments or reason or simple facts with any kind of civility, their constant blaming and scapegoating of anyone who disagrees with them: they have created an environment in which civil dialogue is not possible.
It’s a common bit of tao wisdom that the more you push something the more it will resist. When you attack something you compel it to defend itself. Then, when it’s finally pushed far enough it will either attack back, at which point communication has been completely debased as the attacker has succeeded in bringing the defender down to his level, or the attacker steamrolls over the opponent. It’s a no-win situation for the defender, and win-win for the attacker. And they know this. Bullies understand attrition.
Eventually all this heated exchange will move from the verbal and mental sphere to the corporeal one. A hot war is heading to America. It’s only a matter of time.
2007 is my guess.
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