Sunday, April 25, 2010

Busiest Month Ever

April has turned out to be the busiest month ever - as far as my current job is concerned. March was the second busiest. February the third, and so on. It has been a busy year. I have been busier before, I think, when I was in law school and working very long hours, but the difference then was that I had no kids. When two kids are factored in, the exhaustion level is much higher. If I could I'd have a babysitter every night - but as it stands, a few nights is enough to keep me going.

I'm so drained and tired it is hard to do much of anything - like write. I am thinking about it, at least. I'm reading Stephen King's "On Writing" for the second time - I just started it, really - I vaguely remember it from the first time I read it ages ago. Maybe I'll write something more substantial than a blog post - like a book.

I'm still generally depressed about politics - nothing really good is happening. I'm happy the health care bill passed, but it is so watered down that I'm not all that excited about it. It is most satisfying just to see the GOP crushed. The GOP has lost all seriousness and is now nothing but an empty PR/power machine. They believe in nothing, stand for nothing, and will lie with every word every day. It is disgusting. The Democrats are marginally better, in that they do believe in things, they just are inept at power or don't try very hard. The Media just makes the whole situation worse. Larry thinks the only solution now is revolution - he may be right, but what depresses me about that is that I know if he is right, there will also be no revolution. The only people who ever get mad enough to do such a thing these days are the nutty right wingers who want to "take their country back."

At least there is Jon Stwewart to watch for news.

3 comments:

Larry Hamelin said...

I know if he is right, there will also be no revolution.

Things will certainly have to get very much worse before they get better, but don't count the people or the radical left out quite so quickly. The American people are slow to anger, but when they get a good head of steam, they are a powerful force.

It's not surprising that the people want to really make sure capitalism is going to fail before considering more radical solutions. This position is, I think, justifiable: capitalism has more or less worked for four generations. My own revolutionary stance is extremely speculative: I think I'm correct, but I don't think (in contrast to atheism) my position is so obvious that fundamental disagreement is evidence only of egregious delusion.

The Teabaggers are a small, lunatic fringe. They're noisy, but lacking organization or an agenda, they themselves are not capable of effecting any systemic change.

The power of the Republican party is their ability to operate effectively as a minority. Effective as it is, they have not been able to use their propaganda machine to construct a stable majority ideology.

In times of crisis, all bets on conventional wisdom are off, and otherwise stable historical trends become meaningless.

Some sort of revolutionary change seems almost inevitable, and it's impossible to predict when or what seemingly small event will suddenly change the game in a radical way.

This tendency is a double-edged sword, though: while crisis affords the opportunity for positive radical change, it also affords the opportunity for catastrophic social insanity (e.g. Germany in the late 1930s). The difference in times of crisis really will depend on the particular character of the individuals involved.

It's a curious paradox: no one can predict which individuals or what particular characteristics and actions will affect the outcome in a crisis, yet the outcome will be sensitively dependent on some small set of individuals and their particular characteristics.

All I can suggest is to fearlessly and unapologetically do as your talent, ability and opportunity afford and your conscience demands, and leave the fate of the world to the will of Allah*.

*Metaphorically speaking, of course <wink>

Marie said...

I'm not American, but I wonder, do you think part of the problem is that Republicans are a very unified bunch because it's the nature of conservativism to be traditional and maintain the same ideas for centuries, so a minority can be a power to reckon with, and that Democrats aren't as uniform because it's the nature of liberals to be more open to change, and thus attract and accept people as members who don't entirely agree with one another and therefore don't create such a unified front. (I think that's the longest sentence I've ever written.) I'm not suggesting that Dems should create more agreement among their party, but just looking at why their revolutionary tactics seem weak in comparison.

DBB said...

Larry - You are of course correct - these sorts of things are hard to predict. I do wonder what I can do one way or the other. Like many people, I am so busy with, well, life, that I don't get much time to contemplate. Maybe that's part of the problem.

Marie - I think you are probably generally right, but I think the GOP sticks together so well because of right-wing authoritarianism - look at the link on my blog to Altmeyer's book on the same. I think it explains a lot. It seems to have gotten worse lately.