Approaching two years of pandemic living, humankind is the poorer for it.
"When your negativity bucket is full, it's full!" said the Rat as he threw neighbor Bob off the cliff in the cartoon strip Pearls Before Swine.
We are devolving.
Extraordinary souls have devoted themselves to others, to healing and to the common good, but almost everybody else is worried or angry or both.
We've begun to understand we are a planet of grief, grievances and that pieces do not fit as they did. Life as we knew it is also a victim.
Those things, organizations, structure, mores, routines and all that held us together as a last tendril of civility are gone or are changed, drastically. We find ourselves on the brink emotionally, politically, and as a planet.
Petulance has become our happy face.
Our manner of living pays it no honor, nor even nods acknowledgement, but this growling spectacle of how we live with each other, is being measured. Standards change of course and so, in that way, we are scored by comparison.
History has the last word. Presently we are at war over values of culture. The battle-line is the nexus of I and we.
How do we live into and what do we expect from society? How do we get along?
Media is the clarion.
Radio, television and social media have morphed story telling and journalism. It's changed reporting and our expectations.
Curated and aggregated information, like all things, was subject to human foibles. That is how racism, male supremacy, cultural bias and the like got baked into normative assumptions. Though overdue and limited, old media was and is, self-correcting.
Now, however, we watch algorithms, products of human reasoning, maturing through data and machine learning, amass power and influence, though unrestrained by idealism, values, faith, principles and standards of decency and civility. It shows.
No one elected the tech titans, yet their profit making platforms are addictive and they bend culture. Old media plays along. The manic pandemic lifestyle wedded us more intensely to our screens. Everything has changed as we live in a feedback loop of discordance. So much of life is like fingernails on a blackboard.
Snark, "gotcha," and the takedown is the code of behavior and modus operandi. There is not enough probing for understanding and there is way too much lunging for the throat.
Correspondents feed their social media streams, and maintain a "following" in addition to the work of being experts on their beat. Time was when only information and fact gathering was the job. Developing sources and contacts takes time, now devoted to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds.
This era of media practices "false equivalency." It is lazy, stupid and deplorable.
Here's how it works. A correspondent, news anchor or writer will give value to lies and deceptions, that are obvious political stunts or posturing, by how they pose a question. It is prompted by the seeking of an artificial "balance" or pretense of objectivity.
It's kept the Trump big lie and all of it's perverted manifestations alive. Even talking about it breaths more life into it. Raising it gives it an undeserved sort of credibility. Think Cyber Ninja vote "recount" in Arizona, as one example.
Republicans have no agenda. They will condemn neither the insurrection nor the Trump lies. When one of them trots out a fallacy, or an absurd claim, it is used as a kind of block and check to what Democrats or the administration say, do or propose. I am waiting for the flat earth society to get street credibility when a major news organization cites them in a story.
Lies are lies, crazy is crazy and bull shit is bull shit. A responsible media would call it out and not be trapped into shilling the ludicrous.
"News by flavor" has sharpened the edges between us. In fact it is only about business, building ratings and selling ads, but the poor fools who consume hours of the stuff end up duped and manipulated. Chronic news "content slant and skew," propagandizing and active disinformation is destroying us by division and diminishing the value of information. Too few seek multiple sources and verifiable credibility.
There is no reason Mitch McConnell should be believed. He leads a party that is out to destroy a democratic republic and its time honored rules. McConnell is seen and quoted but rarely if ever challenged about dirty tricks and deception.
Presently he is delaying the calendar, trying to avoid a voting rights bill that could put a stop to the fraudulent voter suppression blitzkrieg of Trump's fascists. He's trying to stop passage of legislation, notably the infrastructure funding, that 70% of Americans support. He's playing brinksmanship even on government funding which is to pay for the $8 Trillion he and Trump added to the debt. He is incapable of bipartisanship, even to the benefit of his own voters.
McConnell is playing a death match for the sake of power. What he says is given credibility by media, but he is never challenged on motive. It is spineless reporting.
The evacuation of Afghanistan moved more humans than any time in history. More allies and friends were moved from harm than in any war. The media and republican inspired take was "a botched job." History will cite the full story of stopping this nation's longest war, fraudulent and mismanaged from the start.
There is seething pressure building among many. They want to see Democrats unite, and not squander opportunity at a time of peril. Since Reagan, Republicans have tried to undo the Democrat social pact with America. Republicans have given tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations, cut social spending and shrunk government service at every opportunity. The nation is now crumbling, our standing in the world is slipping in categories like health, income and education.
The more serious challenge is more sinister than policy differences.
Republicans are so without belief, they gave their party to Trump and he is the front man for a dumbed down populism, white supremacy, looney nationalism and dark money. Republicans aid and abet foreign enemies and enable a wealthy cabal to use Trumpism to turn our democracy into an autocracy.
Even in the face of such a dire and toxic scene, the Democrats again are at war with themselves unable to see the bigger picture.
Politics and government is damaged and a global crisis only makes it worse.
There has been exceptional reporting and stunning revelations but that valuable information has to compete for bandwidth. Media suffers as we all do, from fatigue and pandemic depression. Fear and anger are dominant emotions.
Deep analysis, visionary strategies, pragmatic determination still exist but they have trouble cutting through the noise and fog of a pandemic infected planet following four years of turmoil of the most incompetent and simply the most evil and divisive presidency in US history. We are exhausted. Sick and tired. It's a helluva position to be in when we face existential challenge, to our nation and to the planet.
If our systems are broken, if common sense no longer exists, if people don't believe science, if one of our great parties has become a cult, there is only one place to go as we stand on the brink. As beat up as we may be, we must go within, summon strength, honor our aspirations, stand on the shoulders of all who have faced adversity, embrace whatever is sacred in our life and be a light bearer whenever, wherever, and however we can.
Stay strong! This too will pass.
See you down the trail.
IF
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
