'Murica
Have I told you my theory about 'murica yet? It's a handy little construction that allows me to live in today's political climate without killing somebody.
For several years I went out of my way to expose myself to both sides of the talking point issues, which at the time I thought to be real issues. I would listen to Pacifica, then the O'riley's radio factor, then NPR, then Michael Savage, in that order. The views I heard from both sides were so radically different that I felt inspired to help everyone settle everything. I was much younger at the time, and since I was just coming into political awareness I was still filled with hope.
delusion going on and I can respect that. But in the Eventually I began to realize that both partisan groups live in their own little imaginary worlds. The left's imaginary world is slightly closer to reality, so I usually throw my hat in with them even though I don't feel they've earned immunity from my bile. However the imaginary world that conservatives live in is something that fascinated me. In lefty-land the blue team was a clear renegade underdog who everyone agreed with but was still unable to seize power in the face of a giant mechanized conspiracy of the right. They had a good solid action movie-esque story they told themselves. However the right's imaginary world was full of good wholesome people who were being threatened by all kinds of things that were only threats because the puppet masters of this faux existence deemed them to be. They had constructed a false threat, a false victim, and then inserted themselves in as saviors.
I began to call the imaginary world that the conservative partisans operate in 'Murica. It's what the word America would sound like with a really thick accent. The basic idea of 'murica is that in 'murica foreigners (or feriners) are actually trying to sneak over our border and directly usurp good honest wholesome 'murican's jobs. These good wholesome people are also having their institutions of family threatened by "The gays," and their very lives are under constant assault from terrorists. In 'murica all of the atrocities committed by America are okay because it was all in the name of freedom, and all of the good wholesome people stand by our president; who was chosen by God to lead us.
This dreamworld breaks down amazingly fast when you look at the average family dynamic and the divorce rate and realize that the "Good wholesome people" don't actually exist. I could point out the flaws in all of the other key precepts of 'murica, but really it all stems from that. The same illusion exists on the left too; both sides believe that they actually speak for the people, which is a flawed concept because most of the people don't vote.
Anyway I've been carrying around this idea for a while now, and some part of me still laughs whenever I hear someone with an accent casually say "Murica," because politics has become a kind of show to me, and I usually laugh when something reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite shows. It makes the failure of your government a lot easier to stomach if you think of it all as a giant game show.
For several years I went out of my way to expose myself to both sides of the talking point issues, which at the time I thought to be real issues. I would listen to Pacifica, then the O'riley's radio factor, then NPR, then Michael Savage, in that order. The views I heard from both sides were so radically different that I felt inspired to help everyone settle everything. I was much younger at the time, and since I was just coming into political awareness I was still filled with hope.
delusion going on and I can respect that. But in the Eventually I began to realize that both partisan groups live in their own little imaginary worlds. The left's imaginary world is slightly closer to reality, so I usually throw my hat in with them even though I don't feel they've earned immunity from my bile. However the imaginary world that conservatives live in is something that fascinated me. In lefty-land the blue team was a clear renegade underdog who everyone agreed with but was still unable to seize power in the face of a giant mechanized conspiracy of the right. They had a good solid action movie-esque story they told themselves. However the right's imaginary world was full of good wholesome people who were being threatened by all kinds of things that were only threats because the puppet masters of this faux existence deemed them to be. They had constructed a false threat, a false victim, and then inserted themselves in as saviors.
I began to call the imaginary world that the conservative partisans operate in 'Murica. It's what the word America would sound like with a really thick accent. The basic idea of 'murica is that in 'murica foreigners (or feriners) are actually trying to sneak over our border and directly usurp good honest wholesome 'murican's jobs. These good wholesome people are also having their institutions of family threatened by "The gays," and their very lives are under constant assault from terrorists. In 'murica all of the atrocities committed by America are okay because it was all in the name of freedom, and all of the good wholesome people stand by our president; who was chosen by God to lead us.
This dreamworld breaks down amazingly fast when you look at the average family dynamic and the divorce rate and realize that the "Good wholesome people" don't actually exist. I could point out the flaws in all of the other key precepts of 'murica, but really it all stems from that. The same illusion exists on the left too; both sides believe that they actually speak for the people, which is a flawed concept because most of the people don't vote.
Anyway I've been carrying around this idea for a while now, and some part of me still laughs whenever I hear someone with an accent casually say "Murica," because politics has become a kind of show to me, and I usually laugh when something reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite shows. It makes the failure of your government a lot easier to stomach if you think of it all as a giant game show.
posted by Max at 9:17 AM
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