CSotD: Say when
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I'm ready to give up. What does it take to make people finally say they've had enough?
There's a cynical temptation to wish that a few hundred people in West Virginia (disclosure to forestall accusations of heartlessness: I have family in WV) had died from the chemical spill, because then maybe something would be done.
But let's forget about cynical heartlessness and concentrate on pragmatism: It wouldn't matter. Nobody cares, and, as these two cartoons suggest, no number of deaths would make them care.
How many thousands have died from the idiotic gun culture this nation has adopted? What reforms have come at the cost of their deaths?
For that matter, how many of our young people have been killed or maimed in pointless Middle East wars started by the party that promised no nation building? Yet we've still got right-wing cartoonists frothing at the mouth over the notion that we might actually negotiate with Iran instead of sending more of our kids to die in the sand.
So our streets and our movie theaters and our schools are scenes of random, senseless murder.
Oh well. Who cares? It's the new normal.
Here's the "new normal"
Edison Lee explains reality.
I've seen a couple of cartoons about the net neutrality decision, but nothing particularly inventive or insightful yet. But little Edison has it covered.
There is a popular demand for a la carte cable service, where you could choose the channels you want and just pay for them. Well, that ship sailed a long time ago in many ways, because cable line-ups are a combination of freebies and expensive services, and the one underwrites the other.
Still, I'm old enough to remember when the courts decided that MCI and other phone services should have access to the infrastructure then built, owned and dominated by Ma Bell.
Impact? Even college-age kids are often unaware that we once paid through the nose for long-distance calls based on how long we talked and the distance between us.
I promise you that, if cable providers were given the same opportunity to offer services in places with existing infrastructure, rather than having local franchises awarded as monopolies, you would see a change in cable programming charges and offerings.
And if you could simply sign up with an ISP rather than having to accept what your local town council has arranged for, you wouldn't see companies choking down your access.
There's plenty of popular demand for that, but, man, popular demand is so 20th century!
It's still called the "free market," but the actual advocates of the free market are more interested in the kind of freedom that means "free from having to do what's right."
The free market isn't free, folks. But who cares?
Thank god we've got the press!
Brian McFadden notes the demise of journalism in the sad example of a once-proud news organization.
I remember decades ago when 60 Minutes did a fawning puff piece on Liza Minelli and my then-wife and I looked at each other and said, "What the hell was that?"
But the program settled down into a format of 45 minutes of investigative journalism and one light bit of fluff each week and that seemed okay. Toss a few peanuts to the monkeys and hope they stick around for the real stuff.
Now it's gone to a full hour of monkey treats. 60 Minutes of fluff, gossip and rip-and-read garbage masquerading as journalism.
Theodore Roosevelt would be appalled over the truth of today's Edison Lee strip, having fought so hard against the influence of money and the indifference of big business to the common good. We've allowed the plutocrats to undo much of his legacy, plus that of his cousin Franklin.
But I think it is Jefferson who would despair over the state of our information system. The anarchists like to prattle on about refreshing the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants, but, of course, they consider anyone who attempts to impose order on society to be a "tyrant."
Here, in its context, is Jefferson's oft-quoted remark about government without newspapers versus newspapers with out government, written from Paris in the aftermath of Shay's Rebellion (I have divided his solid block of text into more readable paragraphs):
The tumults in America I expected would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state. But it has not. On the contrary, the small effect of those tumults seems to have given more confidence in the firmness of our governments.
The interposition of the people themselves on the side of government has had a great effect on the opinion here. I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves.
The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty.
The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs thro' the channel of the public papers, and to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people.
The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.
I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under European governments.
Among the former, public opinion is in the place of law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any where. Among the latter, under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves and sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe.
Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them.
If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Sorry, Tom. You set it up well. We simply blew it.
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