CT Blue

Today, a few observations on the obvious.

First, watch this relatively short video. 

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g&w=560&h=315]

At Buzzflash they’re reporting that the folks at TED have pulled this video off their site on the grounds that his remarks were “too politically controversial”. Now, the fact is that any reasonably informed person watching this video would be convinced, because there’s not a single thing he says that is not obviously true, particularly given the way he presents it. For my own part, I don’t think the video was really censored because his views were too controversial. I think it was censored because those views were being endorsed by a card carrying member of the .01%, and are therefore harder to cast aside. After all, someone with that much money simply can’t be dismissed as a dirty hippie. He is, in effect, exposing the nakedness of his fellow emperors, and that can’t be tolerated.

Speaking of obvious. Many years ago I worked at Keney Park in Hartford as a lifeguard. The head guard was a guy named Manny Davison, who was a mountain of a man. He would get in the pool with the kids and play a game with them, the ostensible and unattainable object of which was for them to somehow dunk him. That never happened, but the kids kept at it because the real fun consisted of being thrown up and back into the water. All the time he was playing Manny would moan about the fact that he was “tired of winning”. 

Well, in  less benign context, did you ever find yourself feeling tired of being right?  I mean, isn’t it depressing to watch this country teeter at the edge of yet another unwinnable war, urged to it by the usual suspects, who are always wrong, and warned away from it by the other usual suspects, who are always right and to whom no one ever listens. Do you sometimes find yourself hoping that you’re not right this time, that this time we will go in, fight our war, win, exit, and leave behind a functioning democracy that respects human rights, instead of a dysfunctional country that will beget yet another revolutionary movement, using weapons we left behind in the last war, that will wage war against our “allies”, who, despite also being  loaded down with our weapons, are never capable of defending themselves without our help.

So, wouldn’t it be nice if you woke up some morning in, say, 2017 and said to yourself “Gosh darn, I was wrong and John McCain was right. Look at the incredible success we’ve had in Syria/Iran/Iraq/[your favorite Middle Eastern country here]! I guess I’ve learned something from this experience”.

Unfortunately, it’s that last sentence that’s the dead giveaway that that happy event will never occur,  for it’s a sentence never uttered by the likes of McCain, Graham, and their happily forgotten friend Joe. Unfortunately, the forces within our power center are such that the number of people migrating from the always right to the always wrong side of the ledger are growing, while those traveling in the other direction are thin on the ground. Consider John Kerry,  boasting a reputation made by being right when those in power were wrong, who, having assumed power himself, has chosen to advocate for a war his younger self would have recognized as hopeless and a waste of the lives of those sent to fight it. Consider our president, who I continue to believe knows full well it will be a mistake to put “boots on the ground” yet who is ineluctably being drawn to take exactly that step by the sheer power of mass beltway stupidity.

 It really is no fun seeing the obvious. Maybe that’s why so few of our politicians are able to see it. And I really am tired of being right. So here’s hoping I’m wrong this time.