Why Bother?

Forida woman robs
discount store, leaves her
two-year old behind.

I don’t know for sure but I suspect it’s my age. I find myself not doing things I used to do, and doing things I didn’t used to do. For example, I used to watch the news pretty faithfully, but now I find myself just turning it off. It seems to me there is no real news anymore, everything is just basically propaganda. I hear constantly how it is that Iran is an “existential threat” to Israel and the U.S. I’m a loyal American, I would like to believe this, but I just don’t. This is not because I am privy to some information others do not have, or because I am anti-Semitic, or because I love Iran, it’s just that I cannot believe it. The fact is, just based on what I hear now and then on what passes for news these days, I believe that Israel and the U.S. is a far greater existential threat to Iran than vice versa. We are doing everything we can to impose harsh sanctions on them, and we (and Israel) constantly threaten to bomb them (nothing is off the table), and we constantly accuse them of being the greatest terrorist nation on earth (what evidence there is for this is never specified in any way). Iran, on the other hand, has not attacked anyone for over 200 years, they say they do not even want nuclear bombs, and there is no clear evidence they are actually striving to produce one. And even if they had such a bomb, being intelligent people, they would hardly run out and attack nations with overwhelming military and nuclear superiority. These constant threats against Iran are not because they constitute an existential threat to anyone, they are because Iran as a nation is seeking to look after their national interests, and those national interests happen to be contrary to the national interests of others, specifically Israel, the U.S. and the Arab countries. Iran threatens Israeli/U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. Iran is a Shiite country, the Arab states are Sunni, they do not want Iran to covet Iraq and help it to become a Shiite country. The U.S. would like to dominate the Middle East and Iran is a potential problem in that they wish to be an important player in what is, in fact, their backyard, not ours. So they are a geopolitical threat. That is hardly the same as being an existential threat. So why can’t anyone just tell the truth about this? I guess for the same reason we were never told the truth about why we unilaterally and illegally attacked Iraq. I am loathe to admit the vile bumper sticker I saw even before we actually attacked was closer to the truth than anything we were told: “Nuke their ass and steal their gas.”

I am also beginning to have second thoughts about certain things. For example, I believe that Republicans lie regularly just because that is their nature. I believe this because for the past nine or ten years they have done nothing but lie about everything (can you think of anything Bush/Cheney didn’t lie about). A sliver of doubt has come into my mind so that I suspect now that sometimes they aren’t really lying, they just don’t know what they are talking about, being either ignorant or stupid. Some of the tea party folks are out there railing non-stop against taxes, apparently oblivious to the fact that Obama just reduced taxes for 95% of Americans. I suspect that before they are done they will believe that Obama actually invented taxes and before him there were no taxes. If Silly Sarah told them this they would no doubt believe it.

There was a local example of this recently. Three or four of our community leaders, who supposedly run things around here, were overheard saying how they all agreed they did not want any more “Wilderness” here in our county. They were quite adamant about this. Of course if the Federal Government designated Wilderness here there is nothing much they could do about it. But what makes this more pathetic is that there is no “Wilderness” designated in our county, none, and these presumably wise and powerful leaders had no idea what they were talking about. Observing what goes on in our Congress, where it is obvious most of them don’t even bother to read the bills they vote on, makes me believe this is true there more often than not. They simply don’t know what they are talking about, and even if they did, they would still no doubt lie about it. So I question myself, why should I even bother reading or listening to what is supposed to be “news?” It does seem completely pointless. But then I wonder, is it just me, am I slipping, do I just don’t “get it?” And then I shrug and tell myself “that’s just human nature,” but if that’s true, is anything really worth bothering about? I am reminded of my favorite New Yorker cartoon: An obviously well-off middle-aged man is standing in his living room looking downcast. His wife says, “Well, whatever possessed you to buy a book called ‘Being and Nothingness” in the first place?

The Crystal Gazer

I shall gather myself into my self again,
I shall take my scattered selves and make them one.
I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ball
Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun.
I Shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent.
Watching the future come and the present go
- And the little shifting pictures of people rushing
In tiny self-importance to and fro.
- Sara Teasdale