The Doldrums?

Teenaged killer will not be
allowed to bring “Nicholas,”
his stuffed bunny, to prison.

Are we suffering a period of doldrums? Perhaps I am wrong but I sense a certain loss of energy, a kind of malaise, an absence of “fire in the belly,” or some such thing. I watched the annual Press Dinner and was not at all impressed by anything. I thought President Obama lacked passion and Jay Leno was far less entertaining than I would have expected. Few of the jokes were really funny, although to be fair, inside jokes sometimes do not seem funny to everyone. There was applause, of course, and the newscasters kept telling us how amusing it all was, but I thought it was at best rather so-so. Could it be that the country is just running down a bit, what with all the foot-dragging from the party of NO, the oil disaster, the Arizona move toward fascism, the slow rate of job recovery, the floods, tornadoes, mudslides, and other disasters that seem to arrive in bunches? Or could it be that the full potentiality for disaster has finally become so obvious that everyone is beginning to sober up at last? I mean global warming, the national debt, two “wars” with another being threatened daily, the energy crisis, the lack of bipartisanship, the failure of the Senate to act responsibly, the endless Middle East problem, our deteriorating infrastructure and educational system, the pointlessness of what we are doing in Afghanistan, the failure to create jobs, poverty, people on food stamps, foreclosures, national disasters, immigration, Wall Street criminals, and what-have-you. Even the weather has been screwy of late. And when Mexico refuses to import our beef because of contamination, but it can be sold and consumed here at home, it does make one wonder. Are we just running out of personal energy as well as everything else? Or is this just a pause to catch our breath while we gird our loins for actually taking action on our problems? I hope it is this latter, but I’m not so sure, maybe we are so overwhelmed we are becoming paralyzed.

There is talk of doing things, at least some things. Apparently there are going to be the beginnings preliminary peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in a week or so (good luck with that). And apparently Obama is in favor of trying to arrange a nuclear free zone in the Middle East (good luck with that). And maybe a criminal investigation of Wall Street will happen. But it looks like “don’t ask, don’t tell” is going to be delayed for further (completely unnecessary) review. Women are going to be allowed to serve on submarines, I guess that is something. But everything just seems to drag on endlessly, accountability has become a foreign concept, and corporations have taken over such control of our lives they have become untouchable. And on top of everything else, even when some action is indicated, the party of NO warns they will be against it. They are already opposed to Obama’s candidate for the Supreme Court even though they don’t know who it is. They are opposed to regulating Wall Street and just about everything else you can think of that might help ordinary people. Are we perhaps, collectively, in a period of depression? If so, we must be careful not to allow it to develop into a period of hopelessness that would be far more serious. Depressions can pass, hopelessness can become suicidal.

My wife often refers to me as “moan and groan,” or more frequently, “doom and gloom.” I can’t help it. I feel I am trapped in a completely dysfunctional culture that no longer has any connection with human needs or well-being, serving as it does, merely the wishes of the corporations that now control the world. It makes me feel helpless. Feeling helpless makes me feel depressed. I fear the possibility of hopelessness. I, too, like the tea baggers, want my country back, but not the country of the 18th century, or the country of the Klan or the gold standard, just the country and the life that was so much simpler when I was younger, when we had politicians and leaders who put the welfare of the nation and the citizens ahead of greed and re-election. Things were by no means perfect then, but they were a hell of a lot better than now.

LKBIQ:
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.
Thomas Sowell

TILT:
Seabirds known as boobies probably received their name from a Spanish slang word, “bobo,” meaning dunce.