Brace for impact

I don't normally discuss politics, because I have stupid, ill-informed beliefs, and I consider it a favor not to subject folks to my ideologies. My poetry causes suffering enough, this I know to be true, so please indulge me in this.

Also, someone recently said that I use the phrase "The very [something] of [something else] itself" a lot. Is that true? N-not that I'd care if it was or anything! Hmph. Stupid jerks criticizing my awesome words they wouldn't know good writing if it gave them flowers and asked them to the dance rawr grumble grumble.

ANYWAY.

It may come as a surprise to you to hear this, but Rush Limbaugh has said something stupid. He has said something so colossally, mind-numbingly, Earth-shatteringly stupid that any attempt to explain it that isn't just re-posting his words, and I refuse to propagate that venom further, will serve to dampen the sheer bald-faced lie of it. You probably have a pretty good idea of where this is going.

I would like to think that human civilization is on a generally upwards sort of trend, that we are an intelligent species that learns from our mistakes and does our best not to repeat them. I'm an idealist at heart, it says so right on the jar. I'd like to think that we are generally sane, respectful individuals who don't, say, have a history of lying or drug abuse.

I'd like to believe that someday in the future humankind will reach a point where we ostracize the Limbaughs of the world for trying to divide us along lines of race, class, or religion. I'd like to think that someday, there will be an island where the hateful trolls who plague our every step towards light are confined to work their venom where it will do the good people of tomorrow no harm, I want to believe that we will chain the twin demons of ignorance and malice to stones of their own creation and drown them in an ocean of compassion, and that the spawn of Judas whose every act only serves to convince the beleaguered masses of today that the very throne of God sits abandoned will no longer be able to exert their greasy influence on international markets and body-politics.

However, I know that with as many people speaking as freely as they do, there will be a handful of Limbaughs amongst us. Some of you reading this know that I am a Limbaugh myself, from time to time. However, there are things we can do right now to fix that.

Everyone who has ever been to a fancy dinner understands that there are some things that just Are Not Done. This is referred to as the "Social Contract" and it's remarkably similar across cultural boundaries, which you can trust me on because I've traveled around the goddamn world, and if that singular fact won't land me a job then I'll make it count some other way. Things like "don't interrupt other people with your whack-ass lies" and "don't fart in the punch", which generally gets progressively more nuanced and useless the higher in society you go.

I suggest that we add "profiting from manipulation" to this contract.

I firmly believe that the only reason Avon, Magic Chef, and Tupperware parties were ever successful is due to the fact that most people are too polite to tell other folks where to shove it. It's considered rude to say "I have no interest in your overpriced pizza slicers, and damn your innards to shrapnel for trying to profit off of our acquaintanceship" due to the fact that, for the most part, people trying to sell you things have a congenial, almost friendly, manner to them. That's how they avoid getting shot. Returning even a veneer of friendliness with the firm social jaundice callusing most city dwellers after walking past the poor dying at their feet is considered a violation of the social contract, because it's impolite to answer friendliness with anything but friendliness.

Except, they're not being friendly, they're being exploitative. In this case, Limbaugh is attempting to manipulate you through fear. Fear that the President hates your religion. Fear that you are one of a select few trapped on a dying planet, and that attempting to do the Lord's work will land you in someone's crosshairs. He knows that one he has you scared, you won't go looking for the truth of the matter, because nobody ever does. And that's when he gives you an out. A way to make this all better, if you just open up your wallets and buy. Buy my books! They'll teach you how to survive the apocalypse. Buy into my online university! It'll teach you why the news is evil (except for my show!) Buy this vegan-friendly mayonnaise substitute! Do you know how many animals died to make your sandwich? Show your support for the winning side, you don't have to risk your comfort, just give us money and we'll do that for you. Do you see how easy that is? How seductive the message is? If you're convinced that the world is going to hell and things aren't what they used to be, someone who agrees with you and has a plan for how to fix it is basically two Marry Poppinses wearing a Doctor Who scarf*, guns drawn as they bust into Troublemaker Saloon. Also they're scowling like Clint Eastwood on a sunny day, but that metaphor got a little confused? It's late. I should try writing when I'm not half-dead.

And don't think that this is just a conservative thing, no, it happens to liberals too, for different reasons and causes. I think one of the many reasons cycling is now a "thing" for hip people of my generation is because we feel guilty that the car-mad youth of the 50s drag-raced a hole in the ozone layer.

There are an infinite number of solutions to this problem, and by suggesting some I become part of the problem. Nobody who claims to have simple answers to complex problems ever means you well. That's basically a universal law, right there. Inscribe that shit on bronze plates and rivet them to the side of every courthouse in the country, it'll do more good than a thousand tons of Commandments ever did.

I feel strongly that when the media shows two heads on the same screen shouting at each other, then what passes between them is not "news". That is not how news works.

Either way, I think we can start by abandoning both any existential dread we have about the future, and also the shame we feel for past mistakes. Admittedly, that's a little nebulous, but my mom taught me to dream big. If we can think clearly about matters pertaining to our past and future, then we will be able to act with deft precision today.

Alternatively, we could stop listening to the Limbaughs of the world. If someone has proven themselves incapable of abiding by this new social contract, then why would you want them in your life? Stop living your life on a chess board and refuse to be someone's pawn! You deal with enough manipulation in your life as it is, why absorb more of it in your entertainment?



*I know his name is "The Doctor" but that would make the sentence read "is basically two Marry Poppinses wearing a The Doctor scarf" and I'll be damned if I bend grammar for any contrivances but my own.