"Perhaps genocide will be unable to dispel my ennui. Then, then I will put all my efforts into politics."
--Joseph Stalin, speaking to Charlie Chaplin on the set of Gold Rush.
OK, so Joseph Stalin never said that. But he did meet Chaplin on the set of Gold Rush. He is rumored to have played the bear in the famous bear-in-the-cabin scene. Hence Russia's national nickname, the Bear.
None of that is true, either, of course. I'm not sure what compels me to write such things. I suppose it has something to do with my need to complete an essay, being burned out as a writer--particularly a writer concerned with accuracy--and because I am in fact horrified by politics.
We are slowly inoculated to the horror over our lifetimes. Lots of little needles--a lie here, a fabrication there, something worthy of 1984 every now and then. If we like the politician, the pin prick doesn't hurt as much and we can endure more of them more quickly. In this way, we can be quickly become immune to even the most toxic dose of political lies. (I suppose it could be argued that Ronald Reagan set the stage for Republican acceptance of W.)
Before you know it, all manner of untruths can pass before our eyes and between our ears and barely raise a hive. We can be told that it is dangerous to speak against the government, that it is the equivalent of giving "Aid and comfort to the enemy" as John Ashcroft said, (when it is in fact essential to our democracy, essential to reasonable debate and wise decisions) and it sounds quite reasonable.
It takes something even more violent and horrible than the corruption of our language and morality to snap us out of it. A long and increasingly bloody war, one which we can no longer ignore, seems to be doing quite nicely.
But what about all the schools we've painted in Iraq? you might ask. Why do they get so much less coverage than car bombs? The very fact that this is occasionally in some corners deemed a reasonable statement is itself testimony to the continued corruption of our capacity for rational thought. When, sincerely, have you ever seen, in this country or any other, the painting or building of a school overshadow the fatal explosion of a bomb in terms of news coverage? Are bombs often ignored in your community? How about school renovations?
That this argument every held even a drop of water is a tribute to the high level of immunity imparted to Republicans everywhere by years of nasty little pin pricks.
