re: #156 Gus

Totally agree.

Which, as I’ve noted many times before, is why I changed my avatar back in 2008. It became rather clear that this guy, Barrack Hussein Obama, had through no action of his own tapped into some latent pool of ugliness that was even larger than what I thought existed. It was just lying there waiting to brought out to the surface.

For too many years the resentment had been building, among the old paleo-conservative crowd, about how the world had changed around them. From the neo-confederates to the conspiratorial minded survivalists, they really, really didn’t like how America had been changing post WWII, but especially after 1965.

I do think it is necessary, upon reflection, that we as a society go through this. Masks are falling and true intentions surfacing.

Mixing in with this brew is the new media and the high tech marketing systems that seem to ever be increasing in their efficiency in extracting money from, as many call them, the “marks”. We all are manipulatable, some more than others, but it is how billions of dollars are made on Madison Ave.

Other countries have their analogous problems and are dealing with the changes of the 21st century. Here in America it seems our self-image is one of our stumbling blocks, and the Sarah Palins and David Bartons of this country are trying hard to prop up an artificial image of what we were and what we are, and propose an unrealistic idea of what we should become.

In truth, we are a polyglot of a nation even though our English heritage stands out as the dominant strain, a mongrel society which is addicted to high speeds, high energy, beauty, and of course power.

As the richest nation in history we’ve been used to the ability to spend our way out of some of the common problems of other nations, and that might be true of the racism problem.

We’ll see as this century marches on.