Hokum, Bunkum, Claptrap and Malarkey

The world is becoming saturated with all kinds of poisons and pollution, none more dangerous than the garbage that piles up in the brains of anyone who devotes excessive attention to popular culture. This is a planetary malady, spreading at an alarming rate. Most advanced in North America, Europe and Australia, it might have once been termed a Western malady. It is now, however, pandemic in Japan and South Korea, epidemic in India, China and the former Soviet republics, and is making inroads into Africa and the Middle East.

Whether to one or several aspects of popcult, the slavish devotion of the fan can consume life and drain energy in the effort to feel closer to the object(s) of their ardor. Nothing can convince the fanatical adherent of the truth that is obvious to any sane observer: If the object of devotion had never lived, never existed, never achieved the slightest notoriety, it would never have been missed. The world would have been just fine.

Having shoveled that load, let me now say that the real question is: What is wrong with these people? How can you know more about the Brangelina/Madonna Adoption Wars than about your own kid's homework assignment? How can you devote so much time to reading the National Enquirer and People magazine, watching Access Now and Entertainment Tonight, and NEVER BOTHER TO CRACK A REAL BOOK? (The Bible doesn't count.)

Everyone has an opinion about what's wrong with the world today. Well, here's mine: Too many people are obsessed with shit that doesn't matter one whit to their real lives while remaining ignorant of things that effect them in profound ways. If more Americans had paid more attention to the inconsistencies in the Cheney/Bush regime's propaganda during the run-up to war than they did to the myriad popcrap diversions rammed up their pipelines, a couple of thousand young Americans might still be alive.

Where to begin. . .

. . . . How about the truly evil nature of the Republican party? I know that some people will object to that premise. Some will say that the GOP is a noble institution, its leaders admirable and good. Others will say that Republicans are generally fine and upstanding folks somehow led astray by right-wingers and/or religious fundamentalists and/or the infernal neocons. (there'll be more on these groups later,)

I say nay: You are responsible, Republicans, for the nefarious tactics, the vicious calumnies, the criminal acts, the whole shebang that your leaders perpetrated to seize, maintain and exercise power in your name and under your banner. If you fail to recognize the diabolical nature of the neoconservative cabal that has seized your party and subjected this nation and the world to the Cheney/Bush regime, then you are either deluded or as evil as they are. We can only hope that the '06 midterm elections are the beginning of the last act of this tragedy.