By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Regarding what’s left of our hopey-changey energy shift, the contrarians have loudly proclaimed, “No, you can’t.” They say, “Black is white, up is down, good is bad, war is peace,” hoping we’ll still listen. They continue to bellow into the Orwellian echo chamber that we laboriously dissected in editorial after editorial during the Bush years. We only got so far during those years, only broke through the crust of Republican influence to a degree.
The nation still believed in absolutes back then, unaware that the bottom had fallen out of the democratic process. We believed, at least some of us did, that might made right, that America couldn’t lose, that we remained the beacon of freedom and morality for the world. We believed that our superpower was a reflection not only of our big money and war machine but our intellectual superiority and our advanced, hence deserved, standard of living. So, any of you believe that anymore?
Remember the movie Pleasantville, where the characters refused to inhabit their feelings and remained ‘colorless’ until they were awakened by a strong emotional jolt? It took time and a series of confusing, distressing events to figure out that the color changes were not only unstoppable but necessary to a fuller human experience. I’ve written about this movie before because it’s such a perfect analogy for the culture wars and generational splits we’ve suffered. Like the stilted fantasy world of Pleasantville, too many of us were black and white during the Bush years, too many afraid to be more than that. Apparently some of us still are.
Like those kids in Pleasantville who kissed and danced and eagerly stumbled into Technicolor, now most of us are looking out at a nation that has suddenly thrown on the e-brakes, threatening to dull our reality with not just a conservative agenda but a radical one. The big powers that lurk in the shadows have gone a little desperate, quick to discourage all color and light. They’re intent on imposing their somber tones, their limited spectrum of possibilities, in an attempt to re-establish control of the political terrain that got away from them. Their disinformation machine has been at work 24/7 to keep a steady flow of illogic and unreality flowing into the mainstream, distracting and distorting, deflecting our attention away from the serious issues that have catapulted this nation — the flagship of democracy — into a potential banana republic.