New Members of Congress
Today, some 1500 years after the Fall of the Roman Empire, historians still search for the reasons for the collapse of the greatest and most durable Empire the world has ever known.
And one that was replaced by 1,000 years of The Dark Ages and ignorance.
After the fall of the American Empire, as we enter into our own Dark Ages, historians will, God willing, some thousand years in the future, sift through the remnants of our once greatness and ask ‘what happened’
Let me save them some time.
The election yesterday of people like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, the “tea party’ candidates are a harbinger of a very serious problem in American society – one that is as potentially dangerous to the survival of the Republic as lead pipes were to the Romans.
And in this respect, Christine O’Donnell and Sarah Palin are no different from Barack Obama.
These people are the ‘reality stars’ of American politics – average people suddenly thrust into ‘greatness’ by the entertainment machinery of the 21st Century Media Machine.
What, after all, was Barack Obama, but the Susan Boyle of American politics.
A community organizer and Senator for about three days, suddenly crowned with ‘genius’ and stardom.
Likewise Sarah Palin.
America loves this kind of story.
Reality Television has shown us, hour after hour, day after day – drilling it into our heads, that ANYONE can be a star.
Anyone.
Doesn’t require any special talents or hard work.
Michaele Salahi and Christine O’Donnell – they’re the same person.
It’s the same story line.
The only difference is that we don’t turn over the management of the country to Michaele Salahi – or at least not yet… but I am sure this also is coming.
We did turn over the management of the country and the economy to Barack Obama, who as about as well known as Susan Boyle when h ‘burst upon the stage a full blown media star’.
It’s a hard habit to kick, reality TV.
It’s kind of addictive
A nobody on Monday, a major star by Thursday.
Many years ago, Neil Postman wrote a seminal book entitled Amusing Ourselves to Death.
It was about how the omnipresence of television (we spend 4.5 hours a day watching it), would impact on our culture.
Postman predicted that Presidential debates would get shorter and shorter and the ability of a candidate to ‘entertain’ the crowd would become more important than their ability to lead or govern.
Postman was far too conservative.
It turns out it’s easier to simply find an entertaining ‘average joe’ than it is to educate a qualified leader to be ‘entertaining’.
Perhaps the Democrats should run Jon Stewart for President in ’12.
He would probably win.
The country would still do down the drain, but at least we’d all be having a good time.
And isn’t that what it’s all about?
3 Comments
Richard Numeroff September 19, 2010
very compelling times…
at the risk of revealing my age…;-)
I graduated from college class of 1980.
Returned to NYC and to my utter shock shock and surprise… later that year the actor, Ronald Reagan, was elected President.
To me, even looking back now, that was a very hard to believe seismic shift… the sea change… It came to pass because MEDIA was no longer made for the people – media was masterfully made to PERSUADE the people. (AND ARTS FUNDING was CUT! – they realized that they could sell a president just like they sold sugar loaded “healthy” breakfast cereals.
Shameless abuse became the norm.
Insidious – even if you did not believe their message, a large degree of doubt was placed on ANY message.
As a young budding filmmaker having spent thousands of hours studying and observing and be sensitive to the effects of media it was a very unwelcome and frustrating time.
How then do I as a filmmaker reach my audience when reality and artifact and theater are indistinguishable.
Despite my disappointment I still have hope for Obama – … need him for a second term… no other hopeful option.
…. please take all these comments as very incomplete… much longer conversations… this is my simple gut response now.
Ian McNulty September 17, 2010
“When we begin to realize how essentially the great Roman Empire was a slave state and how small was the minority who had any pride or freedom in their lives, we lay our hands on the clues to its decay and collapse …
“The great roads, the ruins of splendid buildings, the tradition of law and power it left for the astonishment of succeeding generations must not conceal from us that all its outer splendour was built upon thwarted wills, stifled intelligence, and crippled and perverted desires. And even the minority who lorded it over that wide realm of subjugation and of restraint and forced labour were uneasy and unhappy in their souls; art and literature, science and philosophy, which are the fruits of free and happy minds, waned in that atmosphere. There was much copying and imitation, an abundance of artistic artificers, much slavish pedantry among the servile men of learning …
“Athens decayed under the Roman sceptre. The science of Alexandria decayed. The spirit of man, it seemed, was decaying in those days.”
H. G. Wells. A Short History of the World. 1922.
Cary Abbott September 16, 2010
It seems like Fahrenheit 451 is coming to pass. Our lives are the TV walls, we burn books and have no relationships.
Maybe American Idol will be where we pick the next President. Ashton Kutcher could probably be a Senator if he simply asked his twitter followers to vote for him.