News comes and goes, ebbs and flows, sails in and out of view. Some we hang onto, almost tethered by rope, others slip loose in daydreams or in fuller sleep. They are daily ship's logs, these reports, raindrops that sprinkle on us, way out at sea, where moisture takes whatever landfall it can find: The news, only a little spray from the bow, a bit of wet on the face -- nothing to warrant change in direction.
This is why the rogue wave, tall as a small planet, hit with no warning, struck a cracking blow amidships, nearly broke it in two -- only out trolling for news when the skies tore in half and the ocean threw itself down, pitched and buried everything alive in a sea cave, below, way, way down.
* * * * *
Too florid here? Not half as horrid as it felt then, nor half as bad as it feels even now.
You see: My head was left swimming in a sinking shipwreck of thinking after the blast caught and collapsed me. I am still feeling waterlogged and sea-tossed, rib-sore, 30 hours later. It's a vast improvement. Earlier, I was feeling skewered on a tine or two of Poseidon's trident, pinned to the sea floor in the Marianas Trench.
If you had a cup of dry wit I could borrow, I would wanly say, "My world view has been slightly dimpled," verbally attempting a somersaulting maneuver, throwing myself at limber understatement. Here is my report -- here is the thing:
Studies are showing Republicans are dismissive of facts and information. Worse yet, education makes no matter -- in fact, conservatives get more dismissive with more education, not less so! They do not respond to facts. Period. Let that fact soak in. See, I've been forcibly bathed and baptized in this, almost capsized by it, in this news I first saw a bit more than a day ago -- but you're nice and dry. Give it time to soak right into your bones.
Add to this study others showing physical traits of people's brains appearing to seal the deal, so to say, where mindset is concerned, and it starts to look glummer, without glimmer of hope. You might remember studies of conservatives' brains showing larger primitive emotion and fear centers, and smaller areas in which courage and optimism might thrive. Then, heap on others, showing links between lower intelligence with conservatism, prejudice, racism, and a preference for hierarchical structure as response to a world perceived as too complex...
Then, opposing, there are liberals, logic brokers to the bitterest end, putting faith in the supreme power of fact and logical thought to lead and show the way, to change the mind of Republicans... Not going to happen, you see. Should have known something was up from our experiences to date, from the widening schisms we see: we were not getting through. And we won't be, not ever. We and our facts were, and will always be, sloughed off like old snakeskin, shed fast as acid rain.
In the 1944 Hitchcock film, "Lifeboat," a question is asked in harrowing, life-and-death moments: "What do you do with people like that?" Great question. We inventory ourselves and find we are cleaved cleanly in two. In our finite world, the choices for championing any idea appear to be two: Reason or Force. Reason, as we know, will not be acknowledged or accepted by our foes, so, no truths will flow there. Force, of course, is what the bully-boys use as it is the only thing bullies understand -- or psychopaths, or sociopaths, too.
What to do? They will not engage us on the strengths of our ideas and the facts, and we loathe engaging in the animal tactics they understand. And so, the infamous nutshell peers back at us while we continue to peer in: We are screwed deeply and royally blue, tattooed head to toe, and all up inside of us, too.
It's a fact, fellow fact-dwellers: We need some new facts, fast as we can go. We cannot abandon our cores, logical thought and facts, in the search for meaning and truth. I am reluctant to abandon any who are Family to Man, but the time is rapidly on us: We must leave behind those who would trade reason to Fox and kick science to the curb, those who would let ignorance reign, raining down on us all like pyroclastic flows, swallowing us whole in their belching volcanoes of stubborn stupidity lurching up from the sea floor.
Welcome to New Waterworld, welcome into the freezing-cold water, welcome to the new world order: Sharks and Dolphins -- time to choose. Your only other choice? Welcome to the new and morbid, depressing, macabre, Operation Lifeboat.
Sad to say: This is not a drill.
Link to previous article, with added information there: http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/editorial/alex-baer/22798-really-stop-making-sense.html
