I Heard it Downtown

It’s 2:04 PM and I can feel my brain turning to mush.

It isn’t the first time its happened, and I doubt it will be the last. I’m sitting here at my desk, searching through various news websites and blogs, trying to find something interesting to write about. I glance through the CNN Political Ticker, and I can feel my eyes start to glaze over as I scan the headlines for todays new manufactured political “crisis”. Omg, Obama farted at the G20. Sarkozy turned up his nose. Americans are outraged. Eric Cantor releases a statement on how Republicans would never embarrass our country like that, and it this flatulence incident just shows the glaring inexperience of our administration.

Below that are 6 other stories showing people getting outraged over tiny, mundane things. I switch over to gchat, where I’m talking with Maya, hoping that she’ll say something intelligent to break my mental lethargy. Instead, she describes, in graphic detail, her baby Miles’ latest poops. Now my head is full of political spin drivel, AND I know what a “four wiper” is. My eyes are bleeding.

Yes, I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m getting dumber, and I’m giving part of the blame to this newfangled internet news machine, which I’ve been so hooked up to, trying to mine article ideas.

From October to around February, the theme of the political news was “Hope”. It was the centerpiece of a winning political campaign, and it lurked in the background of several other issue debates. “We’re plotting a new direction”, we were told. “We’re going to erase the mistakes of the past, and we’re going to make history.” Political copy swelled with Hope, and I felt it burst into reality at the Obama Inauguration, where I felt like I was getting a big hug from a million formally oppressed liberals. Not only was it satisfying to get so recklessly emotionally involved with a cause, but writing was easy. I churned out thousands of words, and could have easily churned out thousands more if there was enough of a market.

But Hope no longer appears to be the dominant emotion in politics right now. It appears that Hope has given way to Anger.

Anger at politics and politicians is certainly nothing new. Would be politicos of my generation would do well to study Mark Twain and H.L Mencken to get a good historical perspective on government loathing. To me though, this anger is different…its broader, deeper, and profoundly personal.

The frustration seems to be pretty broad, and is popping up all over the place. People flip out over AIG bonuses, even though they represent tiny percentages of the stimulus bills. Folks are losing their jobs, their homes and their retirement plans. We can turn on the TV to see Lou Dobbs give himself a hernia while flipping out about Mexicans, and see Glenn Beck build a Chamber Of Fear bunker in Ruby Ridge and wait for the Second Coming. Add all of this up with the fact that quite a few people felt personally attacked by Obama’s very existence, and a culture of very unrealistic expectations, and we have the recipe for a smoldering vat of Anger.

Now, I’m just speculating here, but I think I might have an idea while some of that anger is so strong. Never in my short life have I felt the difference between generations this much. On one hand, we have an older generation who has held political, economic and cultural power for the last several decades…the Reagan Democrats, older working whites, etc. Their families might have moved out to the suburbs in the white flight era of the 1950s and 60s, and now the demographics of their neighborhoods are completely different. Their social values did not get passed down the following generation, and more socially progressive policies look to march on. The economy shifted from blue collar to high tech service, and they might have been left behind.

I’m not saying that feeling is totally unjustified or wrong, just my hypothesis.

Me? I’m not angry. I don’t have the capacity to stay angry at everything anymore…I get scandal fatigue. I pick a few pet issues to get all righteously indignant about (the achievement gap in American public schools, the growing anti-intellectualism of America, poor reporting, the fact that the Mike Brown still won’t hire a GM for the Cincinnati Bengals, those sorts of things), and then try to sift through the rest of the stories, separating the total crap from the important things that other, intelligent, passionate people will fight.

My little sister still gets angry at every injustice, and I have a few friends who still do. Bless their hearts. Others have totally unplugged themselves, washed their hands, and declared that the issues of the world are “somebody else’s problems”. I hope that as I continue to get older, I don’t lose my ability to get angry. Its important to get angry sometimes…it shows you still have passion, that you’re still paying attention.

But that anger needs to be channeled into productive sources, not trapped in a spin cycle of fear and loathing. If you’re upset about the way things are going, there are legitimate, proper cycles to go about changing things. Now is not the time for bunkers or fear chambers. To fall into that trap would end whatever hope and goodwill we might have accumulated, and put us all right back where we started.

I’d go on, but my gchat is flashing again, which means another “the baby pooped!” story….and my mind is back to mush.