Friday, July 14, 2006

Why Oedipus stabbed his eyes out

Sometimes, when I've gotten bleary-eyed from looking at web site after web site---truthout, common dreams, liberal oasis, daily kos, project for the old american century---you know the sites we liberals feed on---sometimes when I've been reading everything I possibly can for the last few hours, I get this desire to just shut it all out. I see people around me at work, all happily going to walmart, buying their SUVs, voting republican, ignorantly and blissfully talking about how they're glad GW's up there "talking tough to them Iran people." I sometimes wish I could be so blissfully ignorant. But alas, having a brain precludes me from floating around in a little bubble of ignorance. Being aware of the truth, seeking the truth, needing the truth, even though it makes me miserable.

I read that Bobby Kennedy said, "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

I just hope he's right. But I haven't felt any hope since about November 2000. We're an empire in decline. I learned in history that every empire falls--the Sumerians, the Greeks, the Romans, the British. What will it be like when the American Empire falls? Will it come down in a crashing heap, crushing us all? Or will it continue as it has, sinking slowly like a dead fish in the water, until it finally hits the bottom?

It's been a while since I've posted; I've been trying to just stay positive, keep hope alive that things will change in November. We'll see. We'll see.

No comments: