I also started reading a new (to me) book, Culture of Complaint, the Fraying of America by Robert Hughes. It is there that I found reference to Herod again. This time, not the historical King Herod, but a prophetic one from the pen of W. H. Auden and which I quote, as did Hughes. Herod forsees what would happen if "that child got away."
One doesn't have to be a prophet to predict the consequences...I could go on, but let me cut to the chase. We seem to have all become residents of the victimhood. Hughes wrote this in 1992, but I do not see that what he wrote is less true today.
Reason will be replaced by Revelation...knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions - feeling in the solar plexus induced by undernourishment, angelic images generated by fever or drugs, dream warning inspired by the sound of falling water. Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of school children ranked above the greatest masterpieces...
As I have kept my mouth shut previously about the current claptrap in the GPCA, maybe I should keep it shut, but I won't. I have often said the Bush and bin Laden need each other. Once could not long survive without the other. It seems to be the same with Mike Feinstein and Peter Camejo.
Peter seems to justify his continued status in the Green Party not by his presentation of workable idea for the future of California, something that he did admirably well during the recall of Gray Davis, but rather in a growing war of righteous indignation over the perceived past sins of Mike Feinstein. After writing his most recent diatribe I could imagine that he is out trying to sell the story to Oliver Stone.
Mike, on the other hand, seems willing play the victim as long as it is possible, calling on the authority of the ambiguous bylaws that must be stubbornly followed for historical precedent., but like Bush, never admitting his mistakes and feeding off the latest attack like Bush needed the Ft. Dix arrests today to reinforce his never ending war on terrorism.
Meanwhile, we have campaigns to run, we have allowed Schwarzenegger to stake his claim to being the "green" governor and we can't even come up with an agenda for a state wide meeting. Sorry, we have two agendas.
Enough already. This fight has gone on for 5 years. It is time to stand up, shake hands and start looking to the future while we still have one.
1 comment:
The Coordinating Committee (CC) should adopt a simple majority vote for all their decisions. They are paralyzed by the ability of a small group of people, 20%, to block any action. Since they are an administrative body, not a policy-making body, this lower voting threshhold is appropriate. With a simple majority, they could at least set an agenda on time, and bring it to the Plenary.
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