I got an e-mail this morning from an old friend . . . with a link to a blog by James Howard Kuntsler.
The basic premise of the blog was the bathos of our present political discourse . . . as the last vestiges of rationality are wrung out of our reeling nation:
Future historians who try to chart the unraveling of the USA's political tapestry might point to two events of the past week. The obvious first one was the Tea Party convention at Nashville. It was held not accidentally at the ridiculous Opryland Hotel and resort in the city's outer suburban asteroid belt, right next to the circumferential freeway, and next door to the defunct (1997) Opryland USA theme park, an attraction based on the cute idea that Tennessee rubes were too dumb to spell the word opera -- so the symbolism was perfect.
The guy has a way with words.
Underneath the clever discourse, however, was an accurate albeit troubling analogy between the US and the doomed Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic was a product of the insanity of WWI . . . and the legacy of vindictive post-war diplomacy that practically guaranteed unrest and chaos.
As Yeats noted in 1919:
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Is there any poem more aptly descriptive of the rank partisanship that defines and undermines our political process?
And speaking of rough beasts, what'd you all think of Sarah Palin's 2012 preparatory performances this weekend? Enough red meat for the great unwashed denizens of Opryland USA??
God's mercy on the wild gingerman.