Rants: Rest in Pieces, Uncle Sam

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That whiff of carrion that you catch on the breeze is the corpse of Uncle Sam rotting in the sun, neither side of his family being willing to take responsibility for providing him with a decent burial.

This country is fucked. It's giving off the same vibes given off by a dysfunctional family; the kind of vibes once described by Hannah Arendt as "the banality of evil": ordinary folk, trapped in bad behavior that they view as "normal."

In the case of America today, however, the term "the banality of failure" (although this "failure" is driven by the same engines as "evil") might be more to the point.At the banal heart of this evil-failure is greed: greed for power, shored up by wealth. Ho-hum. 'Twas ever thus.

Right-wingers want unlimited power, wealth, and enforced security for the individual. Left-wingers want power and wealth for the state, with universally guaranteed—and sufficient—measures of each provided to all individuals by that state. For Americans—although, mysteriously, not for Europeans—this would seem to be an irreconcilable conflict; a conflict which, being banal, is by definition not even interesting.

Watching the reportage yesterday of widespread glee on the political right over President Obama's failure to secure the Olympic Games for his home town of Chicago, and for America, was something like watching the wife in a failed marriage express glee that her unemployed husband has failed to get the job for which he was interviewed, even though it hurts the family as a whole: his individual defeat is the trump. It is nothing but pointless, and--yes, banal--vindictiveness.

Hatred is self-defeating. Stick a fork in America, she is done.
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