Await Lightning

We of Gen X have been waiting for doomsday since we first grasped the concept, so I suppose we're stopped clocks on the subject of zero hour--right twice a day at best. For us, it will always be 12-31-99, waiting for the bomb to fall. So we're pessimists by nature, but on the other hand, I find myself somehow primed in times of war and disaster, overdosing on information. Trying to understand what the hell is going on. And the thought occurs:

Is it just me, or has American discourse completely disintegrated?

I don't mean it in that tiresome "America is going down the tubes" sense, either. Wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf. I just find it hard to read anything on an American website that doesn't disntegrate into partisan screaming.

Well of course it does, you say. But look, that's not normal. In most countries, if the government fumbles in a crisis, you criticize the government. If Ottawa messes up, whoever is in charge wears it. It's that simple. It doesn't make you a Conservative to criticize Paul Martin, PM, anymore than criticizing Mulroney made you a liberal--he's your employee. You have the right and the obligation to criticize the PM.

So, Katrina.

Looking at the hard questions that are starting to emerge over the failure of leadership south of the border-criticizing the government's response seems to instantaneously trigger counter-accusations of "seizing the moment for partisan adavantage", "Is there anything you won't seize on to discredit Bush?" and the like. Democrats are burning with righteous fury, Republicans are indignant (so much so it suggests fear and denial) and the entire media coverage of the tragedy seems shot through with sensationalism, race, and class. I mean more than usual, o jaded ones. The actual event itself gets lost amid the struggle over the idea of what it will mean. Will GWB wrap himself in the flag once more? Will he get away with it? Will the opposition be able to take advantage? But there is no opposition, now is there? America is angry. Corpses in the streets. The butcher's bill for this will be in the thousands. And George Bush--whose only real job is to show up, look like things are being done, and act, you know, like the goddamn President--plays guitar. My Pet Goat, take 2. It's all completely batf-ck insane.

Well of course it is, you say. America was always that way. But you'd be wrong. America can't long survive like this. Not in the form we've known. There's no longer a there, there. Nature abhors a vacumn--and into it comes...what?

Futurelessness, is what this feeeling is called. Where the hell is this all leading? And can we get past our own apocalypse fixation long enough to do anything about it?







It's finally happened--the blinding flash of Light!

No wait, it was only lightning...