Moreover, I believe there is a tacit conspiracy to make Americans more ignorant and thereby gullible and easily led. This is done by flooding the media with crass entertainment and pseudo news—programming that appeals to people’s base desires and prejudices and which is aimed at the sociopath, sadist, fool, ignoramus, intellectually lazy, self loathing and narcissistic. How else can the following television programs, which currently air in prime time, be explained? Admittedly most of them are on cable but surprisingly many of them run on the networks. Here is a sampling: Ghost Whisperer, Medium, Smackdown (wrestling), Criminal Minds (profiling serial killers), Kitchen Nightmares, I’m Alive, I Shouldn’t be Alive, Gangland, Swamp Loggers, UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship cage fights), Pride (more cage fights), Dirty Jobs, Project Runway, What Not to Wear, Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura, Disorder in the Court, Full Throttle Saloon, Inside American Jail, Most Daring, Most Shocking, Speeders, Ice Road Truckers, Monster Quest, Nostrademus Effect, Pawn Stars, World War II in HD, UFO Hunters, Ghost Lab, 16 and Pregnant, Teen Mom, and the list goes on.

In addition to the programs that exemplify the inane, insane, base, violent and idiotic there are others dedicated to smart-mouth sniping and howling outrage. This category is peopled by such luminaries as: Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews and others of the same ilk who have become wealthy by reducing serious issues to the level of a poorly written comic book.

So what now represents typical prime-time programming principally falls in the categories of: cage fighting, so-called reality TV, sexual exploitation, the occult, political rant and ridicule, and murder and mayhem as entertainment. Edifying!

Glaringly underrepresented are thoughtful, meaningful and intelligent presentations of the arts, history, science, and social and political issues. That’s because the corporate heads of the media companies are as cynical and shrewd as they are grossly overpaid. They correctly reason that sex, scandal, crime and stupidity have greater appeal to far more people than anything demanding intelligence, sustained attention and serious thinking. They know that far more people will watch two men (or women) beat each other unconscious than will watch a documentary on the global water crisis or a serious presentation on the Constitution. They know many people love to watch other people’s tragedy and loss of dignity. And they know their audiences love to watch politicians insult each other and confess their sordid affairs in public.

So it is that as the American people become exposed to more and more that is superficial, irrational, hyperbolic, biased, and nonsensical they become collectively and individually less capable of sustained attention, reason and analytical thought—their senses having been dulled by all the shouting, quick cuts and decontextualized snippets of word, sound and image. Moreover, with nearly everything being presented as partisan or in the guise of contest there is ever less willingness on the part of the audience to hear, perceive and understand the deeper significance, potential and meaning of what is presented.

All of this contributes to a dumbing and numbing effect on the part of the general public which works to the advantage of the cynical politicians and corporate executives. There are of course good and well-meaning politicians and corporate executives, but they are increasingly being marginalized by the power of political action committees and the “bottom line.” As the saying goes, money talks. And where money talks, taste, ethics and morality walk.

As the public is bombarded with half-truths, nonsense, pseudo science, alleged reality, and spectacles of sex and violence, they become less able to distinguish fact from fiction or pay attention to how their basic human rights and dignity are being taken from them in the name of comfort, convenience, entertainment and security.

We are indeed living in the information age. We are certainly not living in an age where reason, wisdom, taste and compassion prevail.

© 2010 Michael Maurer Smith

Yes, we have gotten change, the change of spin and rhetoric. But corporate greed and the arrogance of the nation’s top bankers continue unabated while our social fabric and economic system shreds. In contemporary America, justice, ethics, morality, compassion, fairness and humility have become little more than words in the dictionary.

Having endured eight years of the arrogant, cynical and inept Bush/Cheney regime Americans are now credulously being asked to accept as statesmanship the diddling of the Democrats and hyper-partisan circus Washington has become. Change indeed! Tweedle dee and tweddle dumber!

Today’s (15 January 2010) Lansing State Journal reported the President as saying the recent round of bank bonuses were “obscene.” And so they are.

But, Mr. President it was you and your fellow Democrats we elected to end the abuse and you haven’t. We’d hoped you might forge the bipartisan support you promised, but all we’ve seen is the withering of that promise. And now you sound like just another impotent citizen—off to the side decrying how unseemly it all has become.

As President and a Nobel Prize winner you speak eloquently of responsibility and compassion. As a savvy politician you are able to say nearly everything to everyone and commit to nothing! As an attorney, well schooled in Constitutional law, you cite the law with authority. And perhaps it is because you are a lawyer, like so many of your colleagues in the Congress and Senate, that this county is in the mess it is.

Of the 269 members of the current 111^th Congress, 204 list their occupations as lawyers! By comparison 6 are engineers, 16 are doctors, 1 is a veterinarian and 1 is a psychologist. There is even one comedian.

Lawyers are trained to be zealous advocates for their clients, their paying clients. They are taught that even the most dispicable criminal is entitled to the best legal representation he or she can afford. They are encouraged to frame and approach problems as arguments and contests. They are taught to use the law to argue and win for their client, albeit within the rules of law, regardless of whether the outcome is just and benefits the greater good. Once in politics the lawyer’s de facto clients become the big money donors who finance his or her campaigns.

It is this occupational mindset of confrontation, contest and the all-important win that the lawyers bring to the Congress, Senate and the Presidency.

What we have just seen in the recent health care debate (calling it that is being generous) is lawyers, in the guise of senators and congresspersons, championing the interest of their current de facto clients, the big businesses and special interest groups that financed their election. Only a few are trying to represent those people without influence—the average working person, the non-voting child, the elderly person living on a fixed income, the incarcerated, and the mentally ill.

I posit that it is the predominance of the lawyering mindset in government that severely compromises its ability to hear and address the real needs of the American people. One has to wonder if we had 204 doctors in this Congress, instead of 16, what kind of health care debate would have ensued and what kind of legislation would have resulted? What changes would occur if we had 204 teachers, or social workers, or farmers in the Congress?

I feel obligated to disclose that my “day job”, is with the State Bar of Michigan. However, I am not a lawyer. I am a communication designer. What I have written is my personal opinion, which as of this writing is still protected by the first amendment.

I must also acknowledge that there are many caring and well-meaning lawyers who do their utmost to serve the public good and achieve justice. However, in general, the legal profession has historically favored the status quo and the rich and powerful. Too often it has turned a blind eye to injustice. One need only recall that the Civil Rights Act did not pass until 1964, women did not win the right to vote until 1920, and that it took a Civil War to bring about the emancipation of the slaves.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2010

As I sit reading and drinking coffee, I overhear some of their conversation. Puffery, earnest pleading, non-committal blather, misdirection, misperception, lies and the occasional truth—I hear it all. This is the sausage being made. What goes on across the street, under Elijah E. Myer’s dome is merely the packaging and sales.

As a bald guy in a polo shirt, chinos and without an id tag the suits ignore me. Like much of the “public” they claim to serve I am practically invisible—not worth a look or nod.

The aroma of the brewing coffee is robust but not enough to overcome the odor of Rome burning while these fiddlers fiddle. Sometimes I want to interrupt their reveries and tell my story. But I don’t. It would be pointless. These folks thrive on stories—playing one against the other—taking pieces from many and weaving them into their own self-serving monologues—smoke and mirrors—fine talk—more evasion, escape and abdication of any real responsibility.

Perhaps it is the inescapable and imposed mediocrity of the committee process that assures that nearly anything decided and implemented by government will be inelegant, inefficient, ineffective and counterproductive. Or perhaps it is the nature of politics that the only thing of importance to a politician is getting elected and staying in office—whatever it takes.

I say to hell with all these overpaid sophists in their patent leather, pinstripes and navy blue—on whose watch the economy has gone into free fall, millions have lost their jobs, millions more have no health care and thousands of young men and women have been sent to their deaths fighting in wars without end and specious justification.

Where is their compassion? Where is their competence? Where is their sense of responsibility to all those they cajoled, coerced and duped into voting for their empty promises? Where is their conscience?

In fairness I do thank the few politicians and lawmakers who from their genuine desire to help others and make the world a better place willingly endure the idiocy, blindness, greed, brutality, ignorance, vanity, and selfishness of the rest. Yet I question their effectiveness—their lone voices howling in the mass-media wilderness—I think of the likes of Representative Dennis Kucinich, made to look radical for being compassionate and sensible.

Sadly, so many of our elected, appointed, and purchased representatives labor under the mistaken belief they have a mandate, when in fact most are in office by default—because most Americans have given up on the political process, convinced it really doesn’t matter who is elected because this is really the United States of Corporate Interests and Banking.

We who are concerned with serious questions of life, meaning, compassion and caring have learned to expect little from politics and politicians. And maybe this is a blessing. Self-sufficiency and real community may be our only salvation. Perhaps, with the the internet and the trends toward community supported agriculture, organic foods, bartering and the like, we will soon devolve into so many tribal affiliations that state and national government will be unable to tax us into bankruptcy and send our children to wars to protect corporate interests.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2009

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.”
Albert Einstein

Common sense is common because it favors the answer that seems obvious to the many. Yet truth is often subtle, nuanced, contextual and relative. Rarely is it black and white and almost always it is a matter of opinion.

Politicians and charlatans often appeal to common sense as a ploy. They use it to deflect inquiry and to lead the intellectually lazy and gullible down all manner of paths. Likewise, many people aver common sense because they fear to press beyond the obvious—to discover what might lie beyond their comfortable assumptions. As T.S. Eliot said, “only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

© Michael Maurer Smith 2009

Her name was Persis which she said meant a Gift of God. She was my great-grandmother, but I always called her grandma. Before I was born she had already raised my grandmother, and my mother. She had lost children in the influenza epidemic of 1918, lived through two world wars, the Great Depression and two husbands. One had drowned and the other had divorced her.

She was in her sixties and I was an infant when she became my guardian. For  the next 18 years she saw to it that I went to school, was fed, housed, clothed, and had medical attention when necessary. This she did with only her Social Security and an Aid To Dependent Children supplement (welfare) from the state of Michigan.

When I was still in grade school, she began telling me the world was filled with educated fools. She was bitter about it.

By the end of my senior year in high school my grades were mediocre, we had very little money and I was not scholarship material. So I did not  apply to college. I saw three possibilities. After graduation I could work in the auto factories in Flint or Lansing, wait to be drafted into military service, or enlist. I enlisted in the Marine Corp. It was 1968 and the prospect of going to Vietnam was more appealing than working on an assembly line. It was my service in the Marines and the  G.I. Bill  that finally made it possible for me to  graduate from Michigan State University.

As an adult I better understood  grandma’s bitterness and her perception that she had been held back and cheated by so many educated fools. And I understood her concern that, as a college graduate, I was in danger of becoming one.

Lately I have been thinking of  grandma’s disdain for educated fools. Our current economic meltdown is mostly the fault of deceitful, power hungry, greedy and inept individuals. Most of them are well educated men and women—lawyers, bankers, MBAs, Professors and CEOs—educated fools with degrees from places like Yale, Harvard, MIT and Westpoint.

Today I discern no clear escape. I’m am too old to enlist or be drafted and the auto factories have closed. 

© Michael Maurer Smith 2009