Sunday Reflections

And a damn good Bourbob!

Ahhh…Sunday evening and a break from Relocation Insanity and a chance for some reflection…

Looking back in retrospect…I was struck by the non-stop avalanche of ever-changing, never-changing, simultaneously unique and redundant news, its impact, and after effects from following current events too closely. Such is the plight of the talk show host. The scallywaginess of politics and all its ugly permutations are Daily Minimum Requirements in the Talk biz. A good Bourbon Boost doesn’t hurt either.

During my recent weeks of cross-country relocation and semi-sidelined observations, dots that resisted connection, all part of the same picture, brought back the memory of this song I played on the air when it was new in 1968.

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning, running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!

“Windmills of Your Mind”, Michele Legrand

At some point, consuming, contemplating, and analyzing “the news” recalls a more prescient lyric:

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half-alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do you?

Yeah
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

“Won’t Get Foled Again”, The Who, and the political disillusionment, the cyclical nature of power, emphasizing that despite leadership changes, the underlying issues remain the same; the lyrics created the opportunity to focus on the cynical nature of politics and its corroding effects on all levels of society.

I played that one a lot during my last years in The Biz. It was perfect for a Talk radio show and the audience demographics.

Over the decade or two, thanks to the ubiquity of social media and the recent collapse of the once invincible Legacy Media, many more than imagined have come to see the futility of Government and all its tentacles strangling freedom, liberty and all those who wish for a life in the pursuit of happiness, free of uninvited entanglements and insidious regulations. Only the mega-narcissists and otherwise mentally deranged oppose the goal to Make Orwell Fiction Again.

Despite the occasional “W”, those same current events post more L’s. For every abducted child saved from being “trafficked”, there are reams of overreaching judicial activists attempting to obliterate freedom, security, and basic human rights. Not based on elusive Rule of Law, but the cancer of personal prejudice, avarice, and political bias, wrapped in a black robe, wielding a gavel.

Combined with government corruption and evolving strains of Lawfare, restoring lost freedom and rights has retreated from Hoped For Progress, to a shaky holding pattern with an occasional whiff of “civil war”. President Trump, as the awaited political Messiah, instead seems to be morphing into the “new boss, same as the old boss’. Continuing the Ukraine debacle, unloading on Iran, Gaza, profligate spending and a DOJ becoming as dysfunctional and corrupt as the Biden-Obama years.

Gonzalo Schwarz, Real Clear Politics opines:

“More and more Americans are pessimistic that we can “keep” our republic for the next generation. More people think the US is in a constitutional crisis than believe that democracy still exists. Most are concerned about threats to democracy, and political violence in particular.

It begs the question: What is holding us all together?

Perhaps our founding document said it best about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” keeping the flame of freedom alive.

However, the American Dream is a better representation of American ideals in our current times. There is no better chance at national unity than the American people seeking to live better, richer, and fuller lives, regardless of where they started and their circumstances at birth. It transcends identity politics, and new research proves it.

According to the sixth annual edition of the Archbridge Institute’s “American Dream Snapshot,” people are still optimistic about the promise of America and their own chances of living their dreams.”

OTOH, comedian and political harpoonist. George Carlin famously said, “It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”

Some recent stories you may have missed don’t portend a cheery future. Click on a few of these:

Crazed Democrats spewing anti-American rhetoric, with talking points that sound straight from adversarial regimes like the Communist Party of China;

A newly declassified CIA memo from CIA Chief John Ratcliff revealed that top officials within the Obama administration deliberately manipulated intelligence to exaggerate Russia’s purported 2016 election interference. This set the stage for the years-long Trump-Russia collusion probe.

Jonathan Turley: Troubling questions over the FBI allegedly spiking findings that contradicted the testimony of then-FBI Director Christopher Wray.

We’ve created a world where every stupid thing a fifteen-year-old says gets archived forever.

Across the political left, from orthodox Democrats to Antifa in the streets, the opposition to Trump has lost its collective mind.

And then there is some Good News:

Superintelligence will never survive!

If we truly want to make America great again…we have to start by recognizing the moral sinkhole we're in.

To get back to normal, to shed the burden of absurdities we’ve been heaped with, requires an accounting.

The Democrats are now implacably self-destructive.

Is Rand Paul about to nail Fauci?

Minimize the State’s coercion over you

How about a Third Party?

And the ultimate ecstasy….

What’s gonna be? An objective look at the World at Large – with a not-very-happy ending?

Or just the usual Fear Porn?

Or maybe…is it Progress, showing up with all the speed of a herd of stampeding turtles in a cloud of mud?

Remember: it’s all Kabuki Theater - except the people in the audience and the actors on stage are the same.

BW