Weary of the Bush-Man

[Prophet 451]

Am I the only one who is bored of George W. Bush? It seems he has managed to instill in us a kind of "outrage fatigue". It's difficult to summon up another helping of fresh indignation for each atrocity against reason and compassion that this administration inflicts. There is a story I am fond of which goes like this: A young soldier, freshly deployed to war from basic training, passes by an infant with a bayonet through it. He breaks down and weeps. "My god" he thinks "war is hell" and indeed, it is but after a while, he pulls himself together and moves on. A mile down the road, same thing and again, he weeps but this time, he pulls himself together that little bit quicker. Another mile, same thing and this time, he just reflects for a while. by the tenth such corpse, he's not even slowing down. By the twentieth, he's not even bothering to look.

The point is that humanity has an amazing ability to adapt to the very worst of conditions. This is why politicians tend to do their very worst between election years, because they realise that, if given a while, people will adapt to it, they will forget the outrage, they may even come to like it. What then, can we make of Bush? The man has been in office now for over six years and every day, it seems, his administration serves up a fresh helping of the criminal, the corrupt and the just plain stupid. So many heinous acts that it becomes difficult to care about each individual one. "Figures" you think as another action slices away another piece of everything the USA once stood for but it's difficult to get worked up about it. Outrage is a powerful emotion, takes a lot of energy and there's a limit to the time a body can keep that up for. Perhaps that has been Bush's triumph, that we have become so innured to his lies, his inadequecy, his casual criminality that we can't even summon up the energy to be outraged anymore. The best we can come up with is a kind of dispirited anger, a sort of blunt hatred.

[shance]

1. Brilliant, and of course that is their goal - to wear us all down, to break us.

To drain us of our resources so we have nothing to fight back with.

Wonderfully "prophetic", wise words you write.

Thanks for posting.

[blue cat]

2. Wow

I'm there.

[brer cat]

3. Brilliant post!

But, then there are the heath issues.

"Outrage is a powerful emotion, takes a lot of energy and there's a limit to the time a body can keep that up for."

How many of us are suffering from depression, stomach ulcers, hypertension, etc. from the anger and angst of the * administration? Those symptoms are alive and thriving, unfortunately in my family.

[Prophet 451]

4. I think it was Jung

who believed that a good portion of his pateints were not actually mentally ill but suffering an understandable reaction to teh times they lived in.