Our Crowded Mirrors

Like a funhouse mirror, popular culture always offers a reflection of society, exaggerated and distorted but real. 

Case in point: the surprising number of commercials that feature people conversing with multiple versions of themselves. Nobody else is there. 

It’s Madison Avenue’s perfect symbolic representation of this increasingly narcissistic “selfie” society.

Mark Staff Brandl said, “I never considered that. Good observation. The ultimate Ayn Randian, neolib breakdown of society.”

I replied, “Bingo! With everybody tracing the sign of the dollar in the night sky.”

Attention Must Not Be Paid

It wants eyeballs.

Attention must not be paid

To that nagging screen.

You Aren't Here

 

"You Are Here," insists

that helpful yellow arrow.

But it's wrong, isn't it?

Check This Out

The strange sights of 2023: eight or 10 people were waiting in line at the Walmart self check-out station while, right next to it, a cashier stands patiently waiting for customers.

I could only presume that a) they had taken up waiting in line as a hobby, or b) they had been digitally trained to avoid all human contact, or c) they’re shoplifters.

I might have come up with more possible explanations, but I was already out the door with my purchases while they were still waiting.

Habit and Happiness: A Ritual Reminder

Author Allan G. Hunter advocates “…a form of ritual that reminds us how we wish to live.”

“My own ritual of leaving work includes such things as making sure I hold doors for others as I leave the building, rather than rushing through, and if I drive I make sure to let other cars go first,” Hunter wrote. 

“Most people are anxious to get home, so it’s actually a good idea to be out of the way of anxious drivers. I do it for another reason, though. I do it to remind myself that I’m going, where I want the atmosphere to be helpful and considerate, and I may as well practice that along the way. I’ve tried jumping into my car and racing home to complain about my colleagues. I did for years. It wastes a perfectly good evening.

“And that brings us neatly to the concept of how you can deal with this is you’re working from home. Be very careful about this, or you will turn your entire home into your workplace, and you’ll never actually leave work.”

Thich Nhat Hanh had a similar idea. “We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves,” he advised. “And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.”

Don't Pretend You Don't Know Where This Goes

As Umair Haque observed, “Think back in recent history. Those of us who warned? That this was an implosive social movement led by a demagogue? Who came right out and used the word ‘fascism?’ What were we met with? Laughter, mockery, disdain.”

I remember thinking on Jan. 6, 2021, that now, finally, here was something the corporate news media couldn’t “normalize” — the Republican attempt to overthrow American democracy in plain sight. 

Boy was I wrong.

The overridingly significant political issue in this country is the very one that the cowardly corporate news media refuses to address: the fact that the GOP is now a fascist party. 

And Trump is merely a symptom. The Republican Party itself is the raging epidemic.

The 21st century GOP is entirely fascist, from Dumb Donald and Moscow Mitch at the top right on down to the snickerdoodle-baking, church-going granny who’s sure all problems can be traced to those awful “Chicago people” (hint, hint) that Fox News keeps warning the old bats about.

The GOP is now nothing but a wrecking ball that swings randomly, smashing this democratic institution here, that rule of law there. And the only job the Democratic Party has now is holding out against totalitarian Republican fascism.

The GOP is on a tortuous political path, but I know where it ends: with them putting us in front of a firing squad. 

Fascism is, after all, so tediously predictable.