Regarding Talking Heads

I will now delve into the realm of what is often referred to as the “talking heads’: those ever-present caricatures of intellect that appear regularly on the television or the radio assaulting unsuspecting listeners with their pseudo-ideas, rudimentary and often spurious analyses of the social and political events of the day and their faulty and ill-conceived conclusions. I am particularly referring to the right wing extremists such as Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity and their comrades. These individuals are transparent in their blind support for the continued control of the State by the well-entrenched oligarchy. The main weapon in their arsenal is the exploitation of fear and ignorance of those susceptible to their message. In their current repertoire are the twin watchwords of terrorism and socialism. The terminology they employ purposefully avoids thoughtful or meaningful consideration of the truth. Their views are often comic distortions of reality. In their attempt to portray socialism as the embodiment of an evil doctrine, they display their complete ignorance of what socialism is or its historic development. In addition, they conveniently bypassed the impact of the failed system they support which is, in many ways, a backwards socialism in which the wealth flows from the many to the few who already have amassed significant amounts of wealth.

Most importantly, these proponents of the status quo who author commentaries that are filled with mean-spirited vilifications of their opponents, offer no solutions of their own to help resolve the many problems that face the society at large. They, in fact, deny that there any problems of significant importance to begin with. For example, to them there is nothing wrong with our health care delivery system despite the fact that there tens of millions of individuals unable to afford health care for themselves or their families. Their blistering attacks on homosexuals, the poor, unionized labor, women’s rights, immigrants, etc are both disingenuous and reprehensible. Furthermore they are useless and of little value, in my mind, for they do nothing constructive for their country and its people though they profess to be unassailable patriots. They exploit their listeners and extract a fortune based on their ability to attract the disaffected and further polarize the country. The game of exploitative capitalism that they are so adept at undermines the possibility of national healing that is so crucial at this time.

During infrequent bouts of wild inexplicable optimism, I suspect they will be ultimately consumed by their own venom.