Patience Breeds Cynicism, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #133

August 31, 2009 Mike Gold 3 Comments

Linda and I were watching the BBC news a couple days ago; they were covering the Japanese election. Japan has been on the skids the past decade and the people are pissed. The long-standing Liberal Democratic Party, which is about as liberal as the National Socialist Party (a.k.a. the Nazis) was socialist, in coalition with big business and bureaucrats, was dumped big-time after a half century of near-uninterrupted rule.

Hang on. All this becomes American in a minute.

Here’s a simple equation for you: government plus government bureaucracy plus big business equals the textbook definition of fascism. Honest; “fascism” has nothing to do with lock-step goosestepping in hob-nailed boots, Ayn Rand-like posters and well-tailored uniforms. If art direction won wars, we’d all be speaking German today. So, 64 years after the Nagasaki bombing, Japan finally shook off the tyranny of the Right.

Well, maybe yes, maybe no. It remains to be seen. We went through something similar, and so far that ain’t working out so good.
 

The BBC interviewed a bunch of local Japanese folk, and virtually all of them said they really didn’t expect anything to change… it was just time for a change. They’ll take what they can get.

Perhaps this attitude comes from the fact that Japan – like the rest of the “Old World” – is a comparatively ancient culture. After a couple centuries, you settle into a permanent cynicism.

Outside of a handful of noisy malcontents, we’re getting to the point where our national patience is evolving into the same sort of cynicism. In Barack Obama’s seven months in office, he’s maintained the “don’t ask don’t tell” discrimination in the military. He could have overturned it with a stroke of the pen. He’s already sold out to Big Pharm, and the insurance companies damn well Obama will suck anything for something that can be perceived as a win.

When it comes to political acumen, there are few in this nation for whom I have more respect than Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, but I can’t tell you the last time I’ve seen a major campaign blown so badly – outside of the Chicago Cubs, Rahm’s home team by birthright. I, too, love the Cubs but I wouldn’t use them as a model for organizing a box of Saltines, let alone health care reform.

We’ve expanded our military presence in Afghanistan as the obvious uselessness of such action grows exponentially. Meanwhile, Pakistan is going to hell in a hand basket, overrun by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Unlike Afghanistan, Pakistan has nukes. Big ones. Pointed at India. Where most of America’s jobs went. Aside from the genocide of one and one-eighth billion people, blowing India off the face of the Earth will not inure to America’s economic benefit.
So I’ve come to understand and even identify Japan’s quiet cynicism. America was more than just a nation, it was a concept. It represented the highest humanitarian hopes and ambitions of a democratic society.

Oh, how I long for those days.

—
Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking bizarro music and blather show starts up Sundays at 7:00 PM Eastern on  www.getthepointradio.com , replayed the following Thursdays at 10:00 PM Eastern. Likewise, his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind rants pop up every on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday exclusively at  www.getthepointradio.com . The regular Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind rants continue every Monday and Friday on The Point podcasts, available right here at  www.michaeldavisworld.com , as well as at www.comicmix.com, www.getthepointradio.com,www.zzcomics.com, and www.ravenwolfstudios.com. You can subscribe to The Point podcasts at iTunes by searching under “The Point Radio.”   

Gold is also a regular contributor to www comicmix.com, and edits their online comic book content. Check out the all-new GrimJack: The Manx Cat #4, Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes of Eden #2, and the graphic novelDemons of Sherwood now being solicited in the IDW Publishing section of this month’s Diamond catalog.  

And Gold, who often writes about himself in the third person, is waiting on some sort of proposal from Michael Davis and Denys Cowan. Hello….?