Stuck in a Rut

After my 'breakthrough' posting this past Sunday night--the first entry for almost five weeks, it appeared that I had returned from my blogging 'slumber' and was ready to get back into the daily saddle again. Alas, it was not to be...

Monday is the traditional 'back to work' day for most of us working stiffs and I had the added chore of doing the weekly grocery shopping after leaving the office. After catching the 'nouvelles de soirée' from Bob Scheiffer and the lead non-story about the legal circus out in Boulder, Colorado, I went into mental shutdown during dinner with a double dose of syndicated comedy ('The Simpsons' followed by 'Seinfeld') on our local Fox affiliate. At 8PM, the channel changed to MSNBC but Keith Olbermann was traveling and a sub was hosting so I flipped through Time Warner Cable's other offerings in our bedroom. When I came across the Weather Channel, I noticed that we were receiving severe weather warning notices that would not expire until after midnight so the computer was turned off...without me posting a blog entry.

Last night, I decided to watch a movie that I received in the mail on Monday from Blockbuster Online. "V for Vendetta" received a lot of buzz via television and internet advertising as well as theatrical reviews when it opened last spring. Some of that hoopla centered around Natalie Portman ('Evey') having her long locks of hair shorn down to their nubs (I won't go into the innuendo or discussion that this unorthodox action stirred up on some of the discussion sites I visited). The setting for the movie is Great Britain (at least I think it was still called that) in the not-too-near future (believe about 30 years from now) and they are under totalitarian rule after several biological attacks by supposed religious extremists scared the public to back such a government.

Since I never read the comic book series of the same name by Alan Moore, the film version was not tainted by any preconceived notions or expectations. Plenty of readers have vilified the Wachowski brothers (of "The Matrix" franchise) for transforming the original story from a commentary about Margaret Thatcher's governments (Britain's prime minister from 1979 to late 1990) into a Bush-era 'parable', complete with secure underground locations and the main character now posing as a freedom fighter instead of an anarchist. No matter the controversy, I found the movie to be very entertaining and, as the Brits would say, 'spot on' in its criticism of the current American state of affairs.

One of the rewards I get from watching movies that are set in locations where I used to live is that seeing famous landmarks on the screen (the Parliament building played a major role at the end of the film) triggers personal memories of me or my family visiting them. I was fortunate enough to tour through the various halls of the British legislature and we actually got to go inside the House of Commons (they weren't in session so we were able to sit in the seats and pretend we were 'backbenchers'). Normally, you are only allowed to 'peek' inside or step up to (but not cross) the 'blood line' (a red strip of carpet that harkens back to the days when swords were commonplace) that circles the room. Now that sessions of Parliament are televised live (like our own Congressional sessions are broadcast on the C-SPAN networks), the anticipation of peering into a veiled-off part of democracy (and our own past) has subsided.

The other odd recollection was the movie's focus on Guy Fawkes and the famous 'Gunpowder Plot' to blow up Parliament back in 1605 (the movie was supposed to open on the 400th anniversary of that event--November 5th, 2005--but it was inexplicably moved back to the following April). Both times when we were stationed in the UK, my wife and I lived on a military installation and did not get to truly experience English life like the Brits did. We did our share of traveling and going off of the base, but we didn't get that sense of communion with our temporary hosts as someone who lived next door or had over for meals. However, I do remember one year where I noticed fireworks in the distance on a cold November evening. Being a typical 'yank', I thought that Americans were the only ones that used such pyrotechnic displays to commemorate important occasions (like the 4th of July--which in itself is a weird thing to experience when you are physically standing in the country that we broke away from). At work the following day, I asked around my duty section about what I saw the previous night and was then first told about one of history's most famous anarchist/terrorists.

The film uses the lines from a popular British childrens' rhyme that perpetrates the event:

Remember, remember, the 5th of November
The Gunpowder Treason and plot;
I know of no reason why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

So that's where my Tuesday went...well worth it...

What about tonight? More errands after work (our son turns 16 tomorrow and we normally wait until the last minute to plan for such occasions) and a quick run out to the local Taco Bell to pick up some dinner drained any surplus creative energy I might've stored up for blogging. I did catch MSNBC's 'Countdown' broadcast and Keith Olbermann's on-air skewering of Donald Rumsfeld's remarks at the American Legion convention this past Monday (tonight was his first night back from a long weekend away). During that speech, the Secretary of Defense evoked mental imagery and drew deliberate analogies between today's dissenters of the White House's Iraq war strategy and the Chamberlain government of 1930s Britain (the main proponents of 'appeasing' Hitler during his early annexations of his neighboring countries). Olbermann took those comparisons one step further and equated the Bush Administration to those same British politicians in terms of ignoring intelligence and being the only true arbiter of 'truth' in today's political landscape. The video is already posted online and I'm sure it will evoke a 'digital tsunami' of commentary, both pro and con, before it fades to the backburner when another 'crisis' or sensational story grabs the nation's short attention spans.

Listening to such political rhetoric reminds me of Godwin's Law, which states the following:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

I believe this axiom could be rewritten to fit the 2006 political landscape:

As a politician's platform precipitiously falls out of popular favor and the potential for defeat increases, the probabability of comparing his/her opponent to Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

They (the Nazis or their infamous leader) are the last remaining 'politically correct' group that can be attacked without fear of retribution in this country (homosexuals are just now being allowed to depart that exclusive 'club'--to the detriment of the religious right). However, when you throw out that remaining 'trump card', you are in essence telling your opponent one of two things: a) that you possess no other rational or relative facts for use in defending your own perspective; or b) you are old enough to remember the Nazis and their effects upon your own life or the world at that time.

The '4th Reich' is not the exclusive property of either of America's major political parties. West Virginia Democratic senator Robert Byrd mentioned the Nazis in a floor speech defending an attempt by Republican senators to limit speeches on judicial nominees as part of their proposed 'nuclear option' threat during the recent Supreme Court nominee deliberations. Byrd referred to his GOP colleagues as the 'tyrannical majority' and revived the imagery of Hitler and Mussolini for consumption by the media. In his case (he's 89 years old), he easily meets the b) criteria stated above and, in my opinion, did not trespass into 'desperation' territory. In comparison, Rumsfeld used his epithets as a 'boogie man' to plant the seed of fear into those already in the White House's fold as well as others who may still be undecided on their policies or are starting to lose faith. While Rumsfeld may barely qualify for the latter above, the rhetoric he spewed easily exemplifies a) and the dearth of solutions from the Bush Administration on Iraq and other pressing national issues.

Wow...it's now Thursday (12:25AM)...Wednesday's gone...with a birthday tomorrow, I'm guessing it'll be Friday before I get another chance to put thoughts to keyboard...