reruns

Joe and I had a date night on Friday, it was his turn to select the movie and we ended up watching Nightmare on Elm Street, the remake. (What we do for those we love). For about 15 minutes prior to the movie we were treated to commercials (when did that happen, paying $12 for a ticket and having to watch commercials), and then the bevy of coming attractions.

Four out of the five clips we watched were sneak previews of movies redone, remade or part 3 or 4 of existing movies. Nothing was new. The rehashed threads of so-so movies were being presented as new and exciting oh yeah and with a 3D touch to it. It reminded me of a lyric to a song which went, “…everything old is new again…”

Old is new again even in the warped politics of this country.

The Tea Baggers reminisce about the Revolutionary War days; the days of unfair taxation, the days of victimization, the days of fighting tyranny. They wallow in colonial costumes muskets in hand mobilizing their forces to fight the King (who we call the President but many a Tea Bagger insist looks like the Joker or Adolph Hitler), the taxation without representation, and the perceived grievances against a government that won’t lay back and let bigotry and bias float to the top. They want to revolt once again because in the last election, voters ballots counted ( the Supreme Court did not decide the election), change happened, and a man of color was elected to run a country perceived to be a white’s only country by many of the Tea Bag community.

The state of Virginia is cozying up to the ideals of the Confederacy. The Governor a few weeks ago presented a proclamation declaring April a Confederate History Month; a time to celebrate the accomplishments of those who declared war against the United States. And in his quest to woo the Aryans, the White Supremacist, the narrow minded bigots, the Governor forgot to address the whole issue of slavery. The Governor when pressed said that slavery was insignificant to all the good causes of the Confederacy. Ah the days of owning another human being, the days of racial superiority, the days of less than.

The state of Arizona has reflected on the kinder nature of Germany in the 30’s; the days when any citizen could not walk the streets of any neighborhood without being asked for their papers with the passage of their new immigration law. The days when if you looked Jewish or non Aryan, or just didn’t look like someone the Gestapo liked, you could be summoned to court and ousted from your country. The days when we were told that ethnic cleansing would help the economy, would bring back jobs to those who had previously refused to work, when pride would surely be restored to a nation because people different than us were the reason for so much bad stuff.

FOX not so much news but more noise has encouraged Glenn Beck to reminisce about the late 40’s and early 50;s as he takes to his chalk board and draws inconceivable parallels to the Obama administration and any Democrat as being fascist, socialists, communists. Close your eyes and you can hear Senator Joseph McCarthy asking anyone on his enemies list, “…have you now or ever been a member of the Communist party…”? Mr. Beck needs no truth to his aspersions, he needs no fact to demonstrate traitors and terrorists, and he needs no notion of fair and balanced to accuse anyone with compassion or care as being the boggy man. Nope, all he needs is the fear of the lemming, the bigotry of the self victimized, the hate of the human who can only win while others lose.

I was told by people in the entertainment biz that it’s all about the bottom line these days; that the easiest way to make a buck is the quickest way to financial success, thus the tired remakes of bad ideas from the past. It’s a business and profits speak louder than say quality.

Seems in this country it is about profits when it comes to politics. Recession, rewinds hatred and evil. It’s not much about how I can move ahead but more about pushing someone out of the way. It’s not about the WE, but about ME. It’s not about finding consensus, but creating disarray.

When do we stop living a life like the movie Groundhog Day, where the same thing replays over and over again? When do the reruns stop running and the fresh buds of promise and pride rise from the ground? When does doom and disaster, bias and bigotry, selfish and self serving stop reigning high at the box office of American life? And will the elections of 2012 be called Bush/ Cheney part 3?