The view from the sewer

A snapshot one would take of America on any given day is going to be even more dismaying than the previous one. That's just where we are.

Much ink and airtime has been devoted in recent days to the significance of this "Occupy" phenomenon. It started with Wall Street, spread to DC, and now there are little tent cities full of bratty, clueless neo-hippies and their union-thug masters in such cities as Fort Worth and Des Moines. (Gateway Pundit calls these outposts "poopstocks.") All I would add to the mix of observations is that in its coarseness and incoherence it is utterly to be expected. This is the state of our culture. If it's rough, crude and conceptually mediocre, it merits a prominent placing on the Yahoo browser. Exhibitionists with idiotic names get top billing in the circus that is our culture. Lady Gaga and Rhianna graced my homepage today. So there's no surprise that this "Occupy" franchise chain is a warmed-over display of the same countercultural snottiness we've seen in every decade for the last five. The tie-dye-and-dreadlocks crowd was out of ideas, even for names for its musical acts and protest rallies, years ago.
Then there is the spectacle of Herman Cain having to take time away from his message of free-market economics, personal excellence and American greatness to address the embarassingly infantile charges of racial inauthenticity hurled by such moral dwarves as Cornel West, Harry Belafonte and Lawrence O'Donnell.
The way has been paved all year, starting with SEIU goons and teachers with phony sick-leave documentation storming the capital rotundas in Madison Wisconsin and other Midwestern seats of government. Then there were the fast-food-restaurant beat-downs and flash-mob riots that proliferated over the spring and summer.
Of course, the economy isn't improving, and the Freedom-Haters in government and among the pundit and academic classes couldn't be more delighted. America, the repository of all they wish to destroy, is being brought to its knees.
And presiding over all this is a figure who, by an increasing number of first-hand accounts, is so aloof to it as to invite speculation that he is shutting down emotionally, giving up on even trying to really lead anybody or anything.
Anyone who remembers what the terms "dignity," "nobility," "excellence," "loyalty," "initiatve," "fun" amd "joy" mean has an obligation to live in such a way as to try to encourage those traits to thrive in our society. One must do so, however, with the full knowledge that it is largely a thankless task. Striving to extol those virtues means nothing to most people anymore. Still, if one doesn't so strive, one has gone over to the ranks of the barbarians, and the ranks of those who give a flying frick abour safety, freedom and happiness will have just decreased by one.