The Public Opines

I was listening to NPR on Sunday, on the way from my writing workshop to a party in Santa Monica, and a piece was being done about the inertia of American public opinion. How -- despite factual revelations to the contrary -- a staggering percentage of the polled still believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the World Trade Center attacks and assorted other lies propagated by the current administration, even after those lies have been rescinded by the liars who first spoke them. The point of the discussion was why it is that Americans hear a poltician say something and then can't seem to expunge it from their thinking, even after it has been contradicted or debunked by reputable sources in the news media. And this isn't the first time in history this thought-centered immobility has been extant. American support for our involvement in Vietnam took more than two years to wane, regardless of what was being reported. It wasn't until the Tet Offensive that the tide of public opinion turned. It's frightening and further highlights the onerous responsibility on the shoulders of those to whom fame and power have given an audible voice. Stop lying, you liars. People are believing you and it is making the world a shithole.

I had so many potentially astute and eloquent comments to make on this subject, but that was days ago, and I have lost the inspired tendrils. That happens to me all the time. More often recently than ever before. The muse whispers and I bat her away, opting instead for painting or reading or a bath or a drink. Anything but the cogent assembly of thoughts and ideas I am convinced no one really wants to hear.

Later that night, on Loveline, Adam scolded a young woman for liking a guy who was bad news saying, "The only thing that could make that guy worse is if he had crabs in his eyebrows." I laughed and laughed.