The Land of Crackpots
By: Edgar Saint George,
Editor-in-Chief
When it came out, I watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
I thought it would be informative as well as entertaining. What
might the inside of a madhouse be like?
Entertaining it was, informative it wasn't. The characters were too engaging, even interesting and sympathetic. The plot, such as it was, was amusing. As education, the film failed to prepare me for the alarming character of madness; not just madness, but extremism. With a little effort and self-control, the United States could have been Canada. We could have been rational, compassionate and moderate, a country which willingly helps its citizens and doesn't terrify them; an FDR kind of place. Instead we allowed the United States to become the land of conflict, irrational selfishness and extremism - extremism bordering on national madness. The character "Chief" in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest seems to have had the right idea. The native's world had been made ugly and irrational. He couldn't stand it, or, maybe he didn't want to stand it. Catalepsy may make as much sense as railing against the insanity of our culture. I can sympathize with Chief. Who wants to be part of an ugly reality? The cinema failed to prepare me for the madness of American everyday life. Sure, there's a taint of extremism in just about everyone, but most of us realize it's the ugly fleck of madness that's our imperfection. We don't actually act on our extremism or really want our extreme fantasies to be reality. More to the point, nobody is coaching us. Nobody is out there telling us that it's okay to be the very worst we can be. There's no Crack-Pot-Os preaching at us to be bad. The United States is Canada if Canada were paranoid, really scared and insecure. The United States is Canada with a guilty conscience. The United States is the "Evil Twin." The corporations which manipulate American media want conflict. Conflict is what makes a story interesting. The suckers are more likely to watch or listen if there's a contest, a fight, a conflict. Audience is what brings the corporations their profits. Corporations are immoral and unethical. Ever since Bill Hearst started the Spanish American War to profit from newspaper sales, American corporations have happily used insanity to harm, kill and profit. It would be giving FOX "News" too much credit to say it manipulated the start of the Iraq War. FOX couldn't have done it without active Republican contempt for life and morality. The United States had already sunk to the point that it had put George W. Bush and his insane Gestapo into power. America sold its soul to the worst blackness in its psyche. Hearst's successors in extremism have such a grip on American media that we citizens take Crack-Pot-o-Vision for granted. Certainly FOX is the most immoral. It is lies, distortion, propaganda and the anything for a buck. FOX is the ugly deviant of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It is the black soul of American media, cruel, vial, greedy and dishonest. It is madness with money. It profits from lies. FOX is the media with botulism, the evil spot that most of us try to suppress. FOX "News" doesn't report, it invents. That's a lot easier. It's attractive to America's other media. So now both American television and radio are rancid with extremism. Crack-Pot-O-Vision has become respectable, or at least commonplace. If you look at the worst parts of your personality, the parts you're ashamed to say you possess, there's a Crack-Pot-O out there preaching it, assuring you that your evil defect is okay to express. It goes beyond Beck and Dobbs. Even local commentators happily preach the evil of being bad. Like Chief, there's nothing I can do about about what we've become. I'm catatonic. I suppose that the folks who still have some morality (and I don't mean the crazy Christian biases and hatred) can steer us toward the light if they are disposed to do so. I fear, however, that profits will ferment conflict and contest. Americans are addicted to knowing who's "winning." It sure isn't them!
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