Bear with me - I've never blogged before. I'm the type of guy who reads letters to the editor and says "right on!" or "you're crazy!" and then starts to formulate my own response but then gets tangled in arguments and counter-arguments and never actually writes a letter. Hence the title of this blog. Don't get me wrong, I have lots of firm ideas on how the world should be run, it's just that I understand that in many cases there are very few "facts" and lots of "opinions" and when I try to justify my stance, I get wrapped up in all the nuances and subtleties and find myself in a cave with lots of paths to follow and I'm not sure which one leads to the air and light. Know what I mean? And not only that, but I'm as biased as anyone else I know and probably put more weight on things that agree with me and less on those that don't.
So, what it all boils down to is that I'm a "Compassionate Liberal" (forgive me!) I'm probably as far left as Dennis Kucinich (in 2004, on an Internet political site, he was the candidates whose views I matched 100%). But, when I try to express my views in a public forum, I start to see all these grey areas and I see the other side of the argument and I start trying to answer those other arguments in my head and then I never actually write anything!
Take Georgia for instance (please!) - not the one in the US but the one on the border of Russia. I look on the map and look in the media and all I see is grey. Well not everything I read in the media is grey, it's just that the sum total is grey. But most politicians can't be perceived as seeing grey - they must be decisive where decisive means identifying one side of the argument as wrong or evil and the other side as right or good and indecisive means "wait a second, let's look at this situation and talk about it and not jump to conclusions." So where is the right and wrong in Georgia? I don't think there really is a right and a wrong. What happened is that people got killed and injured and that's wrong - but whose fault is it? How far back in history do you want to go to determine whose fault it is? What would you do if you were Georgia? If you were Russia? If you were the United States? How about The Republic of Texas and the Mexican-American War? The Cuban Missile Crisis? Salvador Allende in Chile? Saddam Hussein in Iraq? No, obviously these things aren't all equal, they're just other situations where people don't see eye-to-eye on what's right and what's wrong. And I could go on.
But I won't for now. Now I'll just go and watch the news and throw shoes at the TV.
2 comments:
I think the voters demand leaders who think in black and white. They want someone who is decisive and so vote for those who label their opponent as "wishy-washy" or as people who "flip-flop" on the issues... Hence- GWB. Who has never revised an opinion based on the facts in the last eight years.
Grey is colorless, unexciting- and the nature of life.
I think. But then again...
Thanks for sharing all of this...
a brilliant blog, a slog of a blog, which, not being a blog hog, (this being my first attempt at reading one, let alone answering)I enjoyed for its authenticity, its humanity...my definition of humanity being, (here at least)rejecting any kind of God`s eye view, admitting that, as mortals, we don`t see the whole picture, at least not while the picture is being painted. Our heads are round, after all, so that opinions can go full circle. As to grey, I rather like it. Maybe the best we can do is find shades within, dark and light, chiarascura.
Post a Comment