School Yard

My sister Carlota is a guest blogger today.

The School Yard

It seems that the fate of our country and that of so many other countries now reside in the school yard, where pimply faced boys, dressed as grown-ups, scream, “We’re winning! We’re winning!” Declarations of us winning and them losing have become our new foreign policy and we have placed our future in the hands of cretins and lunatics. It doesn’t matter that the other kids, the powerless bystanders in the yard, are being blown to bits.

I remember the “Mission Accomplished” banner on the deck of the aircraft carrier some years ago, and I felt a sinking feeling of despondency and nausea because I knew that this was going to be how the Bush administration henceforth measured our merit on the international playing field. Silly photo-ops and dimwitted “plans” that covered the next news cycle.

I can’t recall a time when we have so diminished the role of intellect and rationality in our conduct of international policy, or indeed, of our own domestic discourse. Can any intelligent person fail to feel embarrassed about the dumbing down of our country’s leadership? How did we end up with such a mortifying level of incompetence?

We asked for it. We voted for imbeciles and then we voted for them again. Not to be outdone, other countries did the same, succumbing to the egomaniacs and martinets who grabbed power and forced their citizens to choose sides in the increasingly pointless game of “Who’s on first?”. We have no monopoly on stupidity.

The feeling of powerlessness and the behavior of inertia have brought us to this playground of carnage. Perhaps most of all, we have selected team captains who just aren’t very bright. They haven’t a clue about history. They haven’t a clue about strategy. They place their faith in simple-minded predictions of biblical Armageddon. And they have no notion of consequences because they have no ability to think critically.

And so our country and its citizens are just waiting. Waiting for the next election. Waiting for the next congressional session. Waiting for an end to it all. Meanwhile more kids in the yard are being blown to bits.

Like the kids who didn’t get chosen for the team, we’ve sulked back to the sidelines, watching with dismay as the captains have pissing contests and fight over the ball. I am ashamed and heartbroken, and I am angry.

M. Carlota Baca, Ph.D.

Santa Fe, New Mexico