Heavy Mental Solos

A close friend pointed to the racist plot to kill Obama as evidence that not only are there crazy crackers out there, cleaning their weapons, prepping for the defining act, but that my digs at Obamanation are misplaced. "What America are you looking at?" he recently asked me. I smiled, then asked him the same question.

In a land of some 300 million people, disparate perceptions are inevitable. And that's just the basic wiring. Mix in countless layers of lies, delusions, fantasies, and propaganda, and individual takes fly in every possible direction. You need only watch this wretched campaign to know that. Right wing fears about Obama are mostly insane, and I wonder how many reactionaries honestly believe their own rhetoric. Liberals of course are living in the clouds, counting down to ecstasy, though some still chew their fingers, convinced that the GOP will steal the election. I tell those who've expressed this fear to me that only close elections can be stolen. And I don't think next Tuesday is gonna be all that close. Sure, anything can happen, since electoral theft is a sturdy American tradition. But McCain would have to reach from outer space to fix this thing in his favor.

That there are violent rednecks who despise Obama is certainly no shock. Liberal sites have featured numerous videos of stupid white people spouting racist garbage, and this won't end with Obama's victory. Once he's in, we'll see more and more white anger and insecurity, which online libs will use to inspire further support for Their President. If open racists didn't make it so easy for them, liberals would have to dig through right wing sites, looking for any scrap of usable hatred in order to justify their acquiescence. Indeed, far from being appalled by racist speech, many liberals court it, waving BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA like a red flag in a maddened bull's face. His name alone inspires fear!

Cynical is the least of it. We passed cynical ages ago.

So what "America" are we living in? It seems to me that Obama is either demonized or deified -- a dance of competing illusions. Then again, I had peyote for breakfast, and my spirit guide, a child in a wrestler's mask, is flooding my brain with luminous visions, revealing a path where time collapses and cascades to old cartoon music. Your hallucinations may vary.