raging out

I still haven't finished that post I alluded to a little while back. Actually I haven't even worked on it since then. I had started working on it because I read a few essays that really moved me and I wanted to respond to them. But an ongoing problem is that several times every day I'm moved in the exact same way, and all sense of perspective slips away as I'm motivated in 20 different directions at the same time. The form of the movement is best described as outrage, although elements of frustration, despair, disgust, anger, and sorrow are all in the mix. But we'll call it outrage.

Ours is an outrageous world. Outrageous atrocities are committed on a daily basis and those who are responsible tell outrageous lies about all of it. An outrageous nation with by far the most powerful military force in history uses it to destroy helpless small countries and loot the wreckage, while outrageously preaching to the rest of the world about how noble this is. The internal factions driving this machine somehow manage to blame the carnage on their timid opposition, and the resulting outrage is taken to be proof of the blame. The carnage itself is agreed to be an unfortunate but necessary side effect of the gloriously noble and very important destruction/looting/aggression/killing/spreading-freedom-and-democracy-and-puppies. Heinous war crimes and violations of international law, when impolitely mentioned, are taken to be an indication of how necessary and glorious and noble and important the outrageous aggression must be, but certainly will never be fully acknowledged, yet alone prosecuted. Lies mount upon lies until everyone saying and hearing them knows full well that the words and the truth bear no resemblance. Yet the liars are outraged when their lies are not accepted. Their outrage is loud and bold and coordinated and amplified and effective, in spite of, or more likely because of, its hollow meaninglessness. Dense, genuine outrage is quiet, meek, sloppy. It is and suppressed and impotent.

And I sit here in front of my computer, outraged in a dense and genuine way, wondering what the flying fuck I can do about any of it. I try to write about it but I can't, not really. I try to talk about it but I can't, not really. And so in the end this just amounts to a semi-apologetic self-important lonely pity party, unless of course putting it where other people can read it does some good for anyone else. Then the pity party is a bit less lonely, cause we're certainly not capable of stopping the machine. The outrages accelerate and we won't know what or when the end will be, or if it will be a bang or a whimper or some outrageous third option.