American Buddhist Net

From the get-go, I just assumed that I was reading a satirical piece, meant to showcase the vapidity of this “election” in general and of Barack Obama's candidacy of cool specifically.

Walkom describes the party which concluded last week's Democratic National Convention as a "rollicking celebration", full of drama, reconciliations, and rock music. Uber-hip Obama "didn't say much" but it didn't matter because, as the title of the article says, "the man [was] the message." His very demeanor "shrieked out" various reassuring messages such as, "Sure, I'm black. But I'm white too. In fact, I'm post-racial as well as post-ideological." Obama admonished his audience to stay focused on "that better place around the bend." And the masses were treated to an extra dose of warm fuzzies from Obama's wife who "demonstrated on national television that she was nice", and reaffirmed what all the hugging, cheering, pizza-eating spectators knew already; namely, that her husband, "gets it."

Yes, I read this all the way through as an ironical commentary on the cheap puppet show that some are calling an election.

I was surprised, therefore, to find that many of the comments below the article seemed to be taking it seriously. "Looks as if the Star's columnists have become cheerleaders for Obama much as rock fans cheer for Madonna..." "While I'm not entirely sold on Obama as the saviour of the free world, I'm willing to take a chance that he might be...." and "Excellent Article, Thomas. If there was ever a time in American politics when the country so greatly needed to change course, I do not know of it."

This makes me wonder...is the population, as I read recently, suffering from an acute "irony deficit"? Or is it me? Have I gone insane? Am I hallucinating irony where there is none?

I guess I wouldn’t be surprised. Afterall, don’t we hallucinate BEAUTY when we swoon over fake boobs; MEANING when we engage in serious discussion about the philosophical implications of Seinfeld; CONTENTMENT when we go for a Botox injection; and POWER when we consider who we’ll “vote” for?

The truth is that we are a nation of crazies. And soon there will be no more pretending.

The next stop along this boulevard of broken dreams is abject derangement on a mass scale. If the inhabitants of this planet are actually human at their core then they will eventually have to fight back or else break. All the sticky booths at all the Denny’s restaurants around the world will be full of lonely crazies, slurping quarts of apple juice and muttering, "The better place around the bend, the better place around the bend, the better place, the better place, around the bend, around the bend..."

I guess I’ll see you there.