Are you feeling the same need to escape reality that I am? Is it politics? Is it Super Storm Sandy? Is it bills or a job search? Is it that you are having trouble sorting out what is real and what is not?
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I have misplaced my car keys and later found them. I have misplaced my reading glasses only to discover them sitting on top of my head. I have lost more gloves in my lifetime than I can remember. I also lose umbrellas. I have taken someone else’s grocery cart and finished my shopping with their stuff at the bottom only to discover my error at the check out counter. Oops.
Lately, with all the Republican shape shifting I am increasingly feeling like I have lost Realworldia. Facts no longer have any currency in the press or the punditry. Consistency, something I value in my leaders, seems to have slipped off into some unknown galaxy, far, far away as Republicans everywhere ‘clarify’ stuff they are on tape saying previously.
Lately I have been thinking not that I want to escape reality but that I want it back. Where did Realworldia go?
Will reading good fiction or a bit of history restore my equilibrium? It hasn’t worked so far. My mind is churning over the loss of real information. What is a progressive to do? Really. I am out there knocking on doors and the conversations encourage me that I am not alone in my worries about WTF is happening. I am on the phones talking with fellow Democrats to GOTV.
But, until the election is won by President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket, I worry. As a professional human resources/organizational development person, I know that the hardest part of change is not “having a vision” but rather telling the truth about where an organization is. If we as a country cannot tell the truth about our current challenges, we cannot and will not solve them.
The GOP are the people who have cast aside reality. Alas, I don’t want to escape it, but I desperately want it back. Paging Realworldia, paging facts and science, paging “we the people” … please wake up and vote for Democrats! They are the party of the real world and the only party that really cares about “we the people.”
October 29, 2012 at 2:20 pm
I’m at a snapping point, too, frankly. Life seems to be striking particularly hard lately, and it’s not just politics.
Realworldia is busy bearing down on the Northeast. Realworldia is going to be about helping one another recover from this storm.
I’m as sick of the lies as you are. And I’m sick of the lying liars and any fools who believe them. I’d like truth back. I’d like it at every level of our civil discourse again. Realworldia isn’t going to be wished away, any more than we can wish Sandy away from our Northeast.
Time to get real.
October 29, 2012 at 3:34 pm
This is not too much to ask! Hugs to you for your “not just politics” travails.
October 29, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Skin Horse explains what is real to the Velveteen Rabbit.
October 29, 2012 at 3:35 pm
Thanks Jim! I can relate to the loose in the joints part.
October 29, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Thanks, Jim. I absolutely love this.
I will read it many times.
October 29, 2012 at 10:19 pm
I recommend the whole book.
October 29, 2012 at 3:14 pm
Novelist Upton Sinclair wrote that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
The same applies to accepting Realworldia. The Romney campaign and the Republican party are premised on a vision of America and the world that is very different from Realworldia.
In their America, anyone who really wants to work can find a job and the only problem with its paycheck will be the amount of taxes deducted.
In their America, those who recognize the systemic injustices against women are the ones who really hate women, those who recognize the systemic injustices against blacks are the real racists, and those who seek marriage equality want “special rights.”
In their America, your boss should be able to tell you how to vote and whether your health insurance will cover contraception, and his company should be able to make unlimited and anonymous campaign contributions, but you should have a ‘right to work’ under a union contract without paying union dues and unions should stay out of politics.
In their world, America is stronger when we fight endless wars against invisible enemies and spend as much as possible on our military even while we can’t educate our children or repair our roads, bridges, or sewers, and when we stand alone and declare ultimatums rather than join with allies and negotiate.
Only in such a universe can it make sense to declare that Obamacare a socialist plot and say that they will move to Canada if President Obama is reelected.
The good news: this too shall pass. On November 7th, at least some of their reasons to reject Realworldia will have ended, because they will no longer be able to profit by pretending to live in an upside-down world where 32 months of private sector job growth with record corporate profits are “anti-business,” where polls that show President Obama leading must be “skewed,” and where declining unemployment is no longer cause for gloom.
October 29, 2012 at 3:39 pm
Their view of the world is so skewed and screwed up. You did a nice job of itemizing the biggies. I hope that November 7th is indeed the end of their ‘vision’. Thanks!
October 29, 2012 at 4:06 pm
That’s an amazingly good description of the Republican dystopia.