Open letter to Chris Matthews of “Hardball:” Sometimes to go fast is to slow up, and to slow up is to enable going very fast. An old Chinese fortune cookie reads, “Life happens a little bit at a time; otherwise
Open letter to Chris Matthews of “Hardball:” Sometimes to go fast is to slow up, and to slow up is to enable going very fast. An old Chinese fortune cookie reads, “Life happens a little bit at a time; otherwise it would happen all at once.” And an old joke tells that when God handed out bliss, the devil came along and said, “Here, let me organize it.” It is an irony and paradox that in this western world of speed and infinite information, a most powerful country can come to a virtual stop, or at least a very slow counting process – hung up by chads, and of course lawyers. The very people who conceived and invented these elaborate systems of information are now paralyzed by them.
Then, the “messenger,” the bearer of truth, is “shot” because no one has the patience anymore to wait, to bear truth if it is not what they want personally. The Florida secretary of state was in a special hurry; a possible future chief justice of the Supreme Court stalled and delayed to advantage. Is this not the art of self-deceit, self-defeat, and then preoccupation with the bureau? The Hawaiians might say all is not pono at the base.
In the mid-1970s in West Africa, the American Cultural Center in Cameroon suddenly, like a coup, became the USIS – United States Information Service – with Marine guards and Plexiglas 8 steps into the entry. Formerly it had been a cultural center, a warm, extended living room with American music as its greatest ambassador.
With buildup from China and Russia in Africa, the U.S.
responded defensively and aggressively. I mourned the shift. In came the police and defense, out went the arts, culture and trustful living.
My then-husband had been on the staff of the Peace Corps, you surely recall; he took away your motorcycle which you had been using for non-business purposes.
You were not happy. You later parroted stories about Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, as if you were incapable of any such deviations. Beyond the political ballpark, one can field and embrace all these flaws with a soft mitt.
A friend was going to write an article about the politicization of the Peace Corps under Blatchford and Nixon. The 3-to-1 ratio of Democrats to Republicans in Peace Corps Staff reversed totally under Nixon/Blatchford, with Peace Corps directorships cycling through the White House for approval. Principles, established by JFK, of non-affiliation, non-partisan bases were thoroughly corrupted under Nixon. My friend received an anonymous phone call stating that if he ever wrote such an article about politicization, he would never have a foreign service career. He never wrote the article; he went on in a foreign service career.
There’s the Hardball: A very impure alchemy with a lot of lesser mettle mixed in. No wonder we find few heroes or truly honorable men in the political arena, with tactics, skewing and scheming truly horrifying to any innocent mind.
Clinton’s sidestep with Monica might pale in comparison with a former president, head of the CIA, rampantly-rumored to have participated in drug-running, who was so clever and adept in covering up.
Is there no place for wisdom? What kind of Supreme Court can say the clock ran out solely for its own gain to conceal a truth of a nation? The count is the tip of the iceberg, and we all know it now.
You of the media have profited by more than $600 million; attention to news in Africa and other parts of the world slips away in view of insular cycles of American neuroses. At least Plato was confined to a cave; here, shadows walk in Suits of Greed and Aggression masked by accepted and assumed Sobriety.
The TV plays on and on with no shadows, wit “new” information to store the mind. The nation of sheep is numbed by the call of the herder into an unreality of such shocking proportions of neglect and imbalance. “Who cares?” a non-voter can say. Even a vote voted is in question in this so-called greater democracy.
Is ‘Hardball” to keep the same old pitches going, fast, in the same old game? It would be a funny game if not so many were so disenfranchised in the name of so few. How can a country unite under men who have disregarded the most basic rule to win at any cost?
You are well-positioned to say something, Chris. Can you not speak up for a wise leader who gets out of the way and allows the river to run, instead of grabbing greedily for the headwaters?
Leonora Orr, Hanalei
