There are days I really don’t feel like writing this blog. This is one of those days. Readership is down from a peak of nearly 100 a few weeks ago to just a few dozen now, and yes, I know, whining about it doesn’t do a thing to drive traffic. But I find myself upset when even my most devoted followers post comments in opposition to my fervently held convictions. Don’t get me wrong. I love comments, even the negative ones, but like any pundit, analyst, or commentator, I ultimately seek validation. I like a lively debate as well as the next guy, and I always try to reply to negative comments in an intelligent and nonconfrontational manner, and to employ evidence and logic to support my points, whatever they may be. But it’s lonely out here in the thin air of extreme liberalism. There aren’t a lot of people huddled around me here on the leading edge of the bell curve. I’d appreciate a call from Rachel Maddow or Dennis Kucinich or maybe just a text from Al Sharpton, but I guess I’m not in any of those Rolodexes.
I sometimes get to the point where I self-edit, not out of concerns for style, grammar, or veracity, but out of a fear of offense. I’ve been stuck on the Michael Brown story for the last week, and when it was current, I was glued to the Trayvon Martin saga as well. My sense of outrage over this senseless shooting, that I can only think of as a police murder, grows with each new revelation and each new brutal police incident. When I see footage of a St. Louis cop pointing his M-16 into a crowd and shouting, “I will fucking kill you!”, my personal bias is to view it not as an anomaly or single bad apple, but as typical of the generally brutal mindset of police everywhere. When I see the video of two St. Louis police shooting Kajieme Powell on Tuesday, I’m struck by the unsurprisingly banal quality of the encounter, totally at odds with the verbal police account of a man attacking them with an upraised knife, and it reinforces my personal perception of police not as servers and protectors, but as self-appointed judges and juries and executioners. And then I worry that if among my few dozen readers, there might happen to be a police officer, then I might be personally targeted for “special attention”. It goes against my long-held mantra that the only way to remain unmolested in a police state is to never rise above the radar of those in control. But beyond worrying about material adverse consequences, I’m concerned about inciting offense and suffering invective and maybe even losing the few readers I currently have.
When I really know that I’m on the edge of the envelope is when I run an idea past Mrs. Left, and she not only disagrees with my position, but suggests that I’d be well-advised to keep it out of print. The thing is, that even in those situations, and I’ve had one recently, I don’t really believe I’m wrong. In fact, I sometimes can’t quite understand why roughly 319,999, 999 other Americans feel diametrically opposed to my point of view. Perhaps it’s mass hysteria or maybe it’s some genetic flaw in my own makeup. Or maybe everyone else is right and I’m wrong…nah, that couldn’t be it.
Anyway, tomorrow I’ll try to bang out some light entertainment in Celebrities Behaving Badly. That’s unlikely to offend anyone, other than maybe Justin Bieber, and nothing in the world would make me happier than getting some personal hate-mail from the Biebs. Stay tuned.
BW
Kibbitz Corner 