Somewhere along the road it became okay for politicians to lie. Yes, I know many politicians have lied, often about very serious matters, but when did it become acceptable to lie about small things. Sure, some senator takes a bundle of cash, he’s going to lie about that all the way to the bank or jail.
Now we have politicos lying about silly things.
“Senator, we have a video of you saying the sky is green, do you stand by those words?” “No way in hell I ever said that. What kind of fool do you think I am? I know the sky is not green. My god, you people just make up shit all the time.”
“Senator, how about the video?”
“Must be a fake video, I never, ever said anything about the sky, ever!”
One of the standard history yarns often told in grade school was that George Washington confessed to chopping down a tree because he could not tell a lie. I kind of have doubts about that story, but here we are years and years later, and it would almost appear he was the last president who didn’t lie.
Ayn Rand, who wrote one of the worst books I have ever read, said selfishness was what all people should strive for, forget empathy, forget forgiveness, generosity, you know all those Sunday school words. Look out for number one and do or say anything to make yourself happy, rich, famous, and powerful.
Rand experienced a traumatic childhood during the aftereffects of the Russian revolution and turned that pain into a vengeance against decency. So many of the people who try to influence us as leaders in destructive ways probably came from similar backgrounds of unhappiness. If I’m miserable, I want all you losers to be miserable too.
I know it would be a silly test, but maybe we should only elect leaders with a sense of humor and a penchant for kindness. The days of choosing the meanest, most brutal, biggest asshole in the tribe are over, I think. The logic before was as a leader he could defend the tribe from the enemies biggest, meanest asshole. While that is an intriguing possibility in this world, bring it on Putin, I don’t think that is going to replace nukes and diplomacy.
Some years ago, I quizzed a select group of people, yes a bar was involved, about the qualities of leadership that would be the most desirable. Modern people gave answers that sounded very cave mannish. Strength, tall, takes no bullshit off anyone and more words along those lines (it was a male audience, and no female qualities were mentioned).
I pushed back and asked about intelligence, honesty, character, caring, loving, good person kind of stuff. Mostly I got shrugs. They wanted a champion not a leader.
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My latest project is a product-based retail website: www.myusagifts.com. Most of the products are based on designs I created or selected/curated. During this project I have connected with Native American designs.
My visual art has always been bold, colorful, and primitive (?). The primitive description was added by an art critic and was stated as a fact not a criticism. It never settled with me as a good thing—but there it was.
What I was not recognizing is that much of what I liked, painted, drew, imagined was greatly influenced by Native American art and designs. Suddenly it dawned on me that my art was being influenced by a heritage that I hardly recognized. How does that happen?
Of course, it could be just a coincidence that my art had some of the same style, color relationships as Native American art. For one, native art is vast and not all the same.
My grandmother was Native American. My father did not discuss this, and I had no idea what tribe she was from and since my experience with her was before I was ten, it kind of got lost in distant memories. She died; it was not discussed in my family, so it just got lost.
Humans seemed to want to move on from their past, or their families past and become something “better”. I’m human, so it’s not surprising that is what I did. But that heritage is still there whether you recognize or accept it. It has influence.
Ted Clifton's Grain of Salt Commentary 