We need a Dark Knight moment in this country. I'm talking about my favorite scene in the Batman movie in which the black prisoner tears the detonator out of the warden's hands and throws it out of the window of the Staten Island ferry, thus averting the horrible intended outcome of the Joker's "social experiment", in which the passengers on two ferries can save themselves by blowing up the other boat. "I'm doing what you should a done ten minutes ago," he says to the Warden.
We are like those two ferries right now, red and blue camps, ideologically unable to avert the mutual destruction we seem to be inflicting on ourselves, at the mercy of some unknown joker power who seems to have robbed us of common sense and common decency. The truth of how low we have sunk is reflected in the tax debate in Washington and the corollary impact of denying an extension of unemployment benefits to the long term jobless in this season.
Here's my favorite Dark Knight of the moment. Any resemblance to the Joker is purely ironic. Al Franken and his Minnesota common sense cuts to the chase in these Senate floor musings. Some may call it political theater, but sometimes theatrics speak to the broader picture.
I guess we need two parties - the dialectic of left vs. right is what advances the common cause - and like the man said about democracy - it's the worst form of government except all the others, ( Winston Churchill). But it's downright embarrassing, disgraceful, unbelievable, what word would cover this? that we've elected these people who are prepared to go to the wall to preserve tax cuts for the wealthiest among us in a time of economic distress for the weakest among us. As Al said, what are we doing here? For me, it's unacceptable. I'm ready, like the prisoner in Batman, to say, look take my tax cuts and cancel them, too. Out the window with the detonator of this horrible social experiment in which everyone loses.
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