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Patient Shows Signs of Life

“Brain-dead liberal” Mamet stirs. Master of dialog talks himself out of lifelong malaise. Village Voice:  

I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

As a child of the ’60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. “?” she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as “a brain-dead liberal,” and to NPR as “National Palestinian Radio.”

This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.

But in my life, a brief review revealed, everything was not always wrong, and neither was nor is always wrong in the community in which I live, or in my country. Further, it was not always wrong in previous communities in which I lived, and among the various and mobile classes of which I was at various times a part.

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it?

It’s a miracle recovery. The patient is still not out of the woods, though.

I found not only that I didn’t trust the current government (that, to me, was no surprise), but that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.

Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.

He’s been under the treatment of that quack Dr. Moore!  But this appears to be a case of playwright, heal thyself.

Topics: everything

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:37 am on Wednesday, March 12, 2008

9 Responses to “Patient Shows Signs of Life”

1. UrbanGrounds » Blog Archive » David Mamet Talks Himself out of Lifelong Malaise Says:
   March 12th, 2008 at 9:57 am

   [...] Jules Crittenden has a perfect review of Mamet’s tome: “Brain-dead liberal” Mamet stirs. Master of dialog talks himself out of lifelong malaise.” Spread the word: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

2. Fatty Bolger Says:
   March 12th, 2008 at 10:28 am

   David, David, David. May I call you David? I don’t really give a f*** if you think I should, I’m going to anyway, is that f******g okay with you? ‘Cause I could give a f***, you know. I’m just f*******g saying, you know?

   David, I’m glad you’re starting to wake the f*** up. It’s about f******g time. You need to dump those f******g liberal myths, though, OK? Bush stole the election? F*** he did. Outed a CIA agent? That’s f********g b******t, man. Lied about his military service? S***, not even Dan f******g Rather could prove that one, and he was willing to use fake f*******g documents to do it, to. Cost the f******r his job. OK, you got the war in Iraq right. Going a lot better than that m*****f*******g war in southeast Asia, isn’t it? We’re going to f*******g win this one. In bed with the f*******g Saudis? Well, sure. Him and every f********g president we’ve had since oil was discovered in the f*******g middle east.

3. The Thunder Run Says:
   March 12th, 2008 at 11:10 am

   Web Reconnaissance for 03/12/200

   A short recon of what�s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

4. PoliGazette » No “Brain-Dead Liberal” Anymore Says:
   March 12th, 2008 at 11:49 am

   [...] at Jules Crittenden’s place. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]

5. tanstaafl Says:
   March 12th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

   The other day, some 16 year long diehard Hillary and Bill supporter wrote a “piece” on HuffPo saying the scales had fallen from his eyes and he was done supporting them.

   This could be a very healthy trend ! :-0

6. RebeccaH Says:
   March 12th, 2008 at 4:10 pm

   Not only healthy, but probably downright inevitable.

7. Vanguard of the Commentariat Says:
   March 12th, 2008 at 8:31 pm

   Well I’ll be. JFK was a regular tax cutting commie fighting Constitution manipulating SOB. Who knew? Next thing you know he’ll be bitching about JFK having his brother wiretap Martin Luther King!

   I’d say Mamet is still in “guarded” condition.

8. Robert Says:
   March 12th, 2008 at 10:22 pm

   The site was clobbered for most of the day. It seems to be back up now, 9:00 pm EDT.

9. sisu Says:
   March 13th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

   “Not only a fit subject, but the only subject of drama”

   We believe deeply that the denial of ‘life’s dark side in ourselves’ is the key to what’s wrong with the utopianist left world view, we wrote the first time we featured Max Ernst’s ‘L’Ange du Foyeur ou le Triomphe du

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