Mickey Z

Cool Observer

Monday, December 01, 2008

When did Z Net become South Park?

(Wise Timmy just loves the Pope of Hope)

After the election, the increasingly irrational Z Net favorite Tim Wise wrote an article that lambasted anyone daring to not feel warm and fuzzy in the wake of Lord Obama’s ascendancy. Here’s an excerpt:

Let me say this, to some of those on the left - some of my friends and longtime compatriots in the struggle for social justice - who yet insist that there is no difference between Obama and McCain, between Democrats and Republicans, between Biden and Palin: Screw you ... Those who cannot appreciate what has just transpired are so eaten up with nihilistic rage and hopelessness that I cannot but think that they are a waste of carbon, and actively thieving oxygen that could be put to better use by others.

Hmm, I guess that’s what legendary political philosopher P. Diddy meant when he created the infamous slogan: VOTE OR DIE.

Wise Timmy’s most recent article includes this poignant gem:

Being a father, I have to temper my contempt for this system and its managers with hope. After all, as a dad (for me at least), it’s hard to look at my children every day and think, “Gee, it sucks that the world is so screwed up, and will probably end in a few years from resource exploitation...Oh well, I sure hope my daughters have a great day at school!"

So, the next time any of you wanna talk - perhaps over a vegan organic meal - about 80% of the world’s forests being gone or 90% of the large fish in the ocean being gone or 200,000 acres of rain forest destroyed each day or 100 plant and animal species going extinct each day and so on, can you please keep it down? We don’t want Wise Timmy to hear because it might depress his daughters and dampen his sense of hope.

Wise Timmy also sez: Fatherhood hasn’t made me any less radical in my analysis or desire to see change. In fact, if anything, it has made me more so. I am as angry now as I’ve ever been about injustice, because I can see how it affects these children I helped to create, and for whom I am now responsible. But anger and cynicism do not make good dance partners. Anger without hope, without a certain faith in the capacity of we the people to change our world is a sickness unto death. It is consuming, like a flesh-eating disease, and whose first victim is human compassion.

To which, I’ll invoke a certain Mr. Shaw: “The power of acute observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.”

P.S. to the Wise Man: Hope is for suckers...