Rant

I was cornered by a ranter yesterday. It was a left wing ranter, decrying the corporatocracy. I thought what I always think when cornered by a ranter: Where is the nearest escape route?

I might not disagree with what a ranter is saying, but I do resent the ranter taking up my precious time yelling at me. It isn’t as if yelling at me, or anyone else, is going to improve the situations which have the ranter so upset.

On the contrary. A right wing ranter can leave you thinking that all right wingers are paranoid, racist, delusional nut jobs. A left wing ranter can make you want to go out and nuke the whales, or use PETA members for scientific experiments.

Note: I personally do not advocate either of those actions. I said those things for comedic effect. Just in case you are confused.

Political ranters particularly strain the quality of my mercy. I was raised by a political ranter. My little mother was a right wing ranter. She saw communists everywhere she looked, and she held forth on the evils of various racial, political, and religious groups in a manner that made me allergic to right wing politics and racism in particular, and ranting in general.

I learned at my mother’s knee that ranting is all about the personal neediness of the ranter, and not about whatever it is they think they’re ranting about. Ranting is rude, and accomplishes nothing, and it is extremely annoying.

I have my own political opinions and prejudices. Do I think that Rick Perry is George W. Bush without the intellect? Yes, I do.

Am I tired of Obama ranters telling me, "It’s not racism," that they hate Obama fairly and impartially because of his lack of merit? Oh, yes I am. Give me a break. It’s racism. You’re not fooling anyone except, possibly, yourself.

Am I fed up with people saying Obama is a communist/Muslim? Yeah, I am. Most of you wouldn’t know a real Communist if he or she came up and slapped you in the face with a tract on the butchery of silence, and you wouldn’t know a Muslim from a Sikh, a Hindu, a Jain, or a Bahai.

Sometimes I wonder why there are so many ranters, and so few listeners, today. Was it the hundred years of inhaling lead in gasoline fumes that turned our brains to mush, or has television been the scourge it was predicted to be decades ago, making us incapable of deep thought or long term goals, and depriving us of the ability to detect horse manure when it is served up, hot and steaming, as truth?

Note: I do not mean to impugn horses, or their manure. Horse manure is great fertilizer. It is not so good as political policy.

I do know that what most people need is to be listened to, which is the opposite of ranting. Think about it. Would you rather have someone in your face, yelling at you in an angry tone about how much they hate some politician or class of people, or would you rather have someone sit next to you quietly and listen while you talk about how much you sometimes miss your dead mother, who, in spite of everything, loved you as well as she could?

Listen more, rant less. That’s all I’m saying.

Am I ranting here? Yes. But neither one of us is trapped. I can stop ranting, and you can stop reading.

See?