American Laughable

I've never been big on David Mamet. A couple of screenplays he co-wrote produced films I enjoyed (The Verdict, Wag the Dog). But his plays are, I think, wildly overrated and I really think the films he's directed are crap (especially Edmond, which I caught on TV one late night without any knowledge of who made it - what a vile piece of shit that thing is).

So it amused (bemused?) me no end to read that he's gone from being politically to the left (how much I'll never know) to a self-described conservative. From the (ick) Weekly Standard:

The conversion is complete: This is not a book by the same man who told Charlie Rose he didn’t want to impose his political views on anybody. At some moments—as when he blithely announces that the earth is cooling not warming, QED—you wonder whether maybe he isn’t in danger of exchanging one herd for another. He told me he doesn’t read political blogs or magazines. “I drive around and listen to the talk show guys,” he said. “Beck, Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved.” (www.weeklystandard.com/articles/converting-mamet_561048.html?page=3)

Yeah, the talk show guys. All the heavyweights. Fuckin' Truthy, Fuckin' Truthy, Fuckin' Truthy.

I'm not going to waste my time or yours on this guy since I've never taken him seriously. But here's what I find interesting about this phenomenon of people who shift from one wing to t'other.

How many times have you heard someone say something along the lines of, "I used to be a devout Marxist-Leninist, a communist zealot. I was a totally obsessed, crazy, left-wing extremist. But I saw the light and now I'm a devout far-right, Ayn Rand, Capitalist."

And of course Mr or Ms Zealot thinks s/he is saying "I used to be a leftist so I know what's wrong with the left, I KNOW, you can trust me because I FUCKING KNOW! I was wrong but now I'm right."

But of course, the truth is (fuckin' Truthy) that they've never really been left or right, they're just extremists. Like the devout Jewish atheist who turns Ultra-Orthodox, or the Protestant who converts to ultra-anti-birth-control-Catholicism, they just have to do everything in the extreme. They're not religious. They're just zealots. Politics, religion, radio-controlled airplanes, whatever they're into at the moment - CHEESE DOODLES - GIMME FIFTY FUCKING BAGS OF CHEESE DOODLES. NOW! - is an obsession,  an addiction, an excuse to overindulge and vomit, overindulge and vomit, overindulge and vomit...

This is not belief or a considered viewpoint. This is just gluttony and self-abuse. That's all.

So the next time someone tells you they were leftwingers once but they grew up and now they're listening to lunatics like Glenn Beck or dimwits like Medved and they see the True Path - just hand them fifty bags of Cheese Doodles, stand clear  and watch them go at it.