27 | June | 2011 | Existential Ennui

Tags

big oil, budget, Don Juan DeMarco, economy, Election 2012, GOP, Johnny Depp, Michele Bachmann, tax cuts

Saturday night was Depp night in the Peyton household. A fairly old (1995)romp with Faye Dunaway and Brando was a perfect end to the day. I don’t think the movie ever got much acclaim, but I sure liked it. It was amusing, and beautiful eye candy to boot.

Brando plays an aging and retiring psychiatrist who is drawn to help Depp, a young man functioning under the dilusion that he is Don Juan. In the end, we find that Brando is the one who is “cured” and Depp lives on in his fantasy.

It raises the very interesting question of “whose reality is it?” Depp’s character seems fairly sane and functional, and no one can deny he is having a great time pleasuring women who cannot stop smiling following their encounter with him.

The clearly sane psychiatrist learns that there is more to life than literal reality. Love, Depp teaches him, is what makes life worth living. Without it, life is but a series of events.

In the end, we are never quite sure whether Don Juan is the real deal or not, and frankly it doesn’t matter. Brando terms the ending scene “our fable” suggesting of course that Don Juan is really John Arnold DeMarco. Yet he is also making a statement that it’s not necessarily a mental illness to operate under a thoroughly erroneous reality. It may in part be dictated by whether deep down the person knows of their “delusion.” Perhaps, we learn, it may be an effective and appropriate treatment plan.

So next time you find yourself daydreaming in some fantastical dream life (mine involves a multimillion dollar estate on the beach in Oahu, with the Contrarian I might add), don’t feel that tinge of guilt that you are being silly or worse. You might just be doing what needs be done to retain your mental health.

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I wonder if the average American, who I don’t esteem as being all that bright when you get right down to it, will figure out why the economy is stalled.

I suspect, given all the reading I’ve done, that mostly it’s due to Republican intransigence. We no longer duke it out and then congratulate the winner, getting on then with the business of governing. No. We no longer do that.

We whine and snivel about why we lost, about the dirty tricks and underhanded lies of the opposition and we convince ourselves that all hell will descend if we don’t retrieve the golden ring of control the next go around.

Republicans are geniuses at this. They simply dig in, complain that all that is wrong is due to the other party, and then refuse to budge one millimeter on any issue, even those that they had previously supported.

This is largely what is behind the recent breakdown in negotiations led by Vice-President Biden on the debt and budgetary issues. While Democrats have agreed to lots and lots (trillions) of spending cuts, the GOP walked away from the table again declaring that under no circumstances will they even discuss revenue issues. Even when we are talking about removing some tax breaks for those making over half a mil, they balk.

Worse, they are now refusing to even consider something many of them once championed: the removal of a tax loophole (an accounting mechanism) that saves billions each year for industry, mostly big oil and gas interests. This particular loophole called LIFO (last in first out), is disallowed internationally, but the GOP refuses to even consider removing it now.

This economy must fail for them to have a chance in 2012 and they know it. They rant on with their idiotic rhetoric that somehow debt reduction by increased revenues is no good, while cutting the hearts out of the working class in every way known to humanity is, all the while protecting at all costs big business in their continuing rape of America.

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We caught part of the interview on CBS Sunday morning with Scheiffer and Bachmann. She was asked a few hard questions, mostly of her own bizarre and outlandish statements. She avoided answering them all, saying that the issues were about Obama and his utter incompetence and lack of any understanding about economic issues.

While amusing, the Contrarian pointed out that one Sharron Engle deflected questions about her nutzy remarks over and over again, by claiming the election was all about Harry Reid and his horrid ability to do the job.

What these two morons miss is that in the end, it is about them. Do we stay with the one we already know, or do we trade in for a new model. Most new buyers want to test drive the new car before they buy it. If Bachmann thinks she can win while dodging why she claimed the Lion King was gay-subversion, among many of her more famous weirdisms, she has another thing coming her way than a win in 2012.