The Choice of Joy: Day 27, O’Reilly, Christians & Super Bowl 44

In President Obama's  interview with Bill O’Reilly, part two, O’Reilly said, “there’s a lot of money to [be] made if you can polarize people.”

Not a statement that makes me happy.  Money has shaped his messages.  But I thank him for his candor and honesty. 

Today I received an email from a friend that in part read:

I decided to attend a local GOP committee meeting when Dole was running for pres.  I . . . used the opportunity to ask a leading question of the chairperson.  "Why does the GOP continue to oppose abortion when the majority of Americans support a woman's right to make that decision, and clearly the supreme court would never outlaw abortion"?
The answer surprised me because the chairperson said what I knew all along, but never heard admitted.  Paraphrasing:  "We here all know that nothing will ever be done to outlaw abortion, but we have to take that position to keep all the Christians voting republican."

The final sentence from the GOP member, again, did not make me happy.  Power has shaped the GOP message on abortion. But, again, I appreciate the candor and honesty of its speaker.

So where is the Joy here?  Well, it’s a stretch.  I do not celebrate the truth behind these statements, that money and power are so much the puppeteers of much of our national debate.   But I guess it is good that these demons of our collective unconscious occasionally come out of their dark corners and allow us to see them, face them. 

Not that I believe that money and power are demonic in themselves.  It is more the means to achievement of these goals that makes me cringe: polarization of our national society and using religious ideology to manipulate its followers.  Do the means justify the ends?  Seems to me that where the demons lie is on the path to money and power.

I doubt that many Democrats and liberal pundits are any purer.  Olbermann is just as polarizing as O’Rielly.  Dems know they get votes from most pro-lifers as long as they support abortion rights.   

The irony of this quagmire offers me a little joy.  O’Reilly made his statement while interviewing President Obama just after the Super Bowl, the most watched television show of the year.  We watch men on the field hitting, fighting, manipulating, against each other—and we cheer or boo.  Polarization at its best.  We love a good fight.  I’m not sure there is much difference between the face-off between Obama and O’Reilly and the opposing teams of Super Bowl 44.  Neither is there much difference in the reasons for our viewing of either telecast. 

A friend of mine once said to me, “Politics is my favorite indoor sport.” 

If we could just put all the manipulating politicians and profiteering media pundits under some glass dome that did not allow their influence to leak out on the rest of us, that would be nice.  We could watch through the glass whenever our collective psyche required a dose of viewing a fight, and then return to the business of living a good life where our moral compasses pointed true.

Now that idea really gives me Joy!