It can hardly get more hypocritical than that, right? In a country full of people obsessed with sex (or the fight against it which in my opinion comes back to the same obsession with sex), someone who actually enjoyed the act (not just watching or reading about it) had to stand in front of all those sex addicts to apologize for it. Completely absurd. But the most natural thing in the US, a country full of men who cheat on their wives, just to get caught and do the public apology routine. By now it’s such a ritual that I wonder how anyone can take it serious anymore. But it’s all part of the big sex game that the US plays with itself: A country obsessed with sex gets regularly outraged by certain public displays of (possible) sexuality. Remember nipplegate, when Janet Jackson accidentally exposed a breast on TV in 2004? Or, more recent, Adam Lambert’s public kissing of other male band members on stage? You know what’s going to happen, when you do things like that. The whole artificial outrage machinery gets going, you get good publicity, the media covering the whole thing can sell a lot of advertisement, and the sex obsessed country can enjoy its act of psychological masturbation over all of this.

As I said, for a non-US person it seems like a ritual, something to keep up a theoretical morality that is long gone. Granted, there might be two or three people genuinely disturbed by such sights (Jackson or Lambert, I mean). But to send the whole country into an artificial moral frenzy because of that, seems hardly the reasonable thing to do. Okay, if it’s a moralizing conservative politician who gets caught cheating on his wife or having gay sex, sure, that deserves some attention because it exposes the hypocrisy so nicely. Otherwise… who cares? This country is in serious need of a collective sex rehab.

And you know what’s funny? Those who rant the most against sex, porn and homosexuality – the religious conservatives – seem to consume the most porn.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16680-porn-in-the-usa-conservatives-are-biggest-consumers.html

Well, at least the study also revealed that church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays. That’s a relief, huh?

Now, there is also reason for hope in the US. Its people (who do occasionally worry me, I have to admit) showed some pleasant signs of reason in two recent polls. They’re not so happy with Obama anymore, but compared with Congress and the Republican party, he’s actually doing pretty well. If he’s able to work with those feelings, the midterms might not turn out to be such a big disaster for the Democrats after all. Here the details if you’re interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/us/politics/12poll.html?scp=1&sq=poll%20Obama%20G.O.P.&st=cse

Also a bit of a relief:  An amazing 55% of those questioned have never even heard of the Tea Party movement (apparently they don’t really follow the news which of course leads to the question how informed their opinions in this poll actually are… still…). 55%. And only 18% consider themselves as supporters. I really think the US needs a third party but please not one that is even more on the fringe than the average Republican.

And then there is Ex-Governor and Ex-Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin who still seems to be convinced she’s made for greater things. Well, the American people seem not so sure:

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/194193.asp?from=blog_last3

Only 37% have a favourable view of Palin, according to a recent new poll. That’s her lowest number ever. And this after all the media attention she got with her new show on Fox, her speech at the Tea Party convention and her book. 55% (same number as those that have never even heard of the Tea Party) have unfavourable views of her, 70% think she’s unqualified to sit in the Oval Office, only 6% of the Democrats and 29% of the Independents think she’s qualified to be president. Let’s just hope (yeah, there is always hope) that a better Republican candidate appears for the primaries 2012. Because, really, if Obama should lose, at least against a decent opponent.

So what’s the difference? Why does US politics lead to more aggression? Partly probably because looking at the politics show (and as always in the US there seems to be much more show than substance – or the substance is so insanely twisted and complicated that no one without two law degrees would be able to grasp it anyway), one can’t help but get the impression that there is really not such a big interest to solve actual problems. Instead the main goal seems to be to hurt the other side as best as possible and to make sure one stays or gets back into power. The key issue of course is, that there are only two players in the game. There can only be one winner and both constantly try being it.

Looking at most other countries (especially in Europe) there are usually several players and that makes a huge difference. No one party can do it alone, there needs to be serious discussions about issues, compromises. Bipartisanship is part of the system, there can be several winners, actually. Here, no such thing. The serious debate about issues is restricted to a few newspapers and the public radio and TV stations that are only noticed by those few people who are so interested that they wouldn’t really need to follow it. Everyone else seems happy with the superficial debate about distractions, clichés and prejudices that dominates the rest of the US media. They form their opinion based on that, and of course that leads to mighty strange decisions when they actually have to vote. And then to anger.

All this was not so bad in the 90-ies when everything was peachy and the world – all in all – was doing well. But it’s kind of bad when there are actual problems around that should be solved but don’t get solved because of this. Would there be a well-educated general population in the US, the Republicans would actually have to have realistic policy ideas about solving problems to get anywhere. Which would be a really good thing because they are not all bad and stupid and obsessed with nothing but value debates. As it is, most American’s seem to be aware that it’s not going well but they’re not ready to face the consequences. To get out of this mess, the US needs to stop overspending, to stop living above its means. Which either means dramatic cuts in the country’s budget that would most likely affect all Americans in some way, or a serious tax raise – or both.  It’s as simple as that.

But there is no chance in hell that this is going to happen. So all that remains is watching the politics show and be angry. Or be sad to see a once great country go down the drain by its own incapabilities. Maybe it is time for a change though, and Asia is hungry.

So why this name? Have you tried to find a username for a new WordPress blog? It’s hard. I wanted to go with something out of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”-Universe but all the interesting things were already taken. Which shows that a lot of people here have a healthy sense of humor. That’s nice to know, makes one feel to be in good company. The Sarlacc Pit came up completely out of context in a nice little horror flick called “Frozen” (a must for winter sport fans!) I’ve recently seen. And it’s kind of fitting, no? I mean who needs another blog? Who needs even more self-centered stuff from other people to read? You must be pretty sure you really want to, if you venture into the Sarlacc Pit of pain, suffering, boredom and death.

So, really, keep out if you’re just here to relax and to entertain yourself. This blog is about other things, annoying things, painful things, fiercely partisan and opinionated. Politics, Society, Religion, the world in all its absurdity and senselessness. If you wanna have fun, go somewhere else. I do the same.