A Big Gray Rainbow

[SoCalDem]

Gray is where things get done. Gray is where people congregate to hammer out difficult problems from charcoal gray to silver-wolf gray..

This black & white world that GWB ushered in , is dangerous and chaotic.

There is no more wiggle room for ideas. Ideas are either great or horrible, heavenly or satanic, intelligent or moronic.

Diplomacy lives in the shadowy gray areas.

Our military lives in the bright blood red and glistening phosphorescent white .

Our congress lives in sound-the-alert, vermillion-tinged hysterical rhetoric, balanced on the other side by ho-hum-indifferent blah-blah-blah beige..interrupted occasionally by a burst of twist-the-knife-gently aubergine.

Our media is fixated on commentary and news that range the spectrum too.. Heart of darkness Black on one side..to Pure as the driven snow White..with NOTHING in-between.

Every issue has its particular political color, and no mid-spectrum color is allowed these days.

There is either "we're-all-gonna-die-in-10 years" global warming, or "the-warmer-weather-will-boost tourism" philosophy.

There is either runaway illegal immigration or a more-the-merrier philosophy.

Either abortion is the vilest crime on the planet or it's a sacrament.

Men are either rapists or saints.

Women are sainted mothers or whores.

Everyone should have a private arsenal, or no one should have a gun.

Children should have a bible on every classroom desk, or accept Satan as their personal saviour.

Corporations are the benevolent providers-of-jobs, or they are iniquity incarnate.

People are being forced to choose "sides" in every facet of their lives. ...down to the smallest detail.

We now question everything , its country of origin, and its manufacturer's politics/political donation history.

We worry about our children's teacher's private lives ,and google them mercilessly in order to out them for something they tweeted.

We are being bombarbed by the bright and shiny of the brilliant array of colors, when all we really need is some calming alabaster gray..... the gray warmth of quiet, deliberate diplomacy and clear thought.

[lunatica]

1. Very nice

Gray is subtle.

[sufrommich]

2. Rec. Well said. nt

[orpupilofnature57]

3. Gray areas are for Children , and people afflicted with Concrete thinking

Fluorescent are best,things unfortunately are black and white ,right or wrong ,Liberty is why we're not Obligated to define them ,and the spectrum provides the bridge.I love your comparisons though, and agree no one is Omnipotent.

[DirkGently]

4. The current rainbow is the color of dung. A million shades of bad & worse. We can do better.

[readmoreoften]

5. "Gray" is also where people are baffled by bullshit and crimes are justified.

The problem is not dichotomy. The problem is FALSE dichotomy. There are plenty of black-and-white issues and rightfully so: the holocaust was black and white, any picket line is black and white for the workers involved, opposition to the Iraq war was and should've been black and white.

In fact the proper response to the Bush Administration WAS black and white. What would've been the point of looking at the Bush Administration through the lens of some kind of "shades of gray." People who don't sit on the internet all day and debate things, people who get out in the world and have to take a stand--often a physical stand in a protest or a picket line--take provisional positions and stand by them. That's how real politics gets done.

Yes: lovers spats, literary criticism, and decisions to change your job are often shades of gray. History itself sometimes appears to be shades of gray. But that's because its a birds' eye view. If you look at history closely, it's generally created by people standing up for what they believe in: lines demarcated in black and white.

It's our job to clarify what's murky, not to obscure what is perfectly clear.