David Mamet has an epiphany

David Mamet, one of America's noted playwrights, has had an epiphany. He's realized he's no longer a "brain-dead liberal", in his own words.

here's a link to the article in The Village Voice. yeah, you heard right. the village voice. the only reason i found the article was that it was linked by neo-neocon.

his transition "to the dark side" mirrors one of my favorite intellectual's own epiphany. neo-neocon went from a well educated jewish liberal to something much more. in her words, a neo-neocon. if you have the time, go back to the beginning of her blog and read about her "conversion". there is hope out there!

and don't forget to read the comments. there are a ton of them, but most are quite interesting.
too many caught my attention to pass on, but here is one that i especially thought said what i've felt for years:

This is exactly what has happened to me, only I am a professional historian who has lived all over the country. What I have seen the government do with its programs has made me believe that the only people who really benefit are the bureaucrats who are in charge. It has also created a new slave class of people who have to live up to all government requirements in order to benefit, but not get ahead in life. Thus, this class becomes indebted to those who gave them the programs, convinced that they are unable to do for themselves. This keeps some politicians in power, but actually keeps this slave class in a permanent dependency.

As an educator, I also see this in our education system. So many of our school districts are top heavy in administrators that those who teach do not even know what some of these administrators are supposed to be doing. These administrators are out of touch with what is going on in the classroom and just basically are concerned with keeping their jobs. Combine that with parents who are both working to provide their children with the basics and we have children who are on their own and behave like it as well. With little discipline at home, they feel like they should have free rein in the classroom as well. Teachers, having to deal with classrooms as large as 30-35 students, spend most of their time trying to discipline rather than teach and soon burn out.

and one more

So many entries here are proving Mamet right. He's Big Brother. A dictator-lover. He's racist, or nearly so. He's thrown in with the Authoritarians. He's for the Evil Corporations, or he doesn't realize the stranglehold Wall Street has on the political process, i.e. he's too stupid to know. Or he's gone from brain-dead liberal to brain-dead-conservative.

What next? He's Darth Vader? Why the vitriol and personal attacks, instead of refuting in an erudite, calm and civilized manner the finer points of his piece?

I know why. It's easier to smear and slander someone you disagree with than it is to debate them, isn't it? Debate requires thought. Slander does not. It is lazy, instinctual ideological knee-jerking, not rigorous intellectual discourse. It requires no thought. It is autonomic mental regurgitation driven by anger, not reason.

In other words, it is brain-dead spew. And on that note I, and David Mamet if I may be so bold, rest our case.