OJ and the Election: A Bubble Pops?

During the OJ trial I remember being stunned when I realized that there were 2 concurrent, interpenetrating realities held by 2 groups of people—and that these 2 views were actually creating parallel worlds. In one reality, it was blatantly obvious that OJ had committed vengeful atrocities out of an arrogant desire to obliterate someone who had rejected, hurt, and embarrassed him. In the other reality, he was the unfortunate victim of racist bias, and the shallow, rhyming "If it does not fit, you must acquit" was enough to rally a whole population of people. I was in the first camp, and surprisingly, my conservative father was in the other. No amount of talking could convince either of us of the validity of the other's point of view.

I remember wondering, since what-goes-around-comes-around much faster than it used to, just how long it would be before OJ tripped himself up and got what was coming to him, and why it could even be possible for this bizarre "escape" to occur. It was as though universal law had been suspended temporarily and it seemed so curious to me. When I heard that OJ had been found guilty on recent robbery and kidnapping charges, which came relatively quietly in the shadow of the 2008 election hoopla featuring Sarah Palin's cartoonlike antics, I was stopped in my tracks.

It hasn't escaped me that the election this year has turned into a situation similar to the OJ trial, where perspectives are so highly polarized that no one can hear the other side's point of view. Sarah Palin is parallelling Johnnie Cochran's past performance, using emotion and a particularly noticeable language style to further polarize, incite, and distract everyone. I had the thought that OJ's new verdict, which completed the cycle of his lack of accountability, his relative invisibility, and his sense of having been able to fool everyone, was like a pin that popped a bubble—and that bubble might also pertain to the bubble of "spin" and hypnosis that the McCain-Palin campaign, and the Bush administration, have tried to envelope us all in.

MY sense is that OJ's bubble-popping conviction may have opened many of us to the perception of what's been going on under the surface in our current reality. Perhaps it has subliminally helped us light on the idea that we've been programmed to think a certain way, or to not question certain realities, or be too overwhelmed and distracted to penetrate below the dramatic surface chaos, by the repetitious mantras and soundbytes foisted upon us by our rightwing-owned media.

So, let's all ask ourselves: What's REALLY real? What's really valuable in our leaders? And what are the subterranean motives and the superficial manipulation techniques of those who communicate to the masses? This requires nothing short of focused intuitive ability.