O'Karma

In recent years, I've become a fairly regular listener to talk radio. As a new listener, I'd heard in the major media that the stars of this new media were generally right-wing extremists. For the most part, my experience has been that they are not. I very often disagree with them, but they generally are at least sometimes thoughtful, and do at least sometimes criticize, for instance, Bush 43.

Of the national players, I find Bill O'Reilly the most interesting. He claims he's not a conservative, but rather a "traditionalist." Whatever.

One of his recurring themes that fascinates me is his view of "karma." But he seems quite selective about its application. For instance, yesterday he said that the riots in France are bad karma coming back to the French for their refusing to go along with the Iraq War, and their lax immigration policies. (O'Reilly is a frequent critic of the US immigration policy.) A caller asked whether Katrina was bad karma coming back at the US. No, because that was merely a storm, not a human act.

Yet, last year, O'Reilly was "all over" Ward Chamberlain for suggesting, in effect, that 9/11 was bad-karma blowback for years of US meddling in the Middle East. Bill seems quite selective in his application of karma.

Personally, karma -- a "what goes around, comes around" kind of idea -- does seem to work, or at least it begins to explain things, on both a personal and political level. "Good" things tend to happen when we do good; "bad" when bad. But karma is a volatile and unpredictable thing; we never know how it might manifest.

I do note, however, that bad things almost never happen to Switzerland. For centuries, they've been surrounded by warring nations, yet no one seems to want to mess with the Swiss. Friend to all, foe of none, armed to the teeth, seems to've worked for that landlocked nation.

So, it seems, the US is a study of contrasts. So much to commend it, but then we have these episodes of profound viciousness...Iraq, Vietnam, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. O'Reilly doesn't apparently see that.

-Robert Capozzi