I apologize for the following. It was written in anger brought on by listening to All Things Considered for three whole minutes, a mistake I shall not repeat. Is NPR any better than Charles Gibson? No. In any case, the frothing lather below should be recognizable to anyone unfortunate enough to cling to the hope that a change in US leadership might pull us a few inches back from the abyss - or anyone unfortunate enough to harbor ideals of any kind, for that matter.
So if you're ready to indulge in some purely negative emotional purgation, read on.
Anyone who wants positive change in the US in annoyed at the horse race-style coverage of the interminable Democratic primary situation. And if it isn't the horse race, it's petty name-calling and tit-for-tat character eye-poking enshrined as "issues" worthy of debate. Apparently what candidates might have to say about how to solve the nation's problems is considered unimportant. And rightly so. The solutions they advocate are for the most part gibberish which, even if meant to be taken seriously, let alone enacted in policy, could not possibly survive the mangling they would be given by a political system at the service of a corporate ruling class so powerful it makes God look like the American Communist Party.
Except when it comes to one thing God has over all of them, as we shall see.
It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that a whole lot of face-punching is in order. And yet, time and time again, some newscaster, pundit, politician or captain of industry will appear in our midst, and instead giving him or her a well-deserved Joe Louis nose job, we stand there starry-eyed, saying, "Wow, you're from the Spectacle, aren't you? It's really you!"
It's like meeting an extra-terrestrial. How do you think ETs get away with all this probing? Rubes are star-struck. "Sure, go ahead." Ever seen an abductee with marks from being shackled? Even with gravity shackles? No need, they're like, "Go ahead, you're a spaceman! You're a superior being. Stick it anywhere you want to."
Our relationship to the politically famous is no different. "Go ahead, stick it anywhere you want to." I don't see how we can hope to have a working democracy when we won't even give a lying crook a long-overdue punch in the face, just because he's famous. Maybe the neo-cons are right, maybe democracy is the joke they make it out to be.
Maybe the most we can hope for is a government that must respond to the people a little bit now and then, just often enough to keep the glue on the "democracy" label sticky. Maybe the most we can expect from ourselves is the occasional popular interruption of some of the worst crimes of "the state" which, make no mistake, includes many an industry supporting free market "values." Any industry powerful enough to garner a large percentage of seats on a government task force set up to develop policies to reform that same industry is part of the state. Loosening safety and anti-trust regulations on them is not dissimilar to allowing the president to order executions without trial.
That must be how "free market" came to be the favorite fetish of those who also love to mock our civil liberties. You would think "freedom" would signify something good for individuals, not just for giant organizations trying to own the world and process it into high-fructose corn syrup. But no. Free market means you're free to market whatever you can exclude others from marketing by whatever method at your disposal.
Mark my words, the day will come when the last human being on earth sits atop a mountain of gold with a six-pack of Coke and no one left alive to sell it to. And that person will weep, not for the loss of the earth and the extermination of humanity, but for the red ink that unsold six-pack will represent. Luckily it won't be long before a solar flare will lick right through the ozone hole and scorch the impoverished wretch into oblivion.
God must do nothing but continuously punch dead souls in the face as they come through the veil into the afterlife. That's why God has so many arms, right? To punch each one of us in the face and say, "You idiot!" And what can we say in our defense? "It's your stupid world, God." He'll just say, "That's why I get to punch you in the face."
How can John McCain still be talking about school vouchers, the magical cure of the free market, and winning in Iraq? Does he think just because he's smarter than Bush it's okay for him to say and do the same stupid things? The things are what make the guy stupid! It's how we know. It's how Republicans found out Bush was stupid, the stupid things he did finally had their inevitable repercussions.
But McCain may be right. Already there are people ready to give the same bad policies another chance under the leadership of someone who looks slightly less like a monkey. As if stabbing yourself in the eye is going to suddenly feel good with a steel-grip knife instead of a wooden-grip knife. Like maybe if you put a smiley face on the bottle of poison instead of the skull-and-crossbones, you won't vomit blood this time.
Some people, clearly, are bucking for two punches from God. God is so lucky. What a great job.