On April 16th, I watched ABC's Democratic "Debate" in Philadelphia. It was wretched and I would like very much to be compensated for the time I wasted on it.
Something has gone very very wrong with our politics, and, indeed, with us as a nation -- it is not a new fault, but it is a festering one, and if it had less critical consequences it would comedic to watch from a distance.
Throughout this campaign process, I have been treated to endless media-driven banter, batted about from every side and in every direction. I have been inundated with meaningless propaganda, assaulted by ceaseless political double-talk, and, in the real final analysis, been told absolutely nothing.
Huge tracts of time were devoted in the April 16th debate to absolute silliness, with middling bullshit like:
- Does Obama believe in the American flag?
- Is he more patriotic than Reverend Wright?
- Does he think Clinton can really beat McCain?
- Does Clinton think Obama can beat McCain?
- Does she really think people should get up and walk out of a church if they don't like the pastor?
Even when the questions turned vaguely towards real issues, the answers were thin, patronizing, and intentionally distracting.
It is very likely that they were also
all lies.
I put forth this assertion for simply because the art of politics, in those increasingly rare cases when it is not openly and grossly about media glitz, is about bullshit. To a large degree, I tolerate this on the part of the politicians, because, in the end, the public persona of a politician is a surprisingly squishy surface, that tends to ooze into the mold we, as the public, hold up to it.
And there is the real problem: as a country we have decided that we adore meaningless crap. We devour it like candy, and the more of it we're fed, the more insatiable our appetite grows. I am at a loss as to why we tolerate such volumes of useless pseudo-information being flung at us during something so (purportedly) important as a campaign to choose the person who may go on to become the leader of our nation (the campaign to actually elect the president becomes an even more baffling slug-fest of grime-covered crap). Perhaps the explanation is "innocent": we're all just bloody stupid, lazy, ignorant, or disinterested; or, for a more conspiratorial jilt, perhaps we're all intentionally so over-worked, under-paid, and terrified of being attacked by the "enemy" that we aren't capable of rational discussion any longer.
In the end, I don't care if Obama keeps a little stack of silken American flags in his bathroom to wipe his ass with. And in the same vein I don't care if Clinton has marched out of a thousand sermons leaving little comment cards (no doubt with a little American flag pin in the corner) about how a good pastor
should conduct a sermon.
Why don't we actually debate something meaningful? And I mean really dig into it. I don't want a 3rd grade shouting match of "my health care plan is better" / "no mine is better!"; I want proof. I want numbers and nit-picky details. I want to be convinced by something mostly irrefutable (that is: by math with a few well-backed assumptions about the future) that one plan is better or cheaper or more feasible than the other.
But that would be awfully dry wouldn't it? It's a lot more fun to run around screaming "Witch" -- I mean: "Terrorist" -- at every opportunity -- and to cheer about "patriotism" and wave our little flags around and pretend that if we just love one candidate enough and hate the other one just the right amount God will come down and take care of sweeping the troops out of Iraq and cleaning up health care and fixing our tragically broken education system and all sorts of other things -- just poof! Now all we have to argue about is which candidate pisses God off the least, and that
is more fun than math and financial planning.
