Bread and Circuses

This is no jibe against folks who are passionately involved with the candidates of their choice in the Democratic primaries.  Frankly, I wish the present environment of our 2008 national elections were worthy of this amazing committed passion.

This isn’t even a jibe against the candidates themselves.

This is, however, a jibe at the 2008 elections.

There are folks who say it might just damned well be better if we stay home and let Republicans have their way with America.  I understand the reasoning behind it, I do .  And if our world were solely mechanical and mathematical and the heart had no place in it, I might even agree with this logic.

Trouble is, those folks calling for this strategy won’t be the ones suffering and most likely dying as a consequence.  And although it’s argued it is ultimately noble to be careless with folks’ lives that might just be blown away no matter what we do (both here and around the world), I’d just as soon avoid lending my hand to that endeavor.  If I were one of those vulnerable folks who reside at the bottom of the ladder to be considered for sacrifice, I’d be a little annoyed that my life was not even being considered in this equation.  I dunno, most folks, no matter how miserable, don’t want to die.  It seems to be something we all have in common.

So I’ll vote for the Democrat and I’ll vote in the primary.  I’m not a damned fool.  But no, for me, the heart of America is being broken by this reality, by there being virtually no opposition to these criminals who walk the halls of power in government and commerce, and it’s not even about political party at this point.  It’s just about regular Americans, not angels or devils, but flawed folks, as are we all, who are being shown nothing to aim at, feeling no genuine confidence.  Because no matter what our candidates say, our present national conversation is being held against a backdrop of criminal acts being committed the entire time, lawbreaking of such breathtaking arrogance and abuse of power that it renders all “national conversation” absurd.

These two jarring realities simply cannot coexist without insulting our intelligence.  And that’s not the only absurdity of this backdrop.  We also have a half trillion reasons to be skeptical … well I’ll let Turkana elucidate this point.  He said, while responding to the question of why our “change” candidates aren’t changing too much right now, during their campaigns:

because the tv and radio networks, the ad agencies, and the spinmeisters will make half a trillion dollars off this campaign. there are enormous financial stakes in keeping the system as broken as it is.

great idealistic question, though.

I have no gripe with challenges.  I know eventually these criminals both in our government and in our places of business will be defeated.  I have no doubt about that.  I have no doubt good people will always fight this fight until change comes, real change.

I’m not in the way of being played for a fool.  I can vote soberly for what I think is the best choice on primary day and election day, and can support candidates regionally who I think are good fighters.

But I will not get caught up in the “national conversation” of either the primaries or the general election.  That’s a mere distraction.  And that is also the consequence of our elected Democratic leadership’s capitulation to this misAdministration.  Just think, Senator Dodd has to filibuster his own party on as basic an issue as FISA, which deals with one of the most fundamental needs of human beings, that others shall not have power to use our own law against us to abuse our inherent freedom while retaining their tyranny by acting above that law.

I will not be relieved in November of 2008.  I am here now, and I don’t live in the future nor do I wish to.  I simply cannot ignore that behind the great American tradition of the upcoming election year, we are seeing wilful abuse of power and breaking of the law by those holding the highest offices in the land, and only a handful of our representatives are speaking out about it.  There are consequences to this kind of a situation.

To me, those consequences are not that the Democrats won’t win in 2008, but that each candidate, and at this point it doesn’t matter to me if they are Democratic or Republican,with all too few exceptions, is lying to us, in real time, about what we see right in front of our noses, and that we are being implicitly informed by leadership throughout this country that no one is going to stop that lawbreaking and abuse of power, nor are they even going to try.  Maybe others wish to refrain from focusing on that.  I choose not to refrain.