Tuesday, September 22, 2015

A New Season



     Ah yes, it is the political season again… well, sort of.  It is always the political season but in America we actually pay more attention at certain times than others.  Strangely we ignore the subject as much as we can in “off-season” mid-term elections.  The negative ads, designed to discourage voters from voting at all, have the effect of inoculating us against the scourge of voting.



     In any event, the Republicans have trotted out the immense slate of potential candidates and has begun its flavor-of-the-month process of vilifying each in turn.  The Churchy people on the Right have made a religion of hate and destruction on social issues.  The Small Government righties have a No-More-Government mantra.  The deceivers on the Right are sliming everyone in sight and the heart of the GOtP party are very busy spinning tweaks and lies on every day events so that all the oxygen is depleted for each news cycle. 

     Of course the news media is no longer the trusted Fourth Estate it once was.  It has been corporatized and compromised to the point of spewing what its 1% owners want you to hear.  Watching ABC, for instance, gets you all the update on what the Disney conglomeration wants you to hear about what they are doing.  Fox (so-called) News bends the facts to the breaking and unrecognizable point while pushing you toward Right-wing ideology.  NBC is dismantling any Left-wing stories and shifting to a Right-wing twist.  CBS, CNN and others are taking on the non-story and promoting the art of Not-News.  

     On the Left the Democrats are trying to act as if Hillary Clinton is the only story while she falls further in the polls.  Since they have, thus far, kept the debates at bay and the name recognition for others in the race a secret it appears that Hillary wants an automatic no controversy path to the nomination.  The best voice for the people, Bernie Sanders, is drawing huge crowds and climbs in any poll where his name is actually mentioned.  Chaffey and O’Malley are there but without a way to attract the national media to tell their stories it is assumed that they do not exist at all.

     What is most fun, for me, anyway, is the meme war on Facebook.  The cartons and the complete nonsense that passes for political discourse these days is an added bonus.  I have often said in posts of various sorts and in questions trying to point out bad logic that “If you repeat a lie doesn’t that make you a liar as well?”  It falls on deaf ears but at least it is out there for those of us to see that lying has become a sort of political reality all its own today.



     Having gone to a Bernie Sanders rally and listened to him for quite a while on the radio I have come to understand that his brand of political revolution is one I can relate to.  The founding fathers would appreciate that we need a periodic shake up.  America is, finally, coming to a momentary awakening and should provide that shake up this political season.  When the Democratic debates get started Bernie Sanders will have access to the microphone and the process should show what America actually believes as opposed to what the 1% want us to believe.  Appointing a “Blue Ribbon” panel is what punditry is about… it’s is a way to distract you from the facts.  It is a way to push you in a direction you can feel is wrong but the arguments are so convoluted you often can’t quite put your finger on what is wrong about them.  Senator Sanders steps to the microphone and you hear the unfiltered, unvarnished facts.  It is disturbing.  It is awakening.  It is a breath of fresh air.