While reading a recent online discussion about the American
election, there it was: two old-enough-to-know-better adults were going at it
about the demerits of each other’s candidate and having abandoned all pretext
at civility or decorum, were down to name calling and the online version of
sticking their tongues out, culminating in the childhood taunt of: I'm rubber you are glue, your words bounce off me and
stick to you.
And while this could be seen as very entertaining, it did cause a
shiver of dread when I remembered that these people will get to vote in an
election that has enormous impact on the entire population of the planet –
existing and future.
I have no dog in this fight and have long ago lost any hope for
the electoral process. For me, it is no more than divisive and mean-spirited reality
TV at its worst. And my issue with that is that, for most part, it divides
rather than unifies people.
Add in the fact that it is also a massive
advertising campaign where money dominates and you might begin to see things
the way I do.
As we all know from our daily lives, money doesn’t come
cheap. Those who “invest” in candidates have agendas that rarely surface during
what passes for debates and are never scrutinized by analysts and experts who
form many of the opinions of those who go off to vote.
It has been a long downward spiral to this particular
election. In recent years we have seen processions of ‘Gee-Shucks’ cardboard
cut-outs trying to out-Jesus each other; new and improved versions of smooth,
slick, salesy types saying nothing and denying all that they previously might,
or might not, have said, and visionaries who will lead us to Promised Lands
where we can live free of all those who are not like us.
The Election industry has created a toxic environment where
efforts at the reasonable debate of complex matters have long been abandoned in
favour of cleverly tailored sound bites that are repeated like jingles.
Not surprisingly, elections for the most part have become
less and less about intellectual civic exercises and more and more about emotional
venting and the rejection of the ideals of people we hate, fear, or
envy.
A compelling and recent example of all of this was the
British referendum and I follow the resulting gyrations with a mixture of
amazement and trepidation. There, a majority of voters followed leaders who, on
winning, resigned and in doing so forced the country to actually begin to discuss
what it was they had done.
Similarly, in the first American Presidential debate, the
matter of Syria did not merit a mention.
Regardless of your views on the
horrible war in that country – and finding a clear picture in the haze of
misinformation is a particular challenge – surely a future president’s views
should be examined and understood? Or are we to wander into a new world war
without even the pretext of political rationale?
Perhaps it is the only logical way after the farce of the
great WMD issue when the Coalition of the Willing, made up of the
democratically elected governments of the free peoples of the world, attacked and
destroyed countries that now seem to have had little or nothing to do with 9/11
– and all in the name of defending our freedom and democracy.
Not that any of that matters if we are all transfixed by the
circus this election presents. Never mind that the world is being brought to
rack and ruin by the privately plotted actions of State and Corporate
interests, let’s get enraged about what the other candidate may have done or
said, or looks like. Then, in place of real debate, let’s all turn on each
other and call each other names, and worse.
As stated, I have no dog in this fight and, while one
candidate is probably unfit to be allowed out in public and the other has the
lingering odour of shady deals, I would be far more concerned with who is
paying for all of this and what their real agenda might be.
It is one of the great flaws of democracies that so much of
what is done in the name of the people is done behind closed doors. You can
cite security, confidentiality, or whatever, but how can it be called the will
of the people when they have no idea what is really going on?
Sure, many of us are happy to be sloughed off with media information
from the sources that we trust implicitly, but that, at the end of the day, is
little more than going through the motions so that we can pay lip service to
the principle that democracy is supposed to enshrine: that “the informed voter
is the sword of democracy.”
I began to question that long ago and now find myself more
aligned with the great wit, Oscar Wilde, who has been quoted as saying: “Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for
the people.”
Yes, it had been a long and torturous slide to where we are
now and, far from being the shining light of freedom and democracy, this
election may well be the beginning of the final act in the tragically comedic
story of the decline and fall of human civilization.
And yes, I do have ideas on a better way. I might even get
around to sharing them one of these days so if you are interested, check back
in a while. I’ll be here, thinking about things.
