November 2012

I have the economically convenient yet morally dubious privilege of living in what might be called the U.S. middle-class. I would contest the existence of a 'middle' class at this point in the history of representative government, but i suppose that's a topic for a much longer post than the couple o' paragrabs i intend to write now.

For almost the past decade, i have taken no interest whatsoever in politics. The 2000 election and the subsequent bald-faced, military backed corporate expansionism did a great deal to sour me on the human race. Recently, through my family's obsessive, disproportionate personal investment in the moral dilemma of electing a chief for this extended, 400-million-ape-strong tribe, i've had the displeasure of being subjected to a few fragments of speeches by the clean-cut, familiarly family-anchored, dependable men-of-the-people whose shadowy corporate backers we're being convinced to vote into office.

If i were to bother schleppin' out to the polls, i'd probably be a Green Party voter all the way, and wouldn't bother with the coin-flip of the presidency vote. I suppose that coming from a former child insect-collector and fish-breeder, an affiliation with the most outwardly environmentalist of the contemporary tribal factions is even superficially inevitable. More seriously, i used to like their stance on leashing corporations and long-term infrastructure investment and so forth, and regardless of whether they've remained true to form, making that message heard is more important than which of the two 'big dog' parties wins the bone.

As for the big dogs themselves, i'm reminded of what Gore Vidal said about the U.S.: it has only one political system, with two right wings.
What can i say, i'm a socialist and elitist when i'm not an anarchist. In polite company, this is amalgamated into 'liberal' - which polite company still throws out as a curse upon the head of any witch who dares say that true advancement, and not only imperialistic expansion, is socially desirable. It's becoming mind-numbingly obvious that nothing has changed over the past decade.

Democrats are still the conservative wing of the single American party. While publicly painting itself as a happy-go-lucky band of ineffective do-gooders, the Democrat as a neocorporate gestalt is the sated fly on a bleeding wound in the ancient story. It is preferable only in comparison to its older, meaner, hungrier brother the elephant fly, an outright reactionary foetid, muck-dwelling hydra pining for the bad old days when the aristocratic fiat of old money was not forced to hide behind media control.

The way in which the big dogs agreed to partition voting blocks i'm sure has formed the basis of much better informed diatribes than my own but the basics don't appear so complicated.

The Republicans' relatively modern affiliation with religious conservatism threatens Democratic mass-appeal (as a rule, the hoi-polloi really buy into religion while the pillars of the community merely find it a solid foundation - a unification of the two would have been a coup) but the necessary licking of pater familias' boots alienated the increasingly important feminist vote and the holy pigeon's wishbone thankfully broke even in the end.

Corporate support seems amusingly fickle, the private sector's congenital inability to plan farther than the fiscal year being assuredly frustrating to the slow-grinding elephant herd attempting to gather it as momentum, as well as to the dullwitted ass which never delivers the kind of immediate clear-cutting, strip-mining profiteering for which the corporate beast truly hungers.
Republicans, being the more macho of the two, will attract the support of the enforcer wings of the military-industrial crime cartel as well, regardless of a tendency to cut the financial branch out from under their hired muscle's feet in favor of fully mercenary corporate armies. In the public eye, this faulty gun-toting elephant ideal likely has much to do with the long-standing NRA-Republican link. Shifting the emphasis from guns to syringes has worked out in the Democrats' favor in this respect.
The minority vote should be firmly held by the ever-chameleonic Obama, if for no other reason than the stereotypically waspish Republican 'massa' image.
Amusingly enough the senior citizen voting block, which i hear tends to be pyramid-base solid, will likely shift the overall balance by election time depending on how much faith our over-medicated grandsires still place in healthcare reform. It's odd that neither branch of the party is putting more effort into smoothing wrinkles this time around.

The main fodder for both of the overstuffed political grazers is the 'working stiff', increasingly angered at the lack of career opportunities or even day-to-day drudgery opportunities. Both sides of the American Conservative Party are promising jobs. Jobs, jobs jobs. I would doubt, however, that either of their plans would result in SteveJobs style jobs. The last thing any empire wants is the growth of an educated, self-sufficient, creative middle class. Restructure universities as trade schools and 'create' service-industry jobs, construction jobs, auto part swapping jobs, street-sweeper, telemarketer and accountant jobs. Keep them working 9-5 and putting in overtime. Idle minds do the liberals' work.

Because of course we can't have a candidate admitting that the outsourcing of tech support to Indian call centers is harmless compared to the lowering of expectations in terms of civic planning, scientific and ethical advancement and the re-creation of a stable economic base in the face of our inevitable loss of the black-gold standard. That would just make them sound like elitist hippies, and who wants another Jefferson on our hands?

So, just a couple o' paragrabs. You'll notice i make no prediction as to the outcome of the election. Between the two choices to which the public mindlessness limits itself, one is decidedly preferable, but only in the way that death by starvation is preferable to being stuffed in a mound of fire ants. The only difference between the ass and the Pinocchio-nosed ass is how much of a show of resistance they want to put on for China before rolling out the red carpet.