Life On the Wicked Stage: Act 2

A Small Victory for the Non-Lying Class

It was tempting to title this post A Small Victory for Truth over Lying, but that would have been a lie. Neither political party, nor neither of the two candidates who ran for the presidency of the USA has a anything approaching a respect for the truth. If you disagree with that statement you are lying to yourself, stop reading this post and move on into your own world of fantasy. If two oppoents could claim a monopoly on lying then both could in this case. Nonetheless, there was a small victory on Tuesdaty for those in the non-lying class, or perhaps that should be those who prefer to be treated as if they aren't schoolchildren when it comes to confronting the issues we have before us.

If lying wasn't such a fundamental piece of keeping those who practice it in power and rolling in the dough, we'd be seeing the beginnings of tear down of many of the things that we all accept as a part of the game called politics. We're seeing some fraying around the edges, yes, but let's get real. Wholesale change isn't going to occur simply because one side lost in a game where the winners don't matter. The whinners might matter more. 

We can talk about the candidates, the lack of candidates, skewed polling, Nate Silver, the non-messaging messages, the technological failures, the failure of this or that, the shift in demographics, media bias, storms, etc... but that's a game that only losers play. There is something to the shift in demographics, but only the blind (or those with blinders on) couldn't see that coming over the last 20 years. What's really at the core of why so many feel so unfulfiilled after this recent election is that the outcome proved that the industry surrounding politics in this country failed and failed miserably. 

It failed because at its very essence it took those it was selling to for granted. It failed because it exists to feed itself, not offer a better shot at the future. It failed because lying is its best weapon and the targets of those weapons have, I hope, simply dodged the bullets flying at them from both sides. Set aside the issues for a moment (if you can), and recognize that both sides believed that they could advertise, market, and sell to a public in the way that would have never allowed Willy Loman to ever collect a commission. It has been a contempuous underestimation of the intelligence of those it wishes to sell to for far too long. The movers and shakers who play this game watched as the game pieces refused to move and were, (gasp) surprised at the outcome in a way that Captain Renault would dismiss as ignorant.

For the last decade those who hold power have not been paying attention to how they have eroded trust in government, religious institutions, social institutions, and anything other institution you can think of. Instead they have congratulated themselves for finding new ways to remove truth, data, facts, and reality from the discussion. Anyone who dared speak a bit of truth, or lay out a fact, quickly found out that they were subject to the quickest game of "kill the messenger" that has ever existed. At least Greek dramatists gave the messenger a monologue. And we were left with no facts, no sense of a baseline for the truth, and no way to figure out who was right or wrong. Or so they thought.

The results of this election will only truly matter if there is some serious reconsideration of the game. That won't happen sadly, because too many fortunes depend on keeping the bubble from popping.

Back to the demographics, and a key point in my view. George W. Bush tried to hand the Republican party its future when he pushed for immigration reform during his tenure. The right refused to go along. Then Obama got elected, give early lip service to the issue until it mattered, and caught the Right by surprise during the campaign season. If you're a Republican you should sue for political malpractice because that was as predictable as day following night. But, at that point, the Right's modus operandi of opposing anything Obama mentioned had caught up to them in ways they hadn't realized and couldn't reverse, and the Democrats now own the Hispanic vote until a Rubio or a Bush comes along to challenge them. But they will have to fight through and over the idiociy that this contest's candidates and party foisted on them in their desperately misquided attempts to oust Obama. Self-deportation? Did that really get said in a debate? Yes, it did.

And that shows just how simply ridiciculous this game has become, and how simple-minded its players have morphed into. We reached a point where very few listened to ideas because we weren't given any, instead listening to those who fed into our own fears on both sides. Calling it an echo chamber or a mirror effect does disservice to both of those clichés. it was a giant circle jerk that turned into a circular firing squad.

Will anyone learn from this? Only those who I hope won't be blinded or blind-sided again. The solution to the issues at hand aren't easy, and have been made more challenging by those we elect to solve them. They've demonized opponents and ideas, and even made the essence of governing- "compromise", a dirty word. In turn, they've turned their own swords on themselves in some sort of weird hari-kari or seppukoo dance, that won't even have the honorable ending that those traditions cloak themselves in. 

While that might sound just too damn depressing, the real hope here is that enough of us pawns in the game may have finally seen that those who want to lead us are as naked as emporer in a fable.

 

 

How I'm Voting This Year

So, the great circus we call American politics heads to its big day on Tuesday. I won't say "finale" because there is a good chance the final result won't be known for a few days after election day. Let's hope we don't get into that again. However this ends up, I have to say I will just be glad its over. I do think the result will matter. Elections do have consequences. But I'll be glad its over because at the very least we won't have to watch the two guys running for the White House make stuff up anymore. Sure, we'll go back to watching elected politicans make stuff up, but as they've proven in the most recent past, making stuff up instead of making laws is what they do best.

When the election is done, we'll be left with a shambles. Our political landscape already looks like parts of the East Coast that were ravaged by the Frankenstorm. I hope that we've reached the bottom of the big hole we've been throwing ourselves into since the early days of Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich. Leaders who will desecrate that which they want to achieve in order to achieve it aren't leaders. They are scoundrels and opportunistic parasites in my book and deserve scorn.

Lee Atwater acknowledged this before his death. Something tells me Gingrich never will. But this isn't just a Republican thing, both sides are guilty of the destruction. We're reached a point where nothing that is said by anyone is true. Lying wins these days, because, well, facts are what we say they are, depending on who we are and who the other side is. Reporting on that has lost all meaning. When facts shift like sands under the beating surf, there's no way the house stands on its foundation. Strict adherence to anything that our side espouses has become as rigid as a blood oath, even when we have to disavow things that we formerly believed in and know are right. Truth has always been a casualty in politics. That's not news. But we've reached the point where we are aborting truth in the womb before it even has a chance to become a casualty on the battlefield. As long as we win I guess it is all OK. Everywhere you turn, on the boob tube, to Twitter, to the papers, everyone wants to be some sort of combination of Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, Chris Matthews, or Ed Schultz. You really couldn't make this stuff up if you tried. But then that's why fiction writers at least give their characters some sort of spine.

What gets me about this game is that it is being played by what I have always assumed are intelligent people. I have now officially begun to doubt that, as the players and their proponents but carnival barkers to shame. Whether it is my assumptions that are off, or we've finally reached a point where the only folks we can attract into politics are those with egos that outweigh their intelligence I don't know. Regardless, as a student of history, I find it a sad state of affairs.

Yes, I will be voting on Tuesday. Yes, I will be voting for Barack Obama. But here's something that will probably piss off or astound some of my liberal friends and a few of my conservative ones.

Going into this election cycle, (I'm talking 2010 here) I was prepared to listen to the Republican side of things. The reason? We'll simply put, I didn't think Obama was up to the task in a world where his opponents were hell bent on destroying him rather than actually doing what we pay them for when we elect them. Unfortunately for him (and us) he got boxed in by the Republicans in a game that he couldn't win. Sadly, I don't think anyone could have done any better. Tragically, I'm sorry it happened that way. Because no president in the future will ever have the opportunity to lead again. We've allowed so called statesmen to destroy that.

But the reason I was going to give the Republicans a fair shot was pragmatic. The business I run has been struggling since the market collapse. It was obvious to me that the Republicans didn't care if they burnt down the country, they weren't going to allow Obama to accomplish anything remotely positive when it came to the economy. In my pragmatic mode of thinking, I may not agree with much of what the Republicans stand for, but at least we'd get out of this game of chicken we'd been playing with our the economy. Sure, we'd be playing a different game, but maybe, just maybe, things would improve a little.

But something happened along the way. The Republicans, in a year when they should be walking away with this election, fielded the most inept group of cartoons for candidates that could possibly be imagined. I may be doing a disservice to cartoons everywhere by calling them that, but so be it. Think back a minute to the Republican primaries. Serous adults allowed that mockery of this nation's political process to actually occur. Serious adults actually pretended to give credence to the likes of Michele Bachmann, Donald Trump, Rick Perry, and God help us, Newt Gingrich. The only candidate who actually sounded like he believed in anything was Rick Santorum. Unfortunately, even the rightest of the right wing wouldn't go there with him. And the best the Republicans could come up with was Mitt Romney.

In the last two presidential election cycles the Republicans have put forth nominees that prove, more than anything they do, that the only reason they care about winning the White House has to be because they believe it doesn't matter. But then George W. Bush proved that it both doesn't matter and yet matters so, so much. What did I say about elections having consequences? The ones that do for the Republicans are in State houses and the US House of Representatives. I honestly believe that the selection of Romney means that they don't want the White House. It is tougher to govern than it is to be the opposition.

You know, Romney might actually be a smart businessman, and he might actually be a decent man. Unfortunately, we'll never know, because win or lose, we've never had the opportunity to find out. And if there is any shame left in the man, someday in the future, I hope he reveals it. If nothing else to cleanse his own soul. If he wins, he's going to have a hard time, because while he may be rich and own a bunch of stuff, there is nothing he owns when it comes to a set of values anymore. If he loses, he'll go down in history as something of a joke. He won't even get the benefit of hanging around the way Sarah Palin did. When a modern day candidate and his campaign thinks they can get away without providing some serious sounding answers to questions, then how could they possibly expect my vote or yours. Note, I didn't say serious real answers. Just serious sounding ones. I know how the game is played.

So, my pragmatism has kicked in again. Actually it kicked in once Romney chased the other cartoons off the stage.

You see, even in my state of despairing disenchantment, I actually believe in our political process. At least the way it used to be. Campaigns revealed character. Campaigns revealed how we think. They still do that last part in a twisted way. They reveal that we don't think much anymore, we just align. As a matter of fact, they reveal how little thinking actually goes on about anything important. A big part of what I believe in is that we need two strong parties to compete so that ideas do get bounced around and debated by elected officials. If there is any strength in either party it is in the ability to con money out of those who think it matters. The Democrats have been wholly unserious for so long that the only thing that keeps them hanging around is the Republicans have been so transparently stupid every chance they've had to make some progress.

So, we're left with the clowns owning the center ring, and I'm afraid when all is said and done, we're going to be left with more of the same no matter who wins this time around. Once you've trashed the joint where you party, someone has to clean up the mess. Our problem is we're still so much into the trashing mode that we don't notice that the joint is coming down on our heads.

Thomasin Savaiano Asks for your Support for Wayside Theatre

Check out this less than five mintue video, as actress and teacher, Thomasin Savaiano, asks for your annual support for Wayside Theatre. We had some extraordinary support last year, and the challenge is to sustain all that positive momentum going forward. The video says it all.