Sorry for not posting for so long. I’ve been
pre-occupied with pressing personal matters.
There are many variations
on [Irish author/statesman] Edmund Burke’s famous (and wise) quotation, “Those
who don't know history are destined to repeat it.” What I find more discouraging as we slog through
our current presidential campaign, is that those who don’t properly understand
the present and very recent past are destined to make really bad decisions in
the near future. But I concede we’re low on good options.
Thanks to our commercially
corrupt, 24/7/365 television (and Internet) news cycle, political campaigns
have become endless, boring reality shows and poll-driven horse races – and we
wonder why the U.S. has the lowest percentage of voting citizenry among all
industrial, “First World” nations! Maybe if our campaigns took six months
(preferably three) instead of two years (!) and our media spoke truth to both power and the powerless,
people en mass would think smarter, be better (and truthfully) informed, and therefore
more motivated to vote. (Getting rid of the Electoral College might help too.)
I’m just a smart person
and a political animal, not a professional pundit. But I’m amazed by what I
hear the official pundits do say and don’t say.
For example, the media
talks about President Obama as if he were just another president – rather than
the first black president. I’m an [old school] liberal, but it was always my
ardent wish that the first black president would be a very light-skinned Republican so that White America might possibly
get used to the idea. Instead, we got a darker-skinned Democrat who campaigned
as a progressive, then governed like a centrist in an effort to get White
Government to work with him, but he was and still is being blocked, derided and
shockingly disrespected at every turn.
Conservative white people
have been saying that because a black man was elected twice, it shows that
racism is a thing of the past. But the truth is, Obama’s presidency has
actually brought this country’s entrenched, systemic racism gushing to the
surface. This is not the President’s fault, but it is the truth. If you haven’t
noticed that…well, the best I can say is you haven’t been paying attention.
Now, we’re confronted with
the very real possibility of a completely unqualified, angry, uncouth white
bully on the Republican side (Trump or Cruz, take your pick) and a choice
between a male Socialist Jew and a female old-school politician on the
Democratic side.
Young people and weary
Baby Boomers love Bernie – who is unquestionably saying all the right things
about all the wrong things going on in this country. But even if he manages to
get the candidacy and then win the election (both of which are highly unlikely
because Americans think Democratic Socialism is the same as Communism and
anti-Semitism is still as alive and well as racism), he’ll be given the Obama
treatment and barely be able to function.
If Hillary – who a lot of
people just plain dislike and distrust – wins the day, she’ll probably stand a
better chance of functioning, even though she’s a woman, because she’s tough, knows how to play the game with the
boys, and knows where a few crucial political bodies are buried. But she too
will be thwarted wherever/whenever possible and the best we’re likely to end up
with is essentially the status quo. (Personally I'm for Bernie but I'm voting for Hillary because I think she has the best chance to win and be somewhat effective.)
Believe me when I tell you
that I wish with all my heart I could feel more positive about this election.
But what I’m seeing is an oligarchy in power, an angry barely-working-class
that used to be a reasonably contented middle class, and a déjà vu of my naive
60s youth that only led to Nixon, Reagan, social/political/economic collapse
and entirely too much religion and abuse
of technology being brought into what, Constitutionally, should be a
secular, human system. I’m very mad, very sad, and more than a little afraid.
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