Circus Maximus: the clown car of American politics
Endlessly mundane and always uninformative, the moribund struggle for party nominations in what we so disrespectfully still call the "presidential campaign" inhabit a realm of such vacuous inanity, a casual observer can palpably sense malignant tumors of ennui forming within. While would-be Republican candidates spar for the GOP nomination by appealing to brain stem functions (that is, when they're not extolling us with tales of their heavenly devotion), Democrats carry themselves at only a marginally elevated level. This is not to say that there are not candidates -- on both sides -- who would like to raise the bar and address actual issues and policy, but those are shunned by our craven and cack-handed media mavens, who never seem to tire of their perceived role as king-maker in what has become -- for the world's "greatest democracy" -- an embarrassing spectacle of the most base and primitive dimensions. I suspect if media moguls could get Romney and Huckabee to square off in a cage fight, well, that would be next on the tour of the candidates. Who needs all this talk? Though the American public demand campaigns of substance, there appears little of that on the political horizon, while furry idiots like Wolf Blitzer express puzzlement at the term "triangulating" as it pertains to Hillary Clinton.
What we constantly hear from the corporate media, though it is never stated quite so bluntly, is that those with the money become the kings. The American political campaign system is now a big-money bonanza for media corporations. These corporations prop up candidates with the most money knowing full well that that money will come straight back to them in the form of campaign advertising. The media are now simply advertisers for the biggest political spenders, which is perhaps the reason why the campaign cycle is now virtually continuous. It is a positive feedback loop, reinforcing in the minds of the public that the only viable candidates are the ones with the money, the polls reflect this, more money pours in for those "viable candidates," which in turn cycles right back to the media money machine.
Which is why I am constantly amazed that the so-called "progressive" blogs have chosen to endorse corporate-backed candidates like Hillary Clinton. Though a candidate like Dennis Kucinich espouses ideals resonant with most liberal voters, indeed, with most of the country, he is as marginalized as "unelectable" by progressives as by the mainstream media, though no one ever seems to explain exactly what it means to be "unelectable." Is it his ears?
The purposefully constrained political party system has, indeed, forced liberals into only one corner. Liberals certainly will not vote for Republicans today. Bush has fairly destroyed any vestige of that odd creature once known as the "Reagan Democrat" and the "major" Republican candidates seem interested in being more Bush than Bush. No, progressives have been forced into seeing the Democratic Party as their only choice and, as the performance of Democratic-led House and Senate have amply demonstrated after over a year in the majority, that choice is a damn poor one.
Nonetheless, "progressives" are unwavering in their desire for a Democrat to gain the White House, which they believe will lead to some kind of correction of our horribly misbegotten ways. But I wonder if they do not find it the slightest bit disconcerting that the leading Democratic candidate is -- by far -- the biggest recipient of defense industry cash. Do these progressives not see the future in the sign that the health care industry is also backing Clinton above all others? What does this tell us about the possibility of Democrats repealing the military misadventures or providing universal health care that is not simply a tax-payer sop to the "health care" industry? Does Kos believe that Clinton is, perhaps, a progressive sleeper agent, that, once having soaked up those corporate dollars, she will spring into progressive action, stop the war, withdraw the troops, reinstate habeas corpus, halt the spying, hold the telecoms accountable, and send up those venal HMO corporations?
It was obvious after the 2004 election that kos was more afraid of the establishment than he would have people believe when he unilaterally declared that reports of election fraud would be stricken from his site. Despite years of evidence now gathered, despite the volumes published, despite expert opinion and analysis, kos' position has not wavered on this, despite daily reports of Republican-led election shenanigans across the country, with only the latest (and most benign) being the Romney campaign's corruption of a Florida GOP straw poll. In this regard, Kos is acting exactly like the Democratic party, to afraid to bear mention that some things have been terribly amiss in recent American elections. If the attorney purge scandal, uncovered and now largely forgotten, should have demonstrated one thing to the Democrats, it is that the Republicans, as led by Rove, have utterly hijacked the apparatus of government in service of the GOP. Today, a Democrat sits in prison because of these activities, and yet, from the Democrats, not a word. And neither is there one from those so-called progressives like kos.
One can construct two possible scenarios from the evidence of the corporate largesse directed toward Clinton. One, influential industries really do place their faith in Clinton that she will continue to deliver that which they so desire and, two, that these industries and others backing her are setting her up for a fall at the hands of a corporate media well-schooled in the art of Clinton-bashing, in which case the Republican nominee takes the White House. The latter is hopelessly convoluted and, despite Republican/corporate control of the electoral system, the outcome is not guaranteed. More likely, of course, is that Clinton has simply been bought off and nothing in her performance to date would dispel that. The added bonus of this, obviously, is that she has to deal with Iraq and can be blamed for that as needed. And despite American public insistence that we leave Iraq, Clinton has more than endorsed our continued albeit reduced presence there, as have the other "major" Democratic candidates. This reality is something for which progressives can only blame themselves by ignoring the candidates who promise to serve the public interest and choosing to vote for someone more "electable."
Did We Vote for That?
The cynical perspective, and by that I mean a realistic one, sees that elections in America mean almost nothing. This is not to disparage the efforts of good people trying to correct the dreadful state of the American electoral process, but the reality must be faced squarely. This reality has not been more amply announced than by the activities of Congress since the Democrats gained House and Senate majorities in November, 2006. The Iraq war still rages, health care remains doomed to corporatism, the national debt ramps up by a million dollars a minute, torture, indefinite detention and secret prisons are still "on the table." After being assured by Democratic Party faithful that corrections to Republican sponsored bills would be forthcoming once party majorities moved into Congress, the odious Military Commissions Act remains law of the land and the restoration of habeas corpus is a lost memory, while the Democrats dance around NSA domestic surveillance, scrambling over each other to immunize participating telecommunication companies from resulting lawsuits.
Previous congressional epochs have seen similar industry fealty. Why, for example, was the first order of business of the 109th Congress the passage of the so-called Bankruptcy Bill, a bill practically written by the financial industry and something that had not once been mentioned during the immediately prior campaign season? Why, after the Bush campaign denied that privatizing Social Security was on their agenda, did privatizing Social Security suddenly appear on their agenda? What we did hear a lot of during the campaign was that John Kerry was a flip-flopper, a coward in Vietnam and a traitor afterwards, gay marriage would destroy the country and evolution was suddenly a myth again.
But these are only the most glaring, recent public examples of the lack of congressional and executive regard for electoral will and politicians' steadfast adherence to an agenda that bears little resemblance to that which they publicly espouse. American policy is evidence of decades of similar and worse political malfeasance.
There exists another aspect of American policy that gets no attention in public nor does it receive hearing in any democratic fora in this country. These "policies" are implemented within the bowels of bureaucracy, usually the Pentagon bureaucracy, and are often discovered -- if at all -- only after the fact. These policies emerge and are implemented in a domain that exists completely outside of the processes of democratic debate. For instance, at no time in the presidential debates or campaigns will anyone ask or be asked about our engagement in Somalia and US backing of the brutal behaviour of the Ethiopian government in the region. No one will ask or be asked whether we should be supporting rebels in Darfur and destabilizing Sudan or why our efforts to halt that disaster have not been more forceful. No one will ask or be asked whether US support for Pakistan's military regime and the charade that they are an "ally" in the "war on terror" is at all advisable. In fact, no one questions whether Musharraf is an ally at all. No one will ask or be asked whether we should be meddling in elections in Venezuela, Ukraine or Georgia. No one will ask or be asked why depleted uranium munitions have been deployed in the Middle East and elsewhere, for years, and which have now turned Iraq into "toxic wasteland." No one will ask or be asked whether it is a good idea that the US military is building -- has built -- weather modification weapons, weapons that are "capable of destabilising agricultural and ecological systems around the world." And at no time do I expect that anyone will ask or be asked whether mountain top mining in the United States -- our own toxic wasteland -- should continue unabated.
These are all things that transpire today and will likely continue to transpire without the consent of the "governed" and without the slightest consideration by presidential candidates, the somnambulant media or an enervated American public, too distressed, it seems, by the bleak outlook of their own diminishing future.
None of this need continue. A correction is possible. But it will only come from an American public that must demand and enforce actual free and fair elections and in turn demand and enforce actual representation of their interests in Congress. They do not have that now but the billowing thunderheads of skyrocketing debt, of financial meltdown, of a collapsing dollar and the corporate machinations of a foul and wicked political class must assuredly wake them. This will be difficult because this correction must come from the very people who are benighted by the media, cheated by election rigging, brow-beaten by a growing police state and punished by unbridled debt dumped on them by their own repugnant government, the military-industrial complex and a deeply irresponsible financial industry.
It cannot continue. It must not continue. It is time to stuff the clowns back in their clown car and send them on long, long ride away from here.
