The U.S. is close to its 110th Constitutionally-mandated biennial Federal elections ritual. Unfortunately, this 18th Century process is completely unrelated to the needs of 21st Century American reality.
We still believe that people will be level-headed every first Tuesday after the first Monday in every November during every even-numbered year to make sound decisions on a myriad of candidates and public issues. This belief is a silly flight of fancy and a vain grasp at pointless hope. This perpetual two-year cycle has pushed all elected officials in our Federal and State Governments into a single mindset of permanent campaigning and thus rendered any attempts at governing as completely secondary activities.
The Constitution pre-supposed an informed electorate who collectively takes the time to understand the key issues of the day. As a buffer against the perpetual stupidity of the masses, the framers of the Constitution established other power centers from the U.S. House of Representatives that were not beholden to them, i.e. the Presidency and the U.S. Senate. Due to various subsequent Amendments, every Federal office-holder is now beholden to public elections and the whims of an increasingly ignorant electorate every two years.
But most elected officials are not responsible for their actions or held accountable to the general public. Most are unable to consider the long-term best interests of the nation without fearing the ire of the dumbest members of our electorate that may be influenced by various transitory issues. By sheer luck of the calendar, public officials are now held responsible for the actions and failures of their elected predecessors who quietly screwed up things years before. Their own mistakes and successes will not become evident until others are holding power.
By having too many unaccountable, corruptible and narcissistic power centers, we have rendered everyone within the system ineffective and powerless. Those who wield the real power – our oligarchy – use vast amounts of cash to maintain the status quo that only benefits their financial interests and that requires the completely corruption and gridlock of our political system in Washington DC and in most of our state capitals.
Those who are the angriest are the most involved in the process and the most likely to vote. Unfortunately they are also the most ignorant, partisan, ideological, delusional and least able to make coherent decisions about anything – yet alone whether to have regular or curly fries with their sandwiches. Many independent studies show that most voters make up their minds on emotional issues and the facts are irrelevant to their thought processes. Most of us only listen to those who already agree with our preconceived notions and thus reinforce our delusions and fantasies. No wonder people are shocked when reality keeps rearing its ugly head.
Thus thoughtful people of different political persuasions now only hope for more gridlock and paralysis as the preferred result of any Federal elections. Those chosen to “lead” us – whether they are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Tea-Partiers, Greens, or whatever – are simply window dressing on a depressing oligarchy that cares not for the vast majority of Americans. Unfortunately the rest of the world actually keeps moving on without regard to our systemic ossification of thoughts and actions.
The U.S. is no longer the world’s center of gravity, or the supreme global military, economic or political decision-maker. It is delusional and egotistic to think the rest of the world will wait for us to get our domestic act together. Even our oligarchs are quickly de-coupling themselves from the rest of America as their future livelihoods and profits will be found far from our downwardly-progressing domestic market.
Too many Americans think the U.S. can promptly and magically return to some prior period of ever-expanding prosperity. We cannot visualize anything that might exist outside our immediate visual spheres and limited imaginations. We have yet come to terms with the deep structural problems besetting our nation and globe that demand we comport our lives, societies and economies in wholly different ways from which we have grown comfortable. We really don’t want to change, take responsibility, make sacrifices, or do anything differently because that would require that we lazy human beings do the hard work of real change.
Our country and electorate face a severe inability to accept reality, set worthwhile national priorities, make collective sacrifices, accept constructive criticism, look upon ourselves with any objectively, and see ourselves as part of a complex, competitive global framework. We instead seek simple solutions, silver bullets, imaginary saviors, and quick fixes for massive multi-faceted and inter-related challenges that defy such simple magical resolutions.
Most of us have attention spans that barely extend beyond a few days or weeks – while some Americans have attention spans that barely extend between a few minutes and a few nanoseconds. We expect immediate solutions as if life were a videogame or blockbuster movie, regardless of the many years it took of collective stupidity to dig the massive holes we sit in. We are wholly incapable of understanding basic cause and effect – at both the logical and scientific levels. Our level of willful ignorance makes us the laughingstock of the world’s developed nations – and of most developing countries as well.
Less than half of the total electorate periodically turns its attention from various electronic gizmos, sports and entertainment shows, fashion and media events, and other self-centered, narcissistic and shallow diversions, to briefly think about the major issues facing this country. When the choices are limited to just two sides of the same corrupt coin that both work for the wealthiest 2% of Americans, the final outcome is pre-ordained and naturally nothing changes. Most Tea-Partiers have completely missed the big picture of what is going on in this country and around the globe. Even if a number of them are elected in November, their impact will be irrelevant at best, and deconstructive at worse.
While current economic conditions are a result of two decades of bi-partisan mismanagement and Republican micro-mismanagement from January 2001 until January 2009, the majority now believes the current situation is principally the responsibility of those holding office for less than 20 months. Even if the Obama Administration had undertaken the best possible responses a year ago, their policies would still not be having full or remedial effects for several years. The Republican and Tea-Party policy alternatives have been and continue to be complete balderdash and nonsense – essentially denials of all hard facts and reality.
Too many voters cannot distinguish between long-term policies, structural issues, and temporal conditions outside the immediate control of anyone. A perpetual blame-game by our two political parties does not advance the public discourse or level of understanding either. Replacing a group of confused and timid imbeciles with a group of bellicose and nasty imbeciles is not a viable means of assigning political power or running a superpower.
American-style democracy and capitalism have run their course and they both actually died in 2008. We’re throwing a national temper tantrum in 2010 about their joint demise. It will take years for some of us to admit they died and that we don’t have any viable alternatives.
Unfortunately most Americans haven’t the foggiest idea of what to do next. No one across the U.S. – particularly among our ruling political and business classes nor any among our intellectuals, academia, media and anyone else vested in the dead status-quo is willing to state the obvious – yet alone start coming up with workable ideas of where we go from here.
There are some all around the country who have seen this catastrophe coming even before 2005. There are many options available to the U.S. but none are easy and most Americans are not in the mood to discuss anything. Those of us who have the best answers must remain relatively quiet, continue to write endless blogs that will be bitterly criticized, make myriads of thoughtful proposals that will be rejected out of hand, and simply bide our time until there are enough sane people with open minds ready for the truth.
Submitted 9/26/10 by Marc Pascal ranting from Phoenix, Arizona.