The Election ReCycle

It's time once again for the American people to endure another election cycle.

Will this one be billed as some sort of titanic fight for the survival of American Values, and deemed, for the nth time, "The Most Important Election of Our Lives"?

It seems like every four years my gag reflex becomes stronger and my sense of hope falls shorter and shorter of my already abysmal postmodern casts toward the glorious Promise of our American Dream. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if there was at least some artistry to the rhetoric, but alas, sadly for our dumbed down, decadent society, for a people who communicate in Snooky, the only thing that assures a candidacy is ad nauseum mud slinging. I can't wait to be shed of that asinine epithet that came into vogue during the Bush/Kerry cycle. You know the one I'm talking about. The one that sounds more like something you'd hear on a kindergarten play ground than gurgling from the lips of the next leader of the Free World. It makes me ashamed to say that I actually participate in this Democracy, if that's what you want to call it.

I know that I am probably waiting in vane for consciousness to reach the American People, that I am likely looking down from a watershed between our political apparatus and sanity that the vast majority of our population is too lazy to summit. But I can't help hoping. For what I don't know. I guess like the Occupy Movement of late and the Tea Party Movement of a couple of years ago (yes, though they are opposite spectrums they do seem to have similarities) I know what I am against, but not what I am for. One of the nice things about being an Anarchist is perhaps that you don't need to formulate solutions before you begin de-construction. You need only courage and the will to something different.

I'm just not seeing it. The whole world shat themselves with pride when the US elected a Black President, but I think I have to agree with Cornell West on this one, Obama is no Black Messiah. In fact he's really no less a Corporate Shill than his predecessor. Maybe he can't be charged with crimes against humanity (though there is that little issue of the ongoing drown attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan) but he's not exactly the progressive lightning rod we were promised. Of course he's not the devil either, which is how the opposition has dressed him. Like all predictable political hyperbole we can expect that every four years the incumbent is going to show up in the rhetoric as some sort of baby killing Anti-Christ. If Gandhi or the Baby Jesus were running for office in this political climate you could bet they'd be painted with fangs and a bloody hard-on.

The Republicans are of course desperate to replace this Monster with their own vision of Perfection. But the Republican primary has been an up and down battle since it's beginning last Fall. There have been a host of front runners but none of them have succeeded in distinguishing themselves in their Party's Anything But Obama election platform. It's indicative of the headlessness of this Tea Party shy Republican Renaissance, that their desire is only for a negative qualifier, an Anything But platform. For a movement with such a strong Moral Value rhetoric one would think that there would be some sort of definitive answer to Obama. After all these are the consciences of the Real America that are speaking up, the silent majority roused to speech by this Socialist Scum that has somehow stolen the Presidency by playing the Race Card. So why has no shaft of light, no identifying stigmata anointed their deliverer from Evil? Why are they having so much trouble picking through the chaff for their golden child?

It's obvious to me that there is no real conviction in either party. Democrat, Republican, they both have systemic criteria that must be fulfilled to gain candidacy. The party apparatus, not the electorate, determines the viability of the candidate and whether he or she deserves the full force of their political necromancy. Any cadaver can stand to be President. The impotence is not the fault of the corpse but has become part of the mantle and a prerequisite of the Office. No one enters the White House anymore with good intentions, with a drive to effect Real Change. Anyone with those qualities is barred long before they reach the door.

American Democracy is like a wax museum, carefully crafted, and frozen for all time. It's verisimilitude tricks us into believing that it's charged with vitality, but upon closer inspection we find only hollow dummies, cold to the touch. The real fire of leadership would melt the whole edifice and ruin the simulation. Which is why we shouldn't expect change. There is no brightening future for our political apparatus, stuck as it is in perpetual paralysis. We may be fooled from time to time that a difference has occurred. After an election the wax dummies may be moved around and dusted off, but that is merely a cosmetic difference.

Voting for Change in this two party system is about as effective as playing the lottery as a means of achieving long term financial security. Sadly, it is more likely that you'll win a fortune in the lottery during your lifetime than see your vote amount to anything more than a hill of beans. I don't typically go around encouraging people to play the lottery, but I do think that it offers a higher return on our expectations than the ballot process. I know it may be momentarily satisfying to vote in the winning candidate, but I think for the vast majority of our country it would  be even more satisfying to check a box at the bottom of our ballot reading, None of the Above. This I think would be the only real way to offer the American People a vote of conscience, rather than a vote for The Lesser of Two Evils.

Third party candidates clearly have not been a viable option in this regard because they always flank one of the major candidates and thus lead people to vote strategically, rather than honestly. The third party strategy is often billed as a David vs. Goliath struggle to give the Electorate a real alternative to the Status Quo of Washington Politics, but their relative economic weakness makes it impossible to hit their Giant opponents in any vital organ. They may have a cogent and righteous message to deliver to the American People but truth is no longer a weapon with any deadly force or accuracy. It is easily defended against by spectacle and ubiquity. Truth is drowned out and David quickly dies of irrelevance. Either that or he's jumped and stabbed in the back by the parasites and sycophants that hang around Goliath's dirty sock drawer. These are people that may pay lip service to David before the fight begins, that may be genuinely inspired by his vision of a future without Goliath, but who are actually quite comfortable under the Giant's imperfect aegis and worry secretly that David will only cripple Goliath, leaving him vulnerable to other Giants. We saw this happen with Buchanan and Nader. No sooner had they grabbed up their slings than the villagers they'd sworn to defend drug them down from behind.

I know this all sounds terribly pessimistic, but I also know that a lot of people share my feelings of hopelessness when it comes to our political system. So, what is to be done about it? Should we all grab up a lawn chair and tent and find some public institution to harass with our garbage? Or should we try to navigate the official channels and fight our way to the top of the political dung hill? Or better yet, should we retreat into the hermeticism of our own personal lives, fighting our political conscience with alcohol and prescription drugs? What do you think America? Are you happy with this system? Are you ready to admit that the Experiment has gone too far, that maybe it's time to burn down the laboratory and start over from scratch?

I don't know about you.