I am watching as, before we, the American public, has has much time to understand what is wrong with our political system, are again being treated to vast amounts of insincerity, deception, and manipulation, to another election cycle that will likely produce nothing in the way of change, even though radical change is what is needed. We have two political parties so dominant that we call our system a two party one and, while there are differences between them, in terms of the one offering a radical alternative to the others, there is little difference. Both are for the perpetuation of an economic system that has allowed whatever was democratic in the society to be sold off to those who can afford to buy that political power that, in democratic theory, was supposed to be in the hands of the people, the whole of the people and not but a very few. But it has come to be that a very few, always wealthy, have come to own America outright and it is they who make the decisions that force the rest to live lives shaped to insure that power remains in the hands of the wealthy, that power used to keep both wealth and power in their hands.
While we are thinking about the political cycle that begins again before it ever ends we focus on candidates who we sort into better and worse without a whole lot of hope that any will really bring about anything truly good. Instead of working to force good, we concentrate on figuring out and fighting over who is the best among them, the political candidates that our two capitalist parties allow us to decide between. When we should be focused on changing those aspects of the reality we face that we know to hurt us and our fellows, we are thinking about Beto and the mayor, Bernie and Elizabeth, Biden, Amy, Kamala, and Julian, some of who might be advocating for change for the good but none of whom should be the issue itself, the useful issue being the actual issues and not the candidates. Those candidates use issues to get elected, first and foremost, because that is how the system works and they are for or against what they are for the sake of their candidacies, first and foremost. What they will do if they make it into office, everyone knows, is not to be known until they are there. Getting there is everything during the run and staying there is what is most important once they are there, if they make it.
That the American public will make choices between candidates that are in its own best interests, that the interests of the American public are what is best for the planet and all of its creatures, people included, is a good proposition to be bet against. Very sad and terribly frightening. That that public will vote on the basis of good information and sound reasoning? History says no to that possibility, too. Americans cannot fight a system that is not the best for them because they have been educated against good sense, taught to remain relatively uninformed and to accept the notion that there are others than themselves who should be making their decisions for them. That is how schools operate against their students and that is how their students come to operate against themselves, thinking themselves free while living in servitude. “Not me,” the many will say, believing that true but only because they have been taught to believe it true. I have asked many to look at the evidence. They often find it compelling. But they still do not believe in the conclusions it should cause any truly rational and free person to draw.
We are, as a society, neither rational nor free. Rationality might free us but we are taught against it. Those who run us know how to turn our heads toward what they want us to think. We are free to choose between Coke and Pepsi. So, this election cycle, it would be a wonderful thing to have the American people put aside the election cycle and think about the issues and then, when there was still enough time for the candidates to answer to the thoughtfully formulated, well-informed questions of the public, demand that the candidates, not their promotional people, thoughtfully answer those questions, any attempt at deception or subterfuge immediately disqualifying. Fuck this accepted notion that it is alright for candidates to be sold to the public. That is fucking ridiculous and incredibly dangerous. Fuck schools that set up their students to be sold good amounts of things that are no good for them. Democracy by sales pitch is stupid. A public that accepts democracy by sales pitch is not capable of being a decent democratic society.
We need a cycle of reflection that helps to bring us to our senses so that we, through our decisions as citizens of a democracy make democracy a sensible means of governance.
