What they cost us...
Sat Apr 19, 2008 at 08:57:03 AM PDT
I have followed and, I admit, participated, in the blow up about the debate, and the various media personalities intent on making the topics covered central to the selection of the next President.
We rage, and fume, at the trivial and nonsensical nature of the public posturing of the Concern Trolls on cable TV, the pandering to their imaginary friends by the various columnists, and the hatchet jobs endlessly repeated on Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Handy work of a destructive and terrible force in American politics.
But there is something much more insidious going on here and we have to lay it out for careful examination.
If we demand serious consideration of the extraordinary budget deficit and national debt, we are told that no one would pay any attention to the mutterings of preening personalities entrusted with informing the citizens of a democracy, if that were the topic. This, in spite of findings in every opinion poll that citizines want to learn the candidate's positions on issues of import to them. The War, Peak Oil, Climate Change, Globalization, the falling dollar, we beg for a discussion of these critical issues.
"Oh, no!", we are told, "you don't care about all that boring stuff. Now, pay attention. Did you know that candidate X once shook hands with a woman who later murdered her grandfather? How should the voters feel about that Senator? Are you going to murder your grandfather?"
We are repeatedly told that these are the things that matter - gossipy, pointless, meanderings through the gaff and and the blunder - through hypothetical foolishness, and imaginary moral failures, through sins of association, misstated and misrepresented fragments of analysis, and deliberate attempts to create controversy where none exists.
And everyone plays along, afraid of being called weak, or elitist, or "out of touch".
Consider what this has given us.
We have seen a string of terribly flawed candidates elevated to the office of the President, primarily because the conduit of information thinks the whole bloody thing is a game. A game of selecting the candidate who will survive their trivial and deliberately childish determination of what voters shall use to make their decisions.
Boring?
Regular Guy.
Egg-head?
Elitist?
Maverick?
Liar?
Each of these terms came to dominate the narrative when discussing one of the brilliant men and women who have risen to compete for the Presidency. Each is dismissive, demeaning and designed to shape the thinking of those who pay little attention to politics and look for a short-hand meme to aid in their decision. And, each led to the selection of a flawed candidate over a strong and skillful one.
The citizens can not be blamed. How can most of us really know who these people are when our only exposure to any of them is through the carefully staged event, and the filter of the personal preferences, and personality quirks of which Talking Head hated his mother, feared his father, or felt intellectually inadequate in the presence of a great mind?
It is not enough to insist that each voter go to the web site of each candidate and read and compare their position papers. Like polls, position papers are a snap shot of plans based on current circumstances. Those positions will, and must, change as circumstances change. Further, unless we want to establish a test for voters, we must acknowledge that many voters cannot understand the complexities of policy in which they have no background. And in spite of the number of mature participants on the blogs, a very large number of voters either still have no access to the web, or do not know how to use it effectively. They are left to learn about each candidate from the TV, the print medium, and the gossipy comments of neighbors and family.
We all agree that this may be the single most serious election in our lifetime. The mess that must be untangled, the limited funds to do so, the recapturing of status for America on the world stage, all cry for serious, skillful people, gifted intellects with a vast understanding and tolerance for ambiguity. These are, however, not the qualities that are being paraded for the "masses". They are, instead, being entertained with a mind numbing parade of irrelevancies, designed to confuse and complicate their voting decisions.
If we get another George W. Bush it may well signify the end of America as we know it. If we get another media manufactured empty suit, popular with the Guys and Gals on the Bus, but devoid of the skill to attack and halt the descent into the abyss, if we don't continue to challenge the childish and fearfully harmful effect of the media coverage of this election, we will deserve our own destruction, because we sat back and ridiculed but did nothing to change the discussion.
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