Ennui

I can’t wait for the American election season to be over, for the endless misleading TV commercials to go away, and for all the breathless analysis by mainstream media yakkers to stop. Enough already. The whole production is a sham and a travesty. When all is said and done, all the money spent on pollsters and strategists and PR flacks and spin doctors, the choice boils down, as it always does, to picking the lesser of two evils for the White House, the Congress, the State Assembly, and on and on.

Pick the least destructive option, the less deadly poison, but either way understand that the status quo is what you will get. Sure, there are differences between Obama and Romney, Democrats and Republicans, but, when it comes to economic or national security policy, the differences are inconsequential; both parties serve corporate interests at the expense of ordinary citizens and that cozy, mutually perpetuating arrangement is not in danger of changing.

The American media give Mitt Romney high marks for looking the part of a leader while lying through his teeth. Romney flips and flops like a landed catfish, this way and that, over here, then over there, left and right; he turns facts on their head, swears he didn’t mean what he said ten days or ten minutes ago, promises to repair the economy by following the same policies that brought the economy to its knees and put millions out of work. Though this is madness of the highest order, the talking heads nod solemnly, as if what Romney is spewing makes sense, and then they claim that Mitt now has momentum on his side.

Obama would have the electorate believe he is the opposite of his record; we should forget his deeds of the past four years and remember his words, the soaring rhetoric about hope and change, justice and equality, accountability and transparency. If we trust him with another term, he will deliver on all his promises and make America a better place.

I no longer believe in magic. Do you?

Here in California the ballot is loaded with initiatives to, among other things, maintain funding for public education, eliminate the death penalty, label food, and close corporate tax loopholes. Most of the initiatives are deliberately written to confuse voters. A Yes vote really means No or vice versa. Legislating through ballot initiative has robbed California of its mojo, boldness and creativity, crippled public education – our great engine of progress and upward mobility -- and made the state nearly impossible to govern. We elect state legislators to do our will, but, Sacramento, like Washington D.C., is an ideological battleground, where partisans glare at one another across a no-man’s land and refuse to budge from their fixed positions. Compromise is seen as weakness, not statesmanship.

The irony of American elections is that even if we troop to the polls as we are constantly told dutiful citizens must, we cannot be sure our votes will be tallied for the candidate or causes we choose. Unaccountable electronic voting machines are easily hacked, votes flipped from one candidate to another, as we saw in Ohio in 2004.

On the other hand, it’s 79 degrees outside and the sky is blue and cloudless. From a nearby hill, I can see clear to the Channel Islands; the wind is out of the west and gently rustles the eucalyptus trees. This view is timeless and impervious to the machinations of political hacks.