stuck with sugar water

Well, it looks like after the withdrawal of Kucinich and Edwards we are stuck with sugar water on the Democratic side and various flavors of cyanide-laced koolaid on the Republican.

Given the false choice between Coke and Pepsi, I guess I’ll have to go with Pepsi (the “New Generation”, right?)  Although, first let me make a correction.  Voting for Barack Obama is not “passing the torch to a new generation” as  much as the press loves to make Kennedy analogies.  The Baby Boom ran from 1948-1964.  Hilary Clinton, at age 60,  was born at the very early end.  Obama, born in 1961, was born at the later end.  The political world isn’t done with us Baby Boomers yet.

As much as I’d like to think that a black President would strike a blow against US arrogance and neocolonialism, people like Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, and Clarence Thomas lead me to avoid making blanket assumptions based on skin color.  And Obama’s stated positions, such as they are, don’t vary substantially from Clinton’s.  So why choose Pepsi over Coke?

As I noted in my previous blog (Tastes Great, Less Filling) I think Obama is a blank slate upon which many people are projecting their hopes and beliefs.  These are positive hopes and beliefs, and maybe, just maybe, when reflected onto the charismatic Obama they will become more than the sum of their parts and help propel our country up from the depths to which it has sunk.  Obama has the capacity to inspire and to lead, which is more than you can say for Hilary Clinton, who at worst is calculating and mean and at best is a competent CEO.

I must say, it is a pleasure to listen to a candidate who has the capacity to put two sentences together without making the listener either gag or fall asleep.  Obama has the chance to appeal to America’s better nature across demographic and ideological categories and win, while Clinton, with her limited base, unpleasant personality, and heavy baggage, does not.

I wish there was a Democrat still standing with some genuine nutritional content but I’m thirsty and I have to drink what’s out there.  I can’t watch America drink the poisoned koolaid anymore.  I cannot.

the revolution will not be televised

If a presidential candidate speaks and the media dos not acknowledge his existence, is he really running?

During the past weeks, Dennis Kucinich, a legitimate Presidential candidate, has been excluded from the democratic process. Every major media outlet has forbid him to participate in debates.  The state of Texas is not printing his name on their ballots.  From reading the Oregonian, our local paper, it would be impossible to discern that he is running at all, since the paper failed to list his vote tallies in New Hampshire and Michigan.  (Republican candidate Fred Thompson, who garnered less than one percent in either contest, made the listing).  After careful sleuthing, I discovered that Kucinich won 4% of the Michigan vote.  Such a tally hardly makes for front runner status, but it is not insignificant.

Dennis Kucinich is actually more experienced in elective office than either Clinton or Obama.  He gives voice to a segment of opinion that has otherwise been shut out of the political process.  He is the only candidate that opposed the invasion of Iraq from the beginning, the only one to vote against the Patriot Act.  He is the only candidate to oppose NAFTA, to seriously address gloal warming, to support universal single-payer health care.

My initial impulse is to believe that Dennis’ voice is being suppressed because of the subversive nature of his views.  Obama may purport to be the candidate of “change”, but while his version of change is amorphous and focus-tested, Kucinich’s proposals are courageous, clear, and entail a drastic departure from business as usual under the Bush administration.  They are what used to be known as liberal Democratic views.  Dennis Kucinich is the conscience of the Democratic party.

But the reality may be even sadder.  I can’t help but suspect that Kucinich is being ignored because he doesn’t fit conveniently into a media narrative.  He’s short and not particularly attractive.  He’s not black.  He’s not a woman.  His passionately felt and carefully articulated positions can’t be condensed into sound bites.  In a world where candidates are marketed like soft drinks, Kucinich is difficult to package.

Politicians ultimately rise and fall on public support and that support does depend on their public relations skills as well as their intellect and integrity.  What is disturbing here is that the media have outstepped their traditional role of providing objective infomation to the public.  They have taken the decision-making process into their own hands.  By denying the public their opportunity to make a fully informed decision they are making a travesty of our supposedly democratic elections.

Since our democratic process has sunk to the level of show business, perhaps it is only fitting that the quote that keeps coming to my mind as I watch the self-congratulatory blather that passes for debate in the 2008 elections is one from Revenge of the Sith.  The Republic’s Senate cedes power to the evil Empire:

“This is how democracy dies, to a roomful of applause.”

tastes great, less filling

It amazes me how statements coined by someone–media pundits, campaign managers–can end up repeated in an endless echo chamber until they attain the unquestionable aura of truth.  This has certainly happened with Clinton and Obama and their supposed battle between experience and change.

What precisely \constitutes Hilary Clinton’s vaunted experience?  She is a lawyer and a one term Senator.   Her major career has been as a political wife.  She is intelligent, politically well-connected and politically astute .  But Barack Obama, while not rating ultra high on the experience meter , actually has more experience in elective office than Clinton.  The candidates with the most experience were dismissed immediately by the media as “minor candidates” (Kucinich, Biden, Dodd, and Richardson).

What about change?  Its a cliche that change is a constant of life.  Since George W. Bush cannot run again, by definition the next president will be a “change”.  If a Democrat is elected–any Democrat–the change will be greater.  On the other hand, neither Clinton or Obama appear to have the vision or the courage to initiate the drastic changes of attitude and method  that are necessary to reverse the destructive freefall caused by the Bush administration.  Neither of them are talking seriously about global warming, withdrawal from Iraq, our failure to truly deal with the root causes of terrorism, the fact our government practices torture and continues to hold thousands of prisoners without just cause, the erosion of our constitutional rights, the destruction of America’s international standing, the absolute collapse of our health care system…in short almost anything that truly matters. 

Instead we hear endless blather about Obama’s blackness and Clinton’s femaleness.  If we’d truly gotten beyond racism and sexism we’d be judging these candidates by the depth or their minds and the  content of their character, not the color of their skin or the shape of their genitals.  And we get these meaningless buzzwords, these false choices.   Experience. Change.  The whole empty spectacle reminds me of an ad for a soft drink.  There’s not much truly to say about sugar water so advertising copywriters earn millions coming up with slogans people can read their desires into.  Remember “coke is it”? Or “the real thing”?  It, or the thing, could be a crowd of good friends, a sunny day on the beach, a beautiful muscular body, hipness, coolness, true love.  It can be anything you want it to be, as long as it distracts you from the fact that what it really is is sugar water.  People are reading into Obama, that bubbly blank slate of a candidate who promises “change you can believe in” any kind of change that they themselves believe in, whether that be withdrawal from Iraq, saving salmon, or ending hunger.  They are reading into him their own values, their own passions.  Rarely does anyone check and see if his votes or position papers actually agree.

As for Clinton, she projects an image of experience, her hair never out of place, her apparel feminine but businesslike, her opinions\ focus-tested.  She speaks glibly; the problem is that, like Obama, she isn’t saying anything.

Yet so rarely does anyone look beyond these carefully calibrated images.

Fortunately for the Democrats, the Republican party seems truly split between a slate of truly repulsive candidates. Given continued war and economic collapse they may defeat themselves quite easily.  But it sure would be nice if the Democratic party could offer a more substantive alternative than sugar water.