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The Show goes on. Finally, a little popular culture. John Cougar Mellencamp
just finished singing "Small Town" and now Bill Richardson, America’s
most unlikely Latino, is speaking in Spanish. Being in the midst of all
of this artificial intrigue and theatrical suspense
has
the Dowbrigade
feeling
at times
as though we are
trapped
in a Shakespearean
farce within a farce.
Unfortunately, no one seems to want to admit the farcical aspect of
the event at all – they are all taking it so, so seriously. It is clear
to this observer, at least, that the Democratic Party, as currently constituted,
is suffering from a serious goofiness deficit. Hey you guys, lighten
up a little. It’s just a TV show.
Or a Shakespearean double-farce, depending on one’s frame of reference.
The minor farce is 35,000 people putting on a super show for the media
and, through them, to the not-insignificant portion of the world’s population
that pays attention to what passes in our times
as "news".
35,000 people play-acting at selecting a candidate, going through forms
and formalities encrusted in tradition two centuries old. The last Convention
that went into extra innings, the public waiting breathless like the
crowd in St. Peter’s Square waiting on the white smoke, was 1948, the
last time
the rules required a 2/3 majority for selection. The last Convention
when the outcome was in question when the event began was 1960, Kennedy’s
Convention. The last Convention to generate any real news, although not
from the Convention
Floor, was 1968 in Chicago, and we all know how that worked out.
Even more recently, the Conventions we remember from our youth featured
floor fights over platform planks, controversies over the seating of
competing slates of
delegates from the same state, inadequately vetted VP candidates resigning
in disgrace after electroshocking revelations. Even these minor
sideshows have been purged, leaving a cross between a beauty pageant
and an infomercial, but with less content and suspense than either.
The major farce, in which this Convention forms the stage-setting second
act (Act I being the peripatetic primaries in the populist prairies and
rural redoubts of the "me-firster" states), is a full, four-act comedy
of errors called the "Modern American Electoral Process".
Any review of this piece of work which attempts to label it a farce
must start with the fundamental question: Does it really matter who wins
this election? Although the politically sophisticated may scoff at the
very idea, we are personally convinced that the main reason over half
of the eligible Americans can’t be bothered to vote is because they have
concluded it really doesn’t matter.
Now, we know that our twisted political sensibilities place us well
outside the American mainstream. But we still believe strongly
in the principles on which this country was founded, and the proposition
that
Democracy,
although imperfect, is the best system do far devised for man to foster
freedom and facilitate the human community, mind and spirit. We consider
ourself a patriotic American.
And to our way of thinking any possible political
candidate or movement that could truly
change the currently disastrous decline of this country will not and
can not come from the two traditional major parties in American politics.
The Democratic and Republican parties, as presently constituted, are
simply incapable of to recapturing or recreating the true spirit of the
founding fathers in a form
which can stand
up to the challenges of power and corruption in the 21st century, and
stand out as a beacon lighting a path into a livable, sustainable future. They
are too indebted to big money, to the economic cartels and power centers
which
are used
to
setting the rules and shaping the policies of our "democratic" government.
Even campaign finance reform, we fear, is incapable of exorcising the
deep roots and structural symbiosis between the major parties and the
economic interests that support them.
Howard Dean alluded to this himself when he spoke with the bloggers
on Monday. He was talking about the incredibly liberating experience
of being funded by thousands of small donors, and owing nothing to the
traditional
fonts of campaign finance. He was able to do and say what he really wanted,
without worrying about biting the hand that was feeding him.
So he did, and said, and bit down hard, and the hand ended up slapping
him upside the head anyway. Maybe
they weren’t funding his campaign, but thanks to the unholy alliance
between the economic power centers and the ownership of major media his
infamous scream, without the roaringbackground crowd track that made
it barely audible in the hall at the time was repeated 27,000 times over
a two
week period. A loose canon who owed nothing to the business community
was way too risky for the unseen arbiters of American political taste.
Be that as it may, is the fact that The
One is not going to come from
the established parties or use the traditional mechanisms of party politics
reason enough to sit out these recurring Presidential elections, or
"waste" your vote on a protest candidate? In the past two elections the
Dowbrigade voted for Dr. John Hagelin, a PhD .Physicist from MIT and
head of the Natural Law Party which
claims that if everyone on the planet would just meditate for an hour
a day, and contribute 10 cents to a World
Peace Fund, it could eliminate poverty, wipe out hunger, and defeat
disease. We selected Dr. Hagelin on
the theory that
if
political
promises
were
by nature hot air, why not vote for the guy with the most imaginative
and idyllic political fantasies.
This time around, however, we feel somewhat differently. When
comparing the major party candidates this year, we need look no further
than their differing
behavior during America’s longest fighting war, the nightmare of Vietnam.
It is still almost inconceivable to me that a guy like John Kerry, a
Yale graduate from the right side of the tracks, a man so privileged
he was a member of the Skull and Bones at Yale (like Bush), a secret
society open only to selected sons of the Masters of the Universe, would
purposefully pursue not only military service but the kind of combat
leadership
role which demonstrated both his ability to lead men in life’s most perilous
endeavors, and his willingness to make any, up to the ultimate, sacrifice
for this country.
George Bush, meanwhile, basically got the US government to pay for his
flying lessons and wash his clothes for a couple of years. There is accumulating
evidence that he used his breeding and influence to minimize his inconvenience
and perhaps skip out on the last few months, serving his own interests
rather than his country’s.
Hell, that sounds like the sort of thing the Dowbrigade is famous for. But
then we are not running for president. Seen in this light, for us at
least, the choice between these two is simple and unequivocal. Kerry
is the standup guy, Bush the standby guy.
In addition, although neither of these men is ready to challenge the
cornerstones of corporate control over life in America, one can make
the argument that such a leadership would be more likely to emerge, and
sooner, in a Kerry America than in a Bush one. We are not of the
school which claims that Draconian repression of liberty serves the cause
of
freedom by inciting people to take political action rather than accept
malignant mediocrity or opt out of the system altogether.
Even though Kerry doesn’t truly "get it", his basic decency and belief
in opening up the system hold promise of creating avenues of expression
and innovation neither he nor we can predict or imagine, and that might
present new-paradigm solutions and a path out of the moral morass in
which we
have been mucking around for some time now.
Finally, and the clincher in our computations, is our increasing conviction
that who wins this election WILL make a difference, in a million little
ways,
in our
private, personal everyday lives, and in the lives of people all over
the world. At work, in the education of our children, in our personal
finances, in our chances of being touched by terrorism, in our ability
to enjoy to what we want on the radio. television and on the internet,
read, write and think without fear, to travel the world in safety and
with pride
in our
passport,
in the
faces of the poor, the foreign, the dispossessed, the deranged, it will
make a difference.
Accordingly, and after much forethought and trepidation, (for it is never easy for a Harvard man to endorse a Yale man for the highest office in
the land), we hearby publicly declare that we endorse and will vote for
John Kerry, and use our limited platform to encourage others to do so. Especially
those of you who may have dropped the voting habit along the way. Give
it a try, you might be surprised at the result, and it just might turn
out NOT to be a farce.
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