by Underground Panther in the Sky, Unknown News
Aug. 10, 2004
Like millions of other Americans, I am reluctant to vote. Why?
I know I want Bush out. I hate the thug Republicans. For me, my apathy it
isn't so much about the fact our political system is run by the same
class of people time and time again -- old rich white men, sometimes even
related to each other), people of the same wealthy class
backgrounds, who have the "values" of old rich white men (the dominator class).
I'm reluctant to vote because I don't trust politicians. This idea that I should trust
someone I do not know and cannot know, that I should believe what their ads say their character really is, and trust these people to
make laws that affect me and my life personally -- that's just crazy.
I am afraid to vote for someone I don't trust. I
don't give my heart to people who will trample it nor do I give votes to
people who after elected ignore my needs and throw it away.
I dunno who Kerry is. I dunno who Bush is. And I know I never will.
I will never know who John Kerry is until I am able to be friends with
him, and see how he treats his wife and kids without the TV cameras,
makeup, and the plethora of Disney-like like makers of magic that
form the image engine of his campaign. I can't see how he behaves in private. I can't hear his
true thoughts, I need to observe him unscripted as an EQUAL, to see his
character quality for myself. I must see him without PR teams telling
me how wonderfully he conducts himself, spoonfeeding me what Kerry
wants me to see.
I can't do this personal
appraisal of politicians because there are millions of voters out there
trying to do the same thing. I have a higher threshold of evidence before
I trust anyone, than people who believe the TV ads saying Brand Democrat is
great.
Likewise, I don't know the council members in my
town, because they associate among their own kind in their own class. To
them I only matter when it comes to giving them what they want, their
cushy job, business deals, or money perks. I can offer them nothing but
a vote, so I am low-priority until election time. All I have to go on for deciding my
vote is their appearance.
But everyone knows PR firms work hard to
project sellable images concerning their politicians. They want to gain peoples' trust in an abbreviated
'relationship' that is really not a relationship at all, so they can
acquire my unearned trust and power over my life they do not deserve.
One can look at the voting record of any politician and get disgusted, but a political voting record in reality tells us very little
about a politician's true character. Often bills have bullshit added onto
them that has nothing to do with the original intention and title of
the bill. This obfuscation is called a "rider", and it is routine. Everything Congress votes on consists reams and
reams of riders, attached to dry, brain-numbing legalese designed for maximum manipulation
power.
Most proposals are never even READ by most Congresspeople, because of the sheer inhuman volumes of
paper. So it's inevitable that bills are passed that were never read, just
blithely voted into law -- laws, un-read by lawmakers, and no-one voting has any idea
what these bills SAY. It's worse than signing up to get a
cell phone and not reading the fine print. They didn't even read the
plan!
In this light it's even harder to see where any politician
stands on any issues that affect you and me personally. When all you see
of your Senator or Congressman is a sound byte, a preened TV image out to get your vote and win
your approval of his character, you just don't know him.
Politicians' images are all lies, told for strangers you don't even know.
I ask myself of a
politician, did he vote for the good idea in the bill or did he vote for
the perks in the riders attached to it? Can I ever know his reasons, to
even decide whether he acted in my interests or not?
Bills that have positive things going for the working class and poor
often get "riders" added on by their opponents. Shit, even proposals to rename libraries or
fix roads can become "Christmas trees" loaded with gifts and perks for
politicians and CEOs. Add-ons and proposals can
make a good, simple bill a mixed-up or bad, complicated bill.
Because of these add-ons, a simple good idea like health care
for kids becomes a cash cow for corporations, a loophole for white collar
criminals, a way to bust unions or an un-noticed way to put more pollution in
the air or let big pharma scrimp on safety testing for drugs. If your Congressman wants to get health care for kids, he's gotta vote 'yes' to a
lot of nasty garbage riders, too. If he doesn't like the nasty garbage riders, he might have to vote NO on the entire bill -- and then
it looks on the surface like he voted against health care for kids,
when in reality he voted to not have patients in hospitals be subjected
to drug trials without consent.
In a manufactured world of two-second
pre-digested sound bytes on TeeVee and no thinking required, all that
matters is image. This simple vote can be manipulated by a political
opponent that really wants the riders (garbage) passed and doesn't care
about child health care, but voted YES to get his business perks. He can
say he wanted kids to have health care, and hey, he voted yes ... but how could you
know his real motive unless you know him personally and know his
character?
If you listen to a liar tell you what the truth is,
how can you know you have been lied to? To find the ugly truth you have
to go through reams and reams of legalistic bullshit, a chore even Senators don't
have the time to do.
So for citizens who are overworked, stressed out,
and just tired, who has the time and energy to investigate this shit?
It's a very convenient inconvenience, for those liars who build careers
exploiting the American people's trust.
The government is rife with public manipulations, internecine
manipulations, and illusions and counter-manipulations and counter-illusions all working through PR and mind games, TV and smears. This
ugly stew of contentious crap combines to sway the way these people's
character appears to us, the public. The winner is never the best candidate, just the candidate has the best PR, through crude manipulation, political backstabbing, perk-
gathering, professional lying, cruising the good ole boy networks, obfuscating, pontificating, voting for laws he never read, and "getting
his." After all that shitty behavior, whomever manages to come out smelling like a rose despite the dirt that surrounds
him, wins the game.
And the voting public still has no
clue who he is. They vote for the image, not the candidate, because they
don't know him, can't know him. But they can see the pretty picture over the outhouse
door, and oooooh, he gives the public such good flattery it's like an
orgasm. He tickles our ears with pretty
platitudes and promises of a better life, and he is so well-groomed, he looks so confident as he picks our
pocket. He is 'handsome' and charismatic, such a nice stick up man ...
When I look at a politician, I see all the hallmarks on the surface
of a socialized sociopath.
And my voter apathy kicks in, because the glitter, balloons, stickers, and
hoo-hah does very little to persuade me about a person's true character.
I don't trust any of these rich, lying bastards at all. I don't
trust the appearances. I trust my gut more.
But the
majority does trust these political leaders, based solely in how things look on the surface. And so I'm stuck holding
my nose and voting for Kerry, because the asshole Bush is a monster and
I don't know how to depose a boy king all by myself.
I hate doing this. It offends my integrity. It pisses me off.
I would
rather be voting for Kucinich or Sharpton. And if you go by the
audience enthusiasm expressed at the Democratic convention, you'd think Sharpton would be
the Democrats' chosen candidate.
This is not a way to run a country, on appearances alone. The Heart
matters too, but it's forgotten.
To be fair, what politician has the time to visit all the millions of
people in this country and get personal with them for more than 2
seconds without the TV or radio?
* * * Now, let's look at Brand Republican. Bush obviously ain't big on fireside
chats, because his handlers know he is such a HUGE ass. They know we
would definitely notice his horribly flawed character once we saw him
interact in a more "intimate" unscripted setting for any time beyond a few minutes. He would flounder in a less rehearsed and less controlled setting,
because he has a weak bully's character. We'd see for ourselves what an
inarticulate, incompetent, arrogant, bully-drunkard-asshole-fool he is, and we might just swallow our pride and
riot to save ourselves from this abusive twit that fooled us so well ...
Bush and his cabal of criminals certainly don't want any
"liberal" reporters getting into his press conferences and asking him
uncomfortable politically damaging questions about his irrational
actions rude arrogance, thievery, and cowardly behavior.
He has no answers for such questions, no
justifications other than that he does it because he thinks he's
entitled to do it. He gets away with it, and he doesn't care as
long as he gets his way. To most people, that would expose Bush as the lying
bully asshole he is. His illusion would collapse, the spell would break, the
enchantment would end, and his poll numbers would drop straight to
hell.
So Bush's PR team, those professional manipulators of perceptions,
must work overtime trying to put lipstick on Bush's pig of a personality
and his boorish anti-ethics. Making a sociopath bully look like a
compassionate public servant is one hell of a con, and they do their ugly job -- but the public is starting to see the pathetic
truth of who Bush really is (two years too late, after the damage is
done).
If this creep is re-elected, it will only be because he created
such an illusion of fear in the public and had a little help from his
terrible terrorist friends.
* * *
So let's look at the other brand, Democrat. Who is John Kerry? Do we have to
wait until he's elected to see whether he is the same sort of unsavory
manipulative narcissist as most politicians are? Do we have to wait until
the damage is done? Do we have to turn to faith to silence the rumbling in America's
gut that says Kerry stinks?
Sadly, yes. You'll notice Kerry isn't giving any
fireside chats either. He only spoke once at the Democratic
convention. He didn't answer the kind of questions I'm asking, or speak to rivals and
defend his position candidly. In a place where I could have seen him sweat, seen the honesty of a live response, everything was scripted.
In presenting himself to the public, though, Bush is even a bigger coward than Kerry. The Bush-Cheney campaign is having people
sign oaths of loyalty just to listen to Bush the creep speak on the
campaign trail. Talk about PR and damage control.
So this is a good thing for Kerry by comparison. But Bush's damage control
has nothing to do with Kerry's character, it just shows how weak Bush's
character is. Peee-yewww!
* * *
I was thinking, how narcissistic and ambitious does one have to be to
tolerate running for president?
For me, campaigning would be very uncomfortable. People chanting
"Panther, Panther" as if I was all that and the chips too, when I know I am
just a cat in a human suit, equal to everyone that puts me on this
stupid pedestal.
To get elected, though, I'd have to compete with career liars
and bullies without lying and bullying. I'd have an immoral handicap.
You see, I
wouldn't play dirty. And my opponents would hate me for it and try to tear me down
all the more, because that is the nature of bullies and narcissists. I
might find that I would be promising things I might not be able to deliver, due to
the skilled manipulations of the more vicious bullies on the hill.
My honesty would be sacrificed to get success. Due to riders on good
bills that would harm people or undo the very purpose of the bill, I might
not vote YES to the promises I made, and I would not deliver on them.
People want to hear that their "leader" will do what they want, that
their "leader" cares for them, personally.
But I could never care for everyone -- my favoritism would kick in and
someone would be left unhappy with my performance. And those most
unhappy would be the richest campaign contributors. And this game is so
unrealistic.
But politics as usual, catering to this dangerous unrealism, has conditioned the public to expect lies and PR. That is what makes for success in a
political campaign.
How could I lie to people who trusted me like that? I couldn't do
it. How could I let them down without incriminating the whole power
structure in Washington DC itself? I couldn't.
I could never know all the millions of people in America. I couldn't bare my
soul to them, without daily fireside chats and facing bullies on TV in a
manipulation battle for the public perception. I'd be made out to be a monster and a target for
vengeance, even assassination, for trying to root out the corruption in Washington.
I couldn't stop
greedy unscrupulous liars who were elected by their hoodwinked
constituents. I couldn't stop them from putting bad proposals in good bills, unless I played
dirty tricks to get them to stop -- tricks that if spun the right way by
pundits and media could incriminate me.
Politics has been made into an ugly, shallow, backstabbing popularity
contest. The philosophers, thinkers, creative types, and dreamers have been
shut out by the old boy network, bullies, zealots, tyrants and cynics.
And so, if I were running for office, I must admit, Americans could never
get to know me as a person. A few reporters might dig up dirt, and smear
me with things I did in my youth, mistakes I made, problems I have had ... But
still the public would never will see a complete person. Their
vote for me (or against me) would never be truly a vote of earned trust (or factual knowledge). I would be
made a liar by default.
* * *
TV is the modern relationship shortcut. But TV is first for corporations
to sell crap, a marketers' medium where everyone is a
carefully scripted persona, not a real person.
It's somewhat like watching an
internet poser/troll. You know the type -- the rich,
handsome catch of a guy selling you a poetic load of shit about who
he is and how much he cares, just to get into your pants via photographs ... in reality he's just a miserable fat little man selling porn on a mirror site
with the pictures you send; he lives in a trailer park and has a shrew
of a wife he ignores. He makes a career escaping into a cyber-fantasy
about himself at your expense. Or what about the supermodel, rich
businesswoman ex-playmate ... who is really a lonely, insecure teenager acting like jailbait, and you have no clue until her mom
fires off a letter threatening you?
GW is a cowboy (who fell of a Segway). He is a "strong decisive
man" (who sat in an elementary class with his thumb up his ass like a
coward on 9/11). He is a compassionate man (who starts war over psychological
bullshit in his own head). He gets soldiers (other people's kids) killed
(then cuts veterans' benefits when they get home all torn apart).
He's a "confident leader" (who has people sign loyalty oaths to see him
speak on the campaign trail)'
He's the guy who said during his first campaign that he would not do
"nation building" (yet he has recklessly ruined two nations and is
unable to build up anything there). Looks like he actually kept his
promises on that one; he has only destroyed two nations (*sarcasm*).
What misperceptions between image and reality will eventually come out about
John Kerry (even discounting the Rethuglican smear attempts trying to misrepresent Kerry, so Bush looks better)?
Ever notice how politicians always go sour AFTER they are in office?
It's never a case of what you see before the election is what you get
after the election, is it? This is because you never have a chance to get to witness a candidate's real unvarnished character for
yourself.
PR is all about marketing an image
and engineering perceptions. It has nothing to do with honesty or
information sharing. So when you vote you are basically choosing
between two made-up images of two candidates. A well-crafted and fake
appearance of character and substance overlays a real person. It's a fake image, designed
by psychologists and salespeople well-versed in human nature, the mind,
and human motives to get un-earned trust from you.
They want to convince you to trust this person you don't know, can't know, will never meet, who
cannot possibly earn your trust, to get you to vote this politician into a
position of political power over yourself and your life.
It's crazy.
American politics as it is now has nothing to do with what you think, or what you
want in reality. It's an
illusion that politics is all about you voting to get something done
that you want. In reality, politics changes very little. You decide who
places a yoke of political control over your life, by appearance, couched
in a way so you will believe you really wanted it ...
Politics works on the emotions like a mass mailer sales circular. Wackyhut Inc or whatever company has an extra-super-special deal just for
you, with your name filled in the __________ area ... printed by a dot matrix
printer. With the personal (appearing) touch of a (computer-printed
imitation) ball-point pen signature from the CEO, too. But on the envelope
it says 'current resident'.
It's the impersonal that appears to be personal, just to
get at your trust and money.
Politics makes that annoying sales circular more intimate, makes your name appear
seamless in the print job, and makes the signature of the CEO (candidate) look so real. They put the effort in to
follow the "personal" letter up with a "personal" telemarketing call from
a representative at dinnertime ... for that interactive touch with a
recording.
This is the nature of what political elections have become for most
Americans.
The personal is inserted into an impersonal image. The illusion of
kinship, of relational closeness pretties up a candidate on TV. This yahoo-by-proxy is sitting in your living room in a
box, and his head looks like it could be in the room, but he is far far
away, deaf to you, and you cannot ask him a question. You have no choice
but to sit passively (listen, as your questions go unanswered) or turn off
the TV or change channels. Apathy sets in.
The reality that politicians
present as so personal is really so remote from your real life that
real trust is unattainable.
So we are left voting on who has the prettiest pose, the nicest hairdo, the seamless projection of
confidence, the appearance of strength, the best empty-but-well-crafted
rhetoric. We seek the candidate who says what we like to hear, but he never answered to us from the beginning and he will never answer to us
after he is elected. He will only answer to his funders, fellow
politicians, arms dealers, and the richest people in the world.
We do not elect someone to political power because we really trust them
or like them.
We don't complain when they fail to do good on promises. We complain
when he does not live up to his election show salesmanship, hen the
image is shattered by the reality.
But by than it's too late, the damage is done. He is in
power, and we admit to ourselves too late that he lied to us and we had
expected that disappointment.
What we don't admit is that we expected the disappointment because we
never really trusted him even as we elected him anyway.
And so, like unhappy trained consumers, we switch to Brand B. And maybe next time next
We'll try Brand A again, then switch back to B. It is always
the same perceptual illusion racket. Hypocrisy denied is hypocrisy
squared.
Our government "leaders" are separated from knowing us
personally by human limits, by class consciousness on both ends, by the
political game of maintaining falsehoods, and because of sheer numbers
of the governed. When these "leaders" innately govern too much, they have a
protection of sorts, an insulation that conceals their character flaws
from we-the-people. We never know just what kind of character we are
electing to govern us.
This is no way for citizens to run a government. But it is run this way
because the power structure itself concentrates into itself. It
becomes exclusive, small, remote, and unaccountable, therefore unattainable
by people who are outside the class of the chosen.
So all of us down here, we
who make this power structure possible by the sheer power of our
belief, have only illusions of a candidate's integrity. We have only lies, to test
the liars' character with. We have all those empty candidates' promises to put our trust
in, and the nice suits that may or may not contain monsters, adept at playing
normal with the help of marketing and intimidation, wearing masks of
sanity. No-one can get close enough to peel away the masks, except those chosen few who have worked
their way into the 'inner circle and sold their own souls for power.
Politics has become a closed circuit of rich white good ol' boys
scratching each other's crusty backs and putting riders nobody reads on bills that
become laws and provide perks for each other's benefits.
It's all shiny
red-white-and-blue on the outside, while rotting with the stink of
corruption and perversion, narcissism, sociopathic characters, and greed
on the inside.
But by time you get yourself in a trusted position in the circle of
power, and can know the true character of these so called 'elite'
people, you too are stinking like everything else in Washington DC. You're stinking
by association, climbing up a pile of bullshit with your nose in it so
deep for so long, eventually you don't smell the shit under your nose
any more. And this is when you discover you are a Washington
insider, going to the parties hobnobbing with the so called entitled
few, with the wafting stench of potential privilege and success shutting
down your moral character, and cutting off your empathy.
So the idea of a "new" politician with "new" ideas coming out of that
classist, elitist, ethically bankrupt skank toilet tank on the hill is an impossibility. The illusion requires a hell of allot of expensive
manipulations of public perceptions about all that stinks in any politician's
character. PR firms are hired, and media repeats the lies like a mantra, how Brand
Republican shit does not stink, and how Brand
Democrat or Brand Green shit does not stink.
Shit stinks, of course, but this stupid game
continues until a decent majority of people are convinced someone's
shit smells like roses and they vote another stinker in. And then we have made a "great man" in
politics.
Another asshole is crowned King of the Shit Pile. He
gathers perks to himself for four years, and the games continue ... games that keep the
American people entranced with a shiny illusion, with the appearance of
freedom to elect someone who is nothing but another load of shit and
corruption under a thin veneer of phony glitter. It never ceases, and things for we-the-people will
never really change, until we stop seeking leaders who woo us with illusion, telling us
what we want to hear. So long as we're seeking leaders who appear
Strong, Decisive, and Confident, who project an image and aura of competence
and surety in an uncertain world, manipulative actors who
have no integrity will be packaged and sold to us as Strong, Decisive, Confident, and Competent. In a world full of things that are out of
control, we'll keep electing salesmen who are really sociopaths, who do not
care about the people they govern at all.
Nothing will change, until WE collectively work on ourselves on the inside out, starting from
the heart, and going out into our relationships; until we work to
change the character of our government from the outside in, and are
willing to RISK things we want or take for granted in our lives to
start making the changes, rather that keep the status quo that keeps the
lies intact in our hearts and in our government officials even if it
means revolution. Nothing will change the corruption of power, until
corruption is detected and exposed, and it isn't tolerated anymore.
Every
bully wants to a bully-tolerant culture. So if a culture does not tolerate bullies' antics, the bullies
either leave or learn self-control.
The same pattern goes for all unsavory characters who try to pull shit
over on people -- manipulators, salespeople, religious zealots, and politicians.
Nothing will make an
Without BELIEF
in the illusion, a politically expedient illusion cannot make a bad
character look like a person with substance and integrity. So until the
manipulation is seen for the massive lie it is, it remains unchallenged
as if it was truth.
In reality, nothing can make shit
smell like a rose. But in the illusion, the definition of shit itself is being
twisted into something else, something good for you ... and once shit smells
like roses to you, it isn't really shit anymore, to you, is it?
You might
even be tempted to eat it.
But guess what? Shit is still just shit,
whether you are sensitized to the stink of it or not. And so we have to
admit in our own hearts at least that yes, shit really DOES stink.
Shit really is
not good to eat, and we cannot let ourselves be convinced otherwise.
All this thinking eventually leads us to: What are we going to do to get
rid of this shit? And the answers to instigate change may not be pleasant
to hear or do. But it ain't gonna get better until it is made better.
You
can't fix illusions with bigger lies and better-skilled liars.
Popular opinion does not make shit smell good, and bystanders
waiting around for someone else to lead or act responsible and say
Hey, this STINKS! (so they don't have to be first to say it), does NOT do a damn
thing to make justice happen in this world.
So if we don't want to keep electing shit-heads to power, we must stop
pretending that their shit smells good. We have to stop ignoring the smells, the red flags. We
need to stop wowing ourselves with all the illusory glitter and promises. We need to leash
power and train politicians to have character by giving them hell, day
and night, and asking discomfiting questions in public until they are made
accountable.
We must not let them take us for granted, lie like dogs, steal
like pigs, and continue to shit on OUR Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Shit always stinks precisely because truthfully it really is shit.
What do you wanna do about it?
I am pointing at the pile. Do you smell it?
Lets clean it up!
© 2004, by the author.
What do you think?
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Another asshole is crowned King of the Shit Pile.
He gathers perks to himself for four years, and the games continue ... games that keep the American people entranced with a shiny illusion, with the appearance of freedom to elect someone who is nothing but another load of shit and corruption under a thin veneer of phony glitter.
It never ceases, and things for we-the-people will never really change, until we stop seeking leaders who woo us with illusion, telling us what we want to hear.
So long as we're seeking leaders who appear Strong, Decisive, and Confident, who project an image and aura of competence and surety in an uncertain world, manipulative actors who have no integrity will be packaged and sold to us as Strong, Decisive, Confident, and Competent.
In a world full of things that are out of control, we'll keep electing salesmen who are really sociopaths, who do not care about the people they govern at all.
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I'm reluctant to vote because I don't trust politicians.
This idea that I should trust
someone I do not know and cannot know, that I should believe what their ads say their character really is, and trust these people to
make laws that affect me and my life personally -- that's just crazy.
I am afraid to vote for someone I don't trust.
I
don't give my heart to people who will trample it nor do I give votes to
people who after elected ignore my needs and throw it away.
I dunno who Kerry is.
I dunno who Bush is.
And I know I never will.
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PR is all about marketing an image
and engineering perceptions.
It has nothing to do with honesty or
information sharing.
So when you vote you are basically choosing
between two made-up images of two candidates.
A well-crafted and fake
appearance of character and substance overlays a real person.
It's a fake image, designed
by psychologists and salespeople well-versed in human nature, the mind,
and human motives to get un-earned trust from you.
They want to convince you to trust this person you don't know, can't know, will never meet, who
cannot possibly earn your trust, to get you to vote this politician into a
position of political power over yourself and your life.
It's crazy.
American politics as it is now has nothing to do with what you think, or what you
want in reality.
It's an
illusion that politics is all about you voting to get something done
that you want.
In reality, politics changes very little.
You decide who
places a yoke of political control over your life, by appearance, couched
in a way so you will believe you really wanted it ...
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