PARTY LINES and THE MEDIA
A large part of this election was the media seemed to travel along party and TV lines. Now most of you understand party lines. That's the blind loyalty to either REPUBLICAN; with smaller government and less services or DEMOCRAT; obviously more government with more services provided. This is blind loyalty at it’s best.
It says you support your candidate whether he or she is a moron, a thief, or totally inept at the job and this electoral season had a dose of just about everything. It was apparent on both sides. Morons galore, thieves at every corner and ineptness beyond belief.
Whether you support the Republican or Democrat party either side has great and noble ideals and ideas. Skillfully presented to us in speeches ad nauseam. After the speeches, both sides in reality return to and are producers of mediocre performance, bi-partisan bickering, lying, cheating, stealing, and other bureaucratic opportunistic tendencies. We call it POLITICS. But they each have their individual styles.
POLITICAL FOOTBALL
The Democrats have a problem articulating themselves. Republicans can play the blame game better while the Democrats haven’t figured the rule book out. Democrats will lose much of what they gained by not knowing the rules and not fighting back.
The Republicans who know more about shooting oneself in the foot or face (Cheney and his lawyer) should shut up and just let the other guys shoot themselves. Right now the biggest problem for the Republicans is that they have nobody who is competent, since they shot each other, and most of their agenda is led by the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Beck, the three wise men who all flunked their first year in college and have no degrees, Self made, they claim, it’s not hard to become a critic, you just complain all the time, you don’t need answers, nor solutions, you just complain and lie and snipe, and amend, and have more fluff than a drag convention.
THE UNREAL PARTY LINES
That said...Now the media in these battles takes a third stance... I call it TV lines. You vote for the celebrity TV “mouth of the month”. We have ditto heads, pinheads, great Americans, worse people and a host of other professional entertainers who slant just about everything but the room they are in. These are for the ratings party. Follow the money.
The connection is MONEY. Ratings are how certain shows and printed media survive. And the media this election really did take sides to literally make news about nothing as long as it made ratings. It really did show its colors. It's been a long twenty months since my interests changed from following sports events on the local and national scale and I slowly became interested or is it addicted to "POLITICS".
We worry about steroids in sports, and pay no attention to crooks we elect. ROME is alive and well and in the declining stages. Meanwhile Huckabee plays on.
Sports and Politics share some similarities. Both usually involve two teams, sometimes exchanging mortal and highly defamatory comments. Don’t think for a second those NFL lineman share cake-baking recipes before the ball is snapped. They share tender thoughts about each other Moms.
In addition, there is the well-practiced goal line choreography, ball spinning, end zone leaping, planning, practice, coaching, screaming, yelling profanities and the occasional cheap shot all meant for and in the good nature of the game to taunt. They also produce a winner and a loser. See, Sports and Politics are similar!
This media driven race to say the least it has been interesting, controversial, frustrating, addictive and at times drew emotions out of me that were totally uncharacteristic of my makeup. This has been one of, if not the longest elections in American history and though on many occasions I vented about the length of it, the wait was worth it.
COVERAGE IS WORK and BORING:
I was privileged to attend, but tired quickly from trekking to the rally sites from the distanced parking. Schlep, schlep, schlep, and just to hear the same BS, I heard at the last stop. Same tired jokes and acting 101 with fake emotion and tailspin. These “stump pumps” were like cheerleader competition events, more like and similar to the choreographed ones Chairman Mao so eloquently put together. But the chairman, the Chairman Mao had a different approach. He had larger turnouts…he simply had more Kalashnikovs.
Many of these folks went for whatever was offered hook, line and the anchor from the Titanic. I grew tired of Palin, she reminded me of someone I once dated. “Bitch, bitch, bitch”. That romance didn't last too long. She had pre-planned rhetoric, “gospelized’ niche phrases and was lying or stretching at the same time. Boy, was she enamored with herself. There were mistruths and assignations, lots of spin and snips. Unfortunately for McCain, he didn’t get annulled in time.
This wasn't preaching to the choir, this was bringing the choir with you. The bits of excitement like the bit with Joe the Plumber, whether it was fully planned or seeded became the battle cry of those so far to the right, they never make left turns in their cars. Back to the septic tanks Joe. And the first family of ALASKA proved to be as exciting as that crew from Beverly Hills. It came back to haunt McCain and his chances for election when the little slips came out.
SEARCH FOR TRUTH
Its progressive, the electoral process. I admit, it really got to me. I became a political/media/constitutional junkie. I found the game addicting. I studied the candidate's rhetoric and wondered on occasion how some of them got there.
But, the one good thing I learned was objectivity. For every statement, I heard I researched it. I went to the actual source and found much of what was said was distorted and twisted. I guess it changed me in the sense that the quest for the truth became almost an obsession. And it had its cost. I might have lost friends because I grew tired of hearing them repeat the party lines and lies. Party loyalty, status quo, prejudice, fear, mostly fear, and failure all contributed to the decision.
Many will say this election took too long, and admired the British who only allow six weeks of distortion before they elect a winner. They have another custom I like, They carry out executions 30 days after a positive (very) conviction. Now I call that taking out the garbage.
In this case it gave the time for the truths to come out. There were too many slogans, too many forums and blogs, too many pundits and panhandlers. It was sporadic, dabbled in false idolatry, and some of the supposed journalist's, talking heads, and former losers filling the channels of CNN, FOX, MSNBC all day long at times should have been gagged. “Day in day out” and that bias for the improvement or good of this nation, no, it was bias for ratings.