Tell me Sweet Little Lies

WSE loves election years. The political theater offered by those running for elected office provides near daily nuggets of levity: infusing the mundane lassitude of the daily grind with incredulous laughter, stunned disbelief and, all too often, a sincere desire to move to Australia or at least as far away from Sarah Palin as $1.30 and the lack of a passport can get me.

And, while it's all too easy to share in the brilliantly cynical perspective on democracy put forth by those such as Douglas Adams, we must also recall that it is our most noble and pressing of civic duties to elect the lizards leaders we will come to despise.

Certainly, every election cycle is good for its share of laughs, gaffes and scandals, but the election of 2010 is shaping up to be especially pernicious. The historic election of 2008, which elevated a black man to the highest office of the land, seems to have thrown an unrepresented majority of the nation into fits of paranoia, jingoism and tea-bagging lunacy.

(Note to the Tea Partier's: if you're going to adopt a name for your astro-turfed movement of white, old, racist, angry, rich people do some fucking research first, after all, Al Gore didn't bust his ass to give you the internet if you're just going to ignore it).

Be the quick, brown fox and jump over the lazy dog.

WSE's Post ☂ ☂

The volatile political climate present in the current cycle, fueled 24/7 by a Fourth Estate that has become more interested in entertainment than facts and a rabid Blog-O-Sphere hell bent on mega-biting dissenters to death, should place the average unconcerned American voter on notice. More than ever, in these days of hypocrisy and hyperbole, of hate and hype, of gab and glory, we, the unwashed masses, must be ware of the insipid invasion of revisionist mendacity into our political lexicon. As Orwell himself warned us:

And if all others accepted the lie which the [Candidate] imposed... then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the [Candidate] slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' George Orwell, 1984.

Saying that politicians lie is much like a Texan pointing out that Thomas Jefferson was of less import than Cotton Mather in establishing the principles of our nation. Any competent adult over the age of 26 knows that politicians lie. The problem is the politicians haven't yet to realize how easy it is for us to catch them these days.

Case in point: Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer (R - Crazysauce), recently bemoaned the pornographic nature of our political discourse in light of what her father fought and died for against the Germans in WWII.

The Nazi comments . . . they are awful, she said, her voice dropping. Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that . . . and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced. The Arizona Republic 6.3.10.

Problem is Jan's dad didn't fighting the Germans. He died in California battling lung disease.

The ever intrepid Ms. Brewer immediately responded by claiming that:

...her statement should not be taken to mean that she was claiming her father was a soldier in Germany during the Nazi regime. Daily Kos 6.3.10.

Let me see if I have this straight. Stating, on record, that her father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany during WWII should in no way be construed to imply that her father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany during WWII.

War is peace. Tyranny is freedom. All that is not mandatory is compulsory.

The Newspeak of our times informs our perspective and like the daily doses of self-confessionalism, scripted "reality" and banal humor we are spoon fed by an over-induldged, over-centralized, corporate entertainment establishment, adds to our antipathy, our cynicism and our collective agnosticism toward our civic union and humanity.

Sure, this revisionist mendacity may have started on the side of the aisle that favors such radical ideas as social justice, equal opportunity, and {GASP!!!} marriage equality, but it down-right endemic on the side that kneels before their bed each night and prays to the one true god that this country return to 1954. It's getting so bad that in a move that demonstrates his maverick spirit, Arizona Senator and perpetual Presidential Candidate, John McCain (R - Grumpy Old Men), now claims never to have been a maverick.

We have come to expect so little from our leaders and maybe that's an outcome of our cultural obsession with the banal. At the very least, though, we should expect honest. We should demand it. My dad used to say that growing up he was so poor he couldn't afford to pay attention. These days lack of attention only places us in greater poverty.

WSE