American elections are a painful spectacle, a release of pent-up emotions, sound and fury signifying nothing. And yet if we don’t bother with them, if we merely continue the transfer of apparent power from one neocon to the next without a public referendum, people might get suspicious.
The hardest part of watching this spectacle is the apparent cluelessness of the American media. They ride around with the candidates transcribing every word, rarely attempting to connect speeches and deeds. To rise to prominence in this circus people have to demonstrate an inability to grasp the obvious, or at least to live in bondage and keeping real insight private. I’ve seen contentious exchanges between presidential press secretaries and reporters, and at the same time realize that a reporter doesn’t enter that room without first checking his balls at the door. It’s theater, and a sad spectacle. There are real journalists among them, but if they practice their trade they’ll never make it.
Obama is now playing the role of “liberal,” and Romney the other, whatever the hell that is. Neither has any intent of ever following through on any vague ambition for positive change. But the ring matters – both really want the job and the privileges that go with it. Even if there is no real power there, even if the office is long captive of private power centers, these men want it. They get to have high profiles, ride in amazing batmobiles, have every word first written for them and then transcribed by others. They have personal chefs and doctors, vacation retreats, personal security and private schools for the kids … what’s not to want? It’s a real prize, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for narcissism.
Here’s Sibel Edmonds, a woman who lost her job under Bush for reporting FBI misdeeds to superiors and who will go to jail if she ever speaks publicly about the crimes she witnessed:
How would Senator McCain have acted on … issues if he had been elected? How would Senator Hillary Clinton? Do you believe there would have been any major differences? Weren’t their records virtually identical to Senator Obama’s on these issues? If you are like me and answer same, same, no and yes, then why do you think we ended up with these exact same candidates, those deemed viable and sold to us as such?
With too much at stake, too many uninished agendas for the course of our nation, and too many skeletons in the closet in need of hiding for self-preservation, the permanent establishment made certain that they took no risk by giving the public, by means of their MSM tentacles, a coin that no matter how many times flipped would come up the same – heads, heads.
Hillary Clinton will soon leave public life, but will likely haunt us as has her husband. She’ll be a featured speaker, perhaps a media pundit or recipient of an academic position at a prestigious university. Her opinions will be sought out by the media, she’ll sit on panels, and bore us to death with profound utterances of uninspired banality. John McCain is an old man, and will step down from the senate when it appears he’s too addled to give a good speech. He’ll not be sought out thereafter as, like Reagan, there ain’t no there there.
In the meantime 2012 is here and we’ve got to do it all over again. We’re given two more heads, so to speak, an old money aristocrat and a newbie upstart. Both really, really want the job. They each knows somewhere deep down that it is all for show, as if when we need a doctor, we ask for Dr. George Clooney because he is so damned good looking. That’s as deep as American politics ever goes.
I wish to address the idea of conspiracies and conspiracy “theories.” They are two different subjects but have an element in common. A conspiracy is something we are all experienced and familiar with, while a conspiracy “theory” is an idea that threatens religious faith. Those who do not believe in conspiracy theories are people who trust excessively and who fear being marginalized. They are both credulous and fearful. 
Piece of Mindful 