Many of you are no doubt acquainted with the greatest television show ever produced "The Wire" a mixture of Dickens-like narratives that hits as hard as great investigative journalism. Watching it's full five season run will give you a pretty good idea of what this country faces, why it is broken, and why it probably can't be fixed.
In a episode in the fourth season, there is a unforgettable moment that takes place between one of the main characters, a police detective, and a young low level drug runner. These two have had run-ins the entire series, and their relationship has progressed from loathing and contempt for each other to a real respect and admiration.
Now both of these characters are just cogs in machines that will run with or without them, they are, in fact, just pawns and they realize this. The detective is in a police department that will never focus on the real problems because it is obsessed with stats, and the drug dealer is now forced to follow the whims of a drug lord who has started killing innocents for no reason. Any attempts to change the way things work is without question futile. The young drug dealer remarks, "This game is rigged, man."
And the game is rigged. In every way, everywhere you turn.
I had high hopes for this president. I should have remembered what country I live in.
Obama has been a disappoint. Anyone would have been. Because they have to respond to "narratives". The naratives can last one day, a week, or a month (the August health care nightmare). The narratives are all anyone reporting on politics report on, and, here is the important part, the narratives are always, always a product of a GOP lie or distotion.
The "death panels", the "Obama is not a American citizen", the "ACORN Vote Fraud". All lies. All as made up as a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. And, heres the kicker, it doesn't matter.
The right wing hacks know these things aren't true. They are craven and evil, but not stupid. But they are cynical enough to exploit the fact that the American people are.
We live in a country where not even half of the population can't tell you how may branches of government we have, but could probably tell you the final 10 contestants on last seasons American Idol. The majority of the population follows an ancient death cult masquerading as a religion that gives them a excuse to not feel guilty about their racism, homophobia, and xenophobia.
So it doens't matter if what the right wing media says is true or not. All they have to do is say it. All they have to do is let it in the air. It will work it's way through talk radio, to the right wing blogs, to FOX News, then the regular networks will run it for "balance". And then it beceomes the narrative.
I think of this in wake of the debacle in Mass. last night. Coakely ran a awful campaign not question, but the narrative did her in. The narrative was that Scott Brown drove a pickup truck and that Martha Coakley thought Curt Schilling was a Yankee fan. Which means that Scott Brown was a "real american" because he came from a small town and drove a truck (even though most real americans, statistically, of course do not live in small towns, but we are not talking about reality when dealing with the narrative, we never are) and that Martha Coakley was not a sports fan and obviously cannot be trusted. You can tell me other reasons were to blame, but believe me, this is what it came down to. Because the public isn't able to process more than that.
I remembered the end of a great comdedy set by the late Geroge Carlin while I was thinking about last night as I was driving to work.
"Everyone is always complaing about politicians, that the politicians suck. But where do they think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't materialize from some astral plane. They come from American families, American schools, and American homes. So maybe, just maybe, it's not the politicans that suck. Maybe the people suck. Garbage in, garbage out."
This, sadly, sums up my feelings. I know it is defeatist, pessimistic, and dark, but I see no solutions. You can't fight against lies that are treated as truth no matter what. You can't reason with people who don't even know what reason is. The games always starts in the 4th quarter with us down 10. The game is rigged, man.