As we enter the political season it seems only fitting to repost one of my ancient bits of writing from 2006…
In George Orwell’s 1984, there are only three countries left on the planet. Each controls a third of the landmass of the Earth and they are in the midst of an endless war with each other. It’s a war that none of them can win and they know it. The war exists merely because it must exist to keep the population in line and make sure all their deep and dark emotions are directed at their opponents in war rather than the government which suppresses them.
In 2006, we too have a war. It’s not a war of bombs or missiles but of words. As I write this, our two-party government is waging a fierce war against itself and it’s all done to keep you in line, to keep you feeding it with your votes and your money and your attention. As long as two parties can keep the population of this country looking with disdain at the other side of the political fence they assure themselves a continued place of power.
Their primary weapon in this war is fear and it’s an effective one for both sides. The Democrats will claim vociferously that if Republicans are allowed to run the country that the common man will be enslaved in the sweatshops of Republican-backed big business. A vote for a Republican is a vote to destroy the environment and destroy the right to privacy in America. Republicans, the Democrats cry, are bad for America and they just want to get rich off of your hard work.
The Republicans are no less effective in their fear mongering. If Democrats are allowed into office, there will be homosexual orgies in the streets, illegal aliens will overrun the healthcare system and you won’t even be able to get into a hospital. Democrats want to make America into a Communist country and they want everyone to have an abortion.
The Parties found long ago that you can get people to go the polls and vote with a good idea. You can tell them about all the wonderful things that YOU’LL do if you get elected and people will come out and vote for you. People like to hear about good things that can happen to them; that’s something the average Joe can really get behind. Unfortunately, they’ve also discovered that you can get a lot MORE people to come out and vote if you put a really good scare into them. Tell them about all the dead babies there will be if your opponent is elected. Let them know that their privacy is in jeopardy if they don’t vote for the right person and then the polls will REALLY be overrun with voters.
But all this bickering would be for nothing if not for the third force in our equation. Undisturbed, one party or the other would come to dominate the other until something really attention-grabbing happened to shake up the status quo. The third element in our tug of war is the Media. For the purposes of this discussion, the Media includes all forms of public conversation from the internet to newspapers and even church services.
Despite what Republican pundits will say, the Media doesn’t consistently back any one Party. Some outlets are left-leaning and some right-leaning but overall the entire mass of national conversation on the events of the day is relatively Party neutral. What they are not neutral on, however, is content. The media provides what sells and that is negativity in all its most grotesque forms. No matter who is in power at the time, the media pounds the American psyche with a steady stream of gloom and doom. The Pendulum of Power in this country moves back and forth to the deep resonating cadence of the media’s Bass Drum of Despair.
The Media pounds their drum by filling our heads with an increasing sense of evil and despair in the world. The Republicans take power. The drums say that deviants are everywhere waiting to rape our children. The drums say the economy is spiraling into oblivion. The drums say there is war, disease and poverty everywhere. So the natural reaction of course is to vote the Republicans out of power. This happens despite the fact that the Republicans had absolutely nothing to do with any of the real problems facing this country in the first place.
So now the Democrats are in power. Now the drums pound out the same message. Things are getting worse. The world is falling apart. Our doom is creeping in on us. We have to do something to stop this insanity! So the Pendulum of Power swings yet again on the faulty premise that the state of this country is actually declining.
The simple truth is that America is in better shape than ever. This country is actually purring along at an incredible pace and neither the Republicans nor the Democrats had much to do with it. Political parties don’t make countries. People make countries. The average American is better educated than ever, works harder than ever and lives a more comfortable and secure life than ever. The Media won’t tell you this because it doesn’t sell newspapers. The political parties won’t deliver that message because it doesn’t lead naturally to an argument to vote for one of their candidates.
It’s in the best interest of politicians to keep us at each others throats. The simple truth which they refuse to share is that deep down we all really have the same goals. Republicans don’t want to abort babies and neither do Democrats. No sane person wants to kill a baby but at the same time, nobody wants to carry the child of their rapist either. Republicans don’t want to destroy the environment. They LIVE in the environment just like the rest of us but if it’s a choice between responsible logging and state-wide forest fires then the choice is obvious.
Despite what the brokers of political schism in this country, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Moore and a million other political pundits, might have you believe, deep down inside, we’re all fundamentally the same. I don’t hate you and you don’t hate me. We each just want to get up in the morning, live our lives, make a good living and come home to happy families. That’s it. Period. End of story. Everything else is just media hype.