What It's Really About

Right after the election, the victors usually gloat a little in this day and age (witness George Bush "Spending my political Capital" remarks yesterday), particularly after a campaign as hard fought and divisive as that which we have just concluded. Instead, Remo was magnanimous and expansive in a recent email. At the same time, he raised an interesting question. I thought y'all would benefit from our discussion. Remo gave his blessing to my sharing it with you, too. And just for grins and giggles, I include my reply for your edification because it struck a chord in me upon a second reading -- one that resonates with symbiotic energy. And in this time of dirty tricks, name-calling and rancor, it's nice to know I can rise above it. Well, sort of. See for yourself.

"Since you are likely more Libertarian-leaning than Republican (as am I), I'm interested in your take on the issue of the Libertarian and Green Party candidates being ARRESTED in St. Louis when they tried to serve their lawsuit at the debate.

I don't give third-party candidates a snowball's chance under the current system, but it just smacks of a Banana Republic junta to have these guys arrested when they were technically the third and fourth most-likely participants in the debates in the first place.

Where is Oliver Stone and Michael Moore when you need them?"

Remo

To which I replied:

Remo,

This country appears to have embraced divisiveness as a national philosophy, i.e. allowing for only two points of view. I suspect the majority has done this due to the extreme pluralism portrayed by the mainstream religion. To the vast majority, it is all about good and evil, black and white, rich and poor -- you name the issue, the majority allows for only two views: for it or against it. In such a world view, there is no room for shades of gray, nor for political viewpoints which only incorporate a portion of the mainstream mantra while retaining the "right" to think for themselves, no matter how "wrongheaded" they may be. Heck, it may even be a function of Romance languages in which only two states of matter exist: masculine and feminine.

If you agree with the oversimplification above, it then logically follows that anyone espousing employment of gray matter or, for that matter, shades of gray, in the decision making process is automatically suspect. There is no possible way that such a party or individual can become credentialed, because they are otherness, a state of matter or affairs outside of the known and accepted realm of experience. After all, just such a dichotomous state of affairs has been going on in the history of mankind since the very first cavewoman picked up a burning brand from a lightning-struck tree and wondered, "Gucci or Donna Karon?"

Arresting and subsequently killing and burying one's opponents was an acceptable method of dealing with the disloyal opposition up until the 17th century or so in Western Civilization (Eastern Civilization, never having aspired to any political system more grandiose nor plebeian than Distributed Dictatorships, has never confronted the issue of representative democracy. Perhaps the East can teach the West new tricks, eh, Dawg?).

Therefore, it should surprise no one that the Federal Election Commission, created and funded as an "independent agency" of the Federal Government by the bifurcated, bicameral, progress obstructive legislative machine known as Congress, being controlled wholly by the denizens the two party system, would brook no interference of it's quadrennial activities by the otherness. That they resorted to employing local, state or federal constabulary to accomplish it's goals is a given. After all, one of the two aforementioned parties control said constabulary and its airheads, er, administration at all times (save Burlington, Vermont - political home of Representative Bernie Sanders, Independent, neo-marxist and former Mayor. Then again, Vermont hasn't been right nor Right since Ethan Allen fell off the victory wagon and froze to death in the snow.)

In my not so humble opinion, arresting the advocates and candidates of the disenfranchised Left and Right was the appropriate response for the political Cro-Magnons in charge of things in Washington these days. God forbid the public even gets a hint that there might be divergent views out in the hinterlands...

Not likely to happen, though. Oliver Stone, Michael Moore and my own cousins, the Campbells, are all hanging around LA about now, schmoozing with the money men, trying to pitch docudramas on Bush's "landslide victory" or Kerry's "overwhelming defeat." They are interested in only one thing: Power.

wil