October 2, 2002- Campaign Season

Now that we have reached the autumn season in America, there are two things underway. One is the baseball playoffs, which are the end to their season, and the other is the start of the campaign season, as the candidates gear up for the general elections that will be held in America next month. The politicians say that there are all sorts of parallels between these two things, winners and losers, champions and also-rans, competition, and so forth. The vast majority of this is pure bullshit, as it is just the politicians trying to make the regular people relate to their scene. About the only thing that the two have in common is that they both are all over the TV in America in the fall of election years like this one. Even though it is the baseball players that make far more money, it is the politicians that have far more influence on people's lives. Even though their season is the one that people hate more, it is the one that has more impact on their lives. The politicians know that, and they act accordingly. Well, make that act in a politically expedient way. For that is what we get in this and every other campaign season, politicians being as politically expedient towards themselves as they possibly can be, all in the course of trying to win the votes of the other Americans. We have had plenty of that so far this year. Here in Illinois. For example, we have had the Democratic candidate for Governor, Rod Blagojevich tell us how he tried marijuana when he was young, and did not inhale (haven't we hard that before?) so that he looks like a regular dude of his generation, albeit one that wants to arrest everyone that does what he did when he was young. He has engaged in shouting matches with his Republican opponent, Jim Ryan. He went out and bought some kind of shitty soup off of some homeless people that were protesting a fundraiser of his by selling this soup. All the while as he as doing all of this, he was making all sorts of promises, like that the homeless people mean as much to him as the rich fat cats do, and that we can see that he does not lie about himself, and will continue to do so if elected, and so on. In short, Blagojevich is doing what we see every politician doing during campaign season, saying exactly what he promises to do if the voters are kind enough to elect him. All across America, politicians are doing the same thing now. They are making promises during the campaign season that in many cases will be broken by the summer season of 2003. The politicians will tell the people anything during this season that we are currently in. They do so because they are all running for politician office not to serve the public like they say that they are, but to serve themselves by feeding their addictions for shit like power, money and the like. When it is not campaign season, we see these same politicians feeding these addictions of theirs full speed ahead. They break every promise that they made during the last campaign season to do so. Then, when the next campaign season rolls around, they see that their addiction might be unfulfilled if they don't win re election, so they get their addicted asses in gear and get out in the community and tell the people exactly what they want to hear time and time again, no matter if they believe one fuckin' word of what they are saying themselves. They shall say and do anything that it takes in order to get elected. We saw this with Richard Nixon when he was trying to get re elected President in 1972, and ordered the whole Watergate break in mess that ultimately cost him his job and his ability to feed his addictions in the way that he wanted to. He is hardly the only case of an American politician going too far during the campaign season to ensure a win for themselves. The Federal prisons have more than a few of them as guests right as I write this. The politicians let their addictions blind them to everything except the feeding of said addictions to the point where they go and do something stupid and unnecessary in order to win an election. There will be a few of these cases during the current campaign season as there are every campaign season. But, for the most part, the politicians manage to keep things out of the realm of illegality, and stick to the realm of Unethicalness. They promise the voters the Sun, Moon , and Stars above, and they ultimately deliver none of the above time after time. Yet, the American people go for this act every campaign season. The American politician has evolved to meet this need as well. The politician that we see in America in 2002 is different from the Nixons and other politicians of the past. They were men that were more self made, they created their own images and ideas and ways of doing things, and they lived or died with that. The way that they played the political game was the deciding factor if the sank or swam. Like Nixon was a soulless, personalityless, mean, evil fuck, but when campaign season came around, he convinced the people that these were good traits, ones that he needed to have in order to do what he was promising to do for the people. He pulled this shit off time after time, as he rose from California congressman to United States Senator, to Vice-President, and, eventually, President. His mastery of what to say and do when campaign season rolled around was what got him where he got. His making impassioned speeches with his dog at his side and other such stunts were the things that propelled him to the top. The American people were willing to have this done to them, and Nixon saw this, and he went and took full advantage of it. No matter what age America was in, this shit worked. By the time that Nixon and his cohorts were around, there was the infiltration of the mass electronic media, and that changed things a bit. But every campaign season, there were the politicians, out promising the world to the voters, and they were about as sincere as bin Laden's commitment to Islam. Yet, they scored exactly what they wanted every time.

2002 promises to be no different in this respect.The biggest difference is that the politicians of today's America are no longer self made men, they are creations of consultants and media experts and make up artists and speech coaches and the like. They are creations that are made specifically to appeal to as many people as they can. They say and do everything with a precision that only professional handlers can provide. This had to come about because of the change in the American people. As the electronic mass media became more and more pervasive, Americans saw themselves as more suave and sophisticated, and less easy to bullshit and con with phony rhetoric. The politicians saw this, and were in a quandry as to what to do, that is, until the men that crate the stars of Hollywood and MTV and the like stepped forward and offered their services. They could make every bit as much of a glamorous star out of a politician as they could out of a movie actor or a singer in a rock and roll band. Since the politicians have large sums of money to spend whenever they have to run for election, they hired these folks, and damn it if they were not right on the money. The crated media ready politicians that were every bit as dazzling and sexy and cool as the rock starts or the Hollywood hacks. Now, instead of doing some of the clumsier, ham-handed tactics that a Nixon used, they were using smooth, fine, but very effective tactics to do the same thing. They have started to make their bullshit promises of a campaign season in very media friendly ways, by appearing on selected TV shows, some of which have nothing to do with politics, like the David Letterman show, or showing up at the right places, say a baseball playoff game to press the flesh and con the masses with their slick smoothness as the TV cameras roll for a quick bite on tonight's news, or by even producing their own videos that get out their message in exactly the way that they want it gotten out. Every word that they say, every appearance that they make, is carefully orchestrated and planned down to the smallest detail. Nothing is left to chance anymore. The American people think that they are so sophisticated now that they can see a fraud right away, they forget that the handlers of today's politicians know exactly what they think in terms of that and why they think it, and they also know exactly how to manipulate that attitude to their advantage, and that is what you will see the most during the current campaign season. The lying, bullshitting, and feeding of addictions has not stopped at all, not even close, but now it has been packaged in a neat, sharp,and very eye catching type of packaging that appeals to the consumer , regardless of what is actually contained inside. The likes of Rod Blagojevich are every bit as insincere as Nixon, but Rod has been groomed and made by consultants to make it look as if what he says and does is some sort of radical departure from the ways of old, even though they are exactly the same. Every successful politician in America today does this, if they don't, then they aren't successful. And no one in America wants to be unsuccessful, especially the politicians. So they will bust their fuckin' asses to avoid that. And they do. For example, in this campaign season, they are trying to outdo one another in who can wrap themselves in the American flag the most and be looked on as a greater American. Since the Pigs are part of the in scene in today's America, the politicians are trying to get themselves tied in with the Pigs in any way that they can. Each one is trying to get himself photographed with more Pigs than the other guy ( or woman). Their fantasy seems to be getting photographed with more Pigs than there are on all the animal farms in Texas so that they can look as if they are so much more in love with America than their opponents are. Every politician this campaign season is trying to have more red, white, and blue surrounding him and his name than anyone else. Everywhere they go, they are making these impassioned speeches about how much they love America and how much it means to hem, and how grateful they are that they were born here ( or moved here) and have the chance to be in American politics, where they can have a chance to give something back to the country that gave them so much, and to be able to do something for their fellow citizens, yes, every politician across America is making impassioned speeches like these everywhere they go. Not that there was ever a time in America where politicians did not say shit like this every so often, but this campaign season it is becoming a contest of who can sing these praises from on high more loudly and sweetly than anyone else. Many issues are being ignored in favor of weepy-eyed tributes to those that died in September 2001, along with heartfelt praise for the military and those that sprang into action during and after that day. This shit makes the American people forget all about these dudes as politicians and see then as fellow Americans, still trying to recover from the traumas of last year, as are they, and they start to cry right along with the politician, and forget all about substantive issues. Yes, this is a mainstay of Campaign Season 2002 in America. It is becoming one where issues are seen as less important than who can make the more impassioned speech about what happened last year. The people are forgetting that is was the insane addictions of the politicians and their cronies that brought that fateful day about in the first place. They forget to ask the crying politician just what he or she is going to do to correct this and make sure that it does not happen again. To pu tin briefly, they play right into the addicted hands of the politicians, just like they always have. Only this time, a different tactic has had to be used. Nixon is proud, wherever he is. This campaign season shall be no different than any previous ones, it will make things no better then they have been. It is just another re-run played for the American people with a predictable ending. Nothing shall change as a result of this campaign season, just like always. Rhetoric shall give way to broken promises, shattered hopes, messed up dreams, but with the politicians being able to feed their addictions to their heart's content, and that is the sad epitaph of every campaign season in America.