So, that being said, why did I even bother to vote? I'm starting to suspect it was purely for the self-portrait I got to post to Facebook and Instagram of me wearing the "I Voted Early" sticker (27 years old and I still give a damn about being accepted by my peers....FML). It might also have something to do with what my mom told me years ago: if you don't vote, you can't complain. I can see the logic in that: if you don't participate by voting, you don't get to complain about the way things turn out or the way things go after the election. Makes enough logical sense to have stuck with me all these years, but it doesn't negate the fact that the entire system is nothing more than a horse and pony show designed to keep the masses distracted from the genuine causes of our societal issues.
To escape from the madness of this seemingly endless presidential campaign I've been reading the Hunger Games trilogy again. It's fitting, I think, because the books' allegorical setting is so appropriate. In the last book, Mokingjay, Katniss finally finds out that her country's name, Panem, comes from the Latin phrase, panem et circenses. If you didn't know what this phrase meant before Suzanne Collins explained it, you're fired. Watch a PBS special once in a while, will you?
Anyway. Why is this relevant? Allow me to illustrate
Bread
and
Circuses
Do you get it yet? Distractions. They're all just distractions to keep us well fed and entertained so that we don't question the fact that our "democracy," or, more appropriately, "constitutional republic," is actually a plutocracy. The ever-increasing fervor over elections, American's expanding waistlines and shrinking IQs are all symptoms of the same disease that plagues us, which others have called "The Golden Rule." Only it's not the Golden Rule that they taught you in church. It's the one that Jafar taught us: the one with the gold makes the rules.
Republican, democrat, independent, whatever; I think we can all agree that the system is broken when corporations are awarded more consideration than individuals, and when more money than the majority of us will ever even dream about is spent trying to get one puppet into the theater instead of the other. Corporations are allowed to give as much money as they want in an election because, supposedly, it counts as free speech....
In my humble opinion, that's bull shit, but that fact only further illustrates my larger point: it's all just distraction. Putting on a good show, as Katniss is repeatedly reminded through the Hunger Games, and as I remind myself daily. All they want is a good show. "They," in this case, is anyone who obsesses over politics or any other aspect of our culture and lets the uneducated pundits . It's all distraction, and eventually we're going to pay the price for our ignorance.
So, why did I vote for Gary Johnson if it's all just one big spectacle? Again, mostly it was for the sticker, and so that I don't feel any residual guilt when I complain about the state of things. But if that's all I was after I might as well have voted for Barack Obama, whom I am still glad won because the alternative was, IMO, a quick and hasty return to the policies and procedures that got us all into this mess they're calling the Great Recession.
They say you should vote your conscience, so that's what I did. The thing about our current, two party system is that if a third party has at least 5 percent of the popular vote in one election, they can publicly finance a campaign in the next election. I was included in the historical 1 percent that cast my vote for the Libertarians in 2012. I don't agree 100 percent with the Libertarian platform, but I like their style. They believe in individual liberties, for the most part, and I feel like their the only ones that want to treat adults like adults by letting us make our own decisions. As far as I'm concerned, Libertarian is the only political party in this country that actually believes in what "freedom" is supposed to mean.
So, though I believe with every fiber of my being that the entire system in which we live has been carefully constructed by those at the top to keep themselves and no one else in the top position, from the tax laws to whatever it is that they pass off as television these days to the curriculum that they taught me and that they'll inevitably teach my son one day, I still participate in the spectacle because change has to come from within. The game is skewed, yes, but those of us caught in it have to continue fighting by their rules for our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They give us an opportunity to make our voices heard, so we have to take that chance.
Of course, if we are really going to win, we'll have to get over our petty differences and united against the real evil. We need, just like Katniss did, to remember who the real enemy is. It's not the opposing party. It's not liberal hippies or the right-wing nut jobs. It's not what the media, from all sides, works hard to convince you it is. In fact, it's everything the media tries to convince us it isn't. It's the Capitol; the oligarchs It's the really wealthy handful of people that have been running the country and the rest of the world for the last 30+ years. The ones at the top of the pyramid, as it were, only the economic pyramid is really just a funnel used to move dollars into their own pockets and keep the economy in their control. They're the ones that made this election cycle into the all-consuming clusterfuck that it was by pumping more money into it than many countries in this world even make in a year. It certainly wasn't me contributing record-breaking amounts of cash to the nominees.
It's too bad that their propaganda is so effective at deflecting our attention. The whole thing has been constructed over years into one, state of the art brainwashing machine. The good news is that there does seem to be some progress. With such far-left wing ideas as marriage equality and marijuana legalization becoming a reality, even such staunch conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly are
Perhaps it's just the optimist in me, but it seems like we're coming around. We're taking longer than other parts of the civilized world to get there, but this election season was very telling about the way attitudes are changing in the United States. Tolerance, it seems, is becoming more than just something the extremists tolerate; it's the law of the land in Maine and Maryland, now, along with other important states like Iowa and New York. Socialized medicine, if you can really call it that, is too, and while Obamacare is far from perfect, it is at least a step toward the altruistic attitude that is going to get the human race past the point that we will destroy ourselves just to prove a selfish point about who has the bigger gun.
Speaking of which, just to prove that I'm not the liberal lunatic you think I am, I'm seriously considering buying myself a gun for Christmas. It'll go in the Zombie Apocalypse box with the walkie talkies.
No comments:
Post a Comment