[WS:] I guess it depends how you define stupidity. If it means to indicate a learned behavior aimed to dismiss facts and perpetuate delusions about one own's status - then yes, I agree with it. OTOH, I wonder if this malaise is worse in the US than elsewhere. AFAIK, Poland is full of political delusions - more so on the per capita basis than the US; Russia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Israel are probably in the same boat too. The UK/Irish Europhobia borders on a delusional state too. And then you have seemingly liberal countries like the Netherlands or Switzerland electing right wing lunatics to their parliaments.
I admit, it is very disheartening to observe the outcomes of elections nowadays (in this country and overseas), but then I keep reminding myself that this is only a political circus arranged by political marketers - amounting to nothing more than professional wrestling games. This show is carefully designed to stir human emotions, so many people emotionally react to to (just as they do to the movies, which is obviously a fake reality) and take sides with what they see as heroes and against what they see as
villains. It is difficult to blame them - its human nature.
The good thing is that the outcomes of this political circus matter as much as who wins a football game or a professional wrestling match - the state, like the Titanic travels its own course decided by captains of industry and their men in the body politics. You guys saw it with your own eyes - electing Obama changes political rhetoric quite a bit, but the policy course stayed pretty much unchanged. So if Obama loses to some white Repug asshole that may appear upsetting - just as seeing a bad guy beating up a good guy in the movies - but it will not change the course of the Empire.
The bad thing, though is that it does not give us much of a hope for change.
Democracy, or party politics and elections to be more precise, is a farce, a show to appease the mases that can produce no more change than, say, a prayer. But we do not seem to have an alternative mechanism at the moment to change the course of this ship set by captains of industry.
Wojtek (currently in the Philippines, where the fallout from the hostage situation two weeks ago still dominates the news)
On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 10:55 AM, Somebody Somebody <philos_case at yahoo.com>wrote:
> C. G.: Could it be that people notice that (a) neither party is offering to
> spend in a way that would create jobs, and (b) the party in power is not
> working for their interests? The only alternative is to vote for the
> opposition - as people did in 1932, when FDR ran on a platform of a balanced
> budget. --CGE
>
>
>
>
> Somebody: No, American's are just stupid. Considering that the woefully
> insufficient Recovery Act still managed to lower unemployment by a
> percentage point or two, there's really no planet on which President McCain
> or a Republican Congress would have done a better job digging the country
> out of recession. Moreover, if more Americans had historical perspective,
> they'd realize that over the entire period since World War II income growth
> under the Democrats has been greater than under Republicans. But, that's
> just it, they have no historical perspective. The deciding margin of voters
> this mid-term will be casting their ballots based on current economic
> conditions, full stop.
>
>
>
> I mean, seriously, why aren't American workers marching on Washington for
> jobs and general economic relief? It's not a very politically sophisticated
> demand. In another era we would have had Coxey's Army or the Bonus Marchers
> amassing in the nation's capital. Lowest common denominator populism like
> that shouldn't require a politically advanced Trotskyist vanguard to awaken
> to existence.
>
>
>
> Honestly, I think it's because capitalism is such an old system at this
> point, and has shrugged off all challenges and alternatives. We can point
> out that there's nothing natural about wage slavery or whatever, but frankly
> it seems as venerable as Moses and the Tablets to most people. It doesn't
> even occur to Americans to blame the bosses for high unemployment or
> excessive financial speculation. On the other hand, our political
> representatives and "Government" as an abstract entity are always highly
> visible and can easily be given the blame for just about everything.
>
>
>
>
>
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