The Turning Point Cliche

Yesterday someone on TV said that the next presidential election is a real turning point for this country. This is probably the most prevalent cliche heard during election season. I've heard it used about every presidential election since I started paying attention (1972) and every election since I started voting (1976).

If everything's a turning point, then nothing really is. Or we're just turning in circles. I strongly recommend this post on 2Blowhards.com by Friedrich Von Blowhard that succinctly explains why who gets elected is much less important than politicians would have you believe. Let me quote from FvB's comment:

While I would support experimentation with voting systems, I think that it misses one of the main points of my piece, which is that the special interests of America have decided they don't care that much who gets elected, they just want to control the deliberation process through lobbying. In other words, fixing elections may not fix much of anything if "administrative" processes and laws are the REAL government, as they appear to be.

The problem of running a big government society is one that really hasn't, as far as I can tell, attracted nearly the attention it should. Big government gets you many benefits, but like Microsoft products, it has gaping "backdoor" vulnerabilities that determined special interests can and do utilize for their own benefit.

Well, I may not have many solutions here, but one thing I do know: it's time to stop looking at our government through traditional "political" eyeglasses.

Perhaps I wasn't blunt enough in the posting about how I currently look at politics: that is, as essentially a dumb-show for the masses, a delusion, a snare, while the real action goes on behind the curtain.

As Eugene McCarthy said, "Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important."

Is the Internet Good for Writers?

RU Sirius asks ten writers whether the internet is good for writers and gets back an eclectic range of responses. I like Mark Dery's best.