Voters

 

Voter Manipulation

After every voting day, our thoughts turn to the ageless question of what motivates voters.

Sometimes voters get it right—whatever that is—and sometimes they make startling mistakes. Voters, as studies have shown, will even vote time and time again against their own interests. Don’t believe it? Ask yourself who was the last president who actually did something important for you. (When I say “you,” I’m assuming you’re not rich and powerful.) If Congress is so good, why is that this country continues to decline by almost any objective measure you wish to choose?

But it’s better at the local level, right? These people live amongst us, share our problems, and know right from wrong? Right?

When was the last time your school taxes went down? Can’t remember? I thought so. Forget about it. School board after school board, despite campaign promises to the contrary, has voted to raise our taxes. “It’s for the kids.”  They say so even though they are elected by and for adults.

The disheartening truth is that politicians at every level these days tend to be demagogues. Over and over, we elect people for whom “truth” is what they want it to be. More importantly, it’s what they want us to believe it is. They make up their own truths while burying the real thing under so much rubbish people give up looking for it. After all, people have jobs to work, shopping to do, bills to pay, families to care for, and entertainment galore grabbing at their attention.

Look around you. Look at your borough council, township board, county government and state representatives. They tell you one thing, do another, and all the while nothing important changes except that which is important to the politicians.

It’s really not hard to understand what happens in places where dictators take over. To be sure, the worlds of amoral strong men and adept propagandizing con men are unique. We can feel reasonably assured that those times and circumstances will never happen here. But don’t get too smug. Read “What’s the matter with Kansas?” by Thomas Frank. The voters in places like Kansas listened to the promises made by the people they in turn elected repeatedly but never seemed to notice that the promises were never delivered upon.

It’s sometimes called the Big Lie. Tell people the same thing over and over, shield them from the truth, and they’ll follow you like sheep. Only today, in small-town America, there is nothing to shield. The truth is what the demagogues tell you it is because there is no recognized entity telling you otherwise. The media is too busy making money, or in the case of newspapers simply trying not to go over the cliff of bankruptcy by refraining from angering anyone with power and money. They have neither the interest nor in many cases the ability to bother to uncover and report how you are being lied to continually by local politicians. They even help convince you that white is black, the good is bad and the bad good, and the candidates urged upon you are not what they are advertised to be (and sometimes much worse).

The situation is grim and getting more so. Sure, at the local level our taxes don’t go up so much right now (school districts are a special and separate issue). If the potholes are fixed and the snow removed, we assume all is well in city hall. But underneath it all, the system is rotting. The termites are running rampant and no exterminator is in sight.

The incompetence and petty corruption grow mostly unseen because the voters are unseeing.

Balloons

 

The Balloons of Politics

By Patrick Fero

Countries and their political systems are like balloons. The really repressive ones build up pressure from the inside much faster than the relatively benign corruption of a U.S., for instance.

The Russian of the Tsars blew up quickly; the USSR of the commissars also blew out quickly (although not as destructively); and now the Russia of the oligarchs is slowly losing air from a a thousand cuts.

China is already losing air, the Muslim strong man paradigm is half empty and flopping around as it loses more air; Cuba could meet the pin next.

But my cynicism does not allow me to attribute any of it to a universal desire for "freedom," and certainly not the democracy we pretend we have. It's increasingly hard in this gewgaw ridden and wired world not to see what one is missing. Good old human greed, the lifeblood of capitalism, has a lot to do with this political upheaval as well.

I'm afraid the status when the merry-go-round stops, will be that new names will appear on the lists of rich and powerful, many old names will disappear, and freedom will appear to be enhanced by a few more putative choices of little import; but, the limits on real options will not change.

At the local level, the balloons tend to inflate with the self-importance of the elected officials. When the balloon and the officials’ egos rub up against reality, the burst is painful but useful. Our challenge then, is to try to avoid the pierce that brings the burst, to avoid the over stretching that too causes disaster.  The Ancient philosophers, oriental and occidental have told us all along:  find the middle way.