Just Like Weight Watchers

Every once in awhile, I have to stop reading/watching the news and go on a Media Diet. Mostly because listening to talking heads yell at me that I’m stupid if I think the Democrats can help me or tell me how badly the Republicans have broken our governmental system makes me anxious. They, in effect, are bullying me into submission and scaring me into believing that I don’t know enough about the issues so it’s better to stay home on Election Day and let Daddy make all the big decisions. This, of course, is their intent despite their bellyaching that voter turn out is down. Fear makes people malleable. (It also makes for great ratings.) If you don’t believe me, think waaay back to the days following September 11, 2001.

Remember the alerts? Remember red, orange, yellow, green, and blue and how we never got below an orange alert day? Do you remember watching the footage of the planes crashing into the towers over and over again, and all the benefit concerts, and documentaries? Remember the news stories about how the government had subverted other terror attacks and never told us about it? Do you remember how we rose up as a nation and said NO to tyranny? We were terrified and the government played a shell game with the U.S. psyche. Fact: Al-Qaeda did it. Fact: Al-Qaeda was based in Afghanistan. So. We bomb Afghanistan. Oh, hey. Look over here! Iraq has WMDs. Huh? We need to bomb them too before they bomb us! WHAT! Okay, let’s bomb them, too. And now we’re in a war in Iraq that magically no one seems to remember how we got into and therefore think we should just pull out (can’t. Sorry. And whoever gets into the presidency next will say the same thing four months down the road. You can’t start a war and then say, “Oh, sorry. You see we believed our own propaganda and now we think differently.” War is not like a new pair of shoes you bought on a fat day). So here we are five years later and everyone seems to have forgotten that they were frightened to death and therefore amenable to advancing on scary people across the globe. We thought if we could just give these people democracy they would love us and stop wanting to kill us. It seems however that you can't forcefeed people democracy. Live and learn.

What is irritating me right now is when I hear people holding Hillary Clinton’s vote for the war against her (much like they were pissed at John Kerry); a war that most of us believed – at the time – was just. Congressmen on both sides of the aisle voted for a war that they believed that We, the People wanted, and, hey, didn’t we? And now that We, the People feel safe and are tired of being in war and stupid for being duped into thinking there were WMDs, we want out. Like changing the channel when Lost gets a bit repetitive. Its revisionist history and Americans at their fickle best, and it’s downright maddening to me especially when – again, if you remember your not-so-distant-history – certain Congressmen wanted to talk about this a bit more, but We, the People allowed Bush and the rest of hawks to railroad the vote through. (If you need a reminder, I encourage you to use this link to read the two separate speeches given by Robert Byrd of W. V. and Sen. John McCain on the subject, read on the floor of Congress March 19, 2003.) There is a reason that our government is slow and ponderous, it’s so that we don’t act hastily and irrationally. Even in 1776, mob mentality was taken into account. If you don't believe me watch episode one of John Adams On-Demand.

And speaking of mob mentality… My current Media Diet was spawned by the hatred that was being aimed at Senator Clinton. I expected it from Christopher Hitchens and the other anti-Clintonians (of which, I was one during the Clinton adminstration) and especially from the conservative talk show hosts and misogynists the world over, but I did not expect it from the feminists, the columnists, and even the Democratic political pundits. (I’m not the only who felt this way either. It was the coverstory of Newsweek, March 17, 2008.) And, most notably, the Obamaniacs. For a campaign that was based on principles and a message about hope and new government, Obama’s rank and file sure have a way of getting down into the dirt and revert to the Old Ways. While I like Obama and his message, I’ve been seduced by such rhetoric before and am a bit gun shy in believing it. But I’m not anti-Obama. When lining his policy statements up against Hillary’s, there really isn’t much difference. But how are you to know that? Because right now, anyone watching the news would think that come November it’s going to be Hillary versus Barrack in a blood match preferably available on Pay-Per-View. (Where is John McCain these days? It’s like Where’s Waldo without the red and white stripped cap and shirt to distinguish him from all the other old white guys out there.) I am overloaded on the he said/she said parsing of the two Democratic nominees candidacy. I mean, are we even talking about their politics any more? Nowadays, all I hear about is scandal, and racism versus feminism, and which political pundit is lining up behind which candidate, and how much money each campaign is generating and therefore creating an algorithm of who the American people really want. AGH! Umm, excuse me? I know I’m just one voter out of the hundreds of thousands but, ahh, can someone talk to me about Social Security? How about regulating the banks? Hmm? Anyone, anyone? Bueller…

Also, can I just add that most of the states have had their primaries already? If you live in California or New York or Texas or any other 40-some-odd states where the ballot has closed and the votes tallied, just shut up. Please. Just because you voted awhile ago does not mean that Hillary should just cede now so that you don’t have to worry about your candidate getting in. Your vote is no more important than those people in Montana (who go to the polls in June). The only people who have a right to bellyache are Michaganians and Flordians whose ballets were nullified because they stepped outside of DNC rules about pushing their primaries up to before Super Tuesday. And really, I have no sympathy for Florida because they should have learned something about the electoral process after botching the 2000 presidential election.

But like any diet I take on, it’s bound to fail. Sooner or later, I’m going to want the brownie sundae and give into temptation. I went to Salon.com this morning and read an article on Hillary and the Super Delegate fear-mongering. One article and I had to get back on the wagon. My stomach couldn’t take it. The thing is, once this is over, it won’t be really over, because after June, we’re going to slide right into the Presidential Election. And god help us if anything iffy and weird happens with this election – hanging chads in Florida, 2000; votes being thrown out in Ohio, 2004 – this election could go well past the 2009 New Year. Shouldn’t we be conserving some of this vim and verve and hysteria for the end of the year when it will make a difference? When the entire country, on one day, goes to the polls and decides who will be the next president for the next four years? Or must we really shout at each other and throw proverbial stones hoping to knock out the person who might just be on the ticket anyway as the Vice Presidential candidate? It’s enough to give me acid reflux…and then I’ll really be on a diet.