Everybody loves a good, staged fight. Politics looks increasingly like
professional wrestling. Full disclosure: I don't watch much of either, but
from what I have seen, they are increasingly alike.
Both involve inflamed rhetoric and furious fanatics devoted to carefully
constructed false personas. There is little substance other than vague
allusions to insults and grievances between characters in the staged drama.
One needs to see or read about five minutes of each to understand that both
games are staged as distractions for angry and fearful people who do not
want nuance.
Is the world too intimidating for us to develop a shared civic vision for
the future? Are the tasks before us so intimidating that we prefer to hide
in the very artificial and shallow "reality show" that the DFL presents us
with every season, assured that one of their candidates will win no matter
what?
The Rybak/McLaughlin rift has no political point. The two seem to represent
different cozy groups of privileged friends who are mad at each other.
Perhaps the DFL will hire Jesse Ventura to stage this thing more creatively?
If distraction from real issues is the point --and I believe that in our
local political scene that is precisely the point -- at least the
entertainment should be worth watching.
But then, there are those who see a benefit to turning people off to
politics altogether....voting doesn't mean much of anything, so the next
step might be to ensure that only people like those already in power take
much interest in the process...?
Either way, the status quo wins and the same old problems get worse. We may
be scorching the earth through the way we live, but the show must go on.
even so -- pedaling for peace and ecojustice from Lynnhurst of late -- Gary
Hoover
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