against 2012

the fact that ron wyden and ron paul are working against the continued expansion of government surveillance, or that they are not perfectly comfortable with the new national motto - "report suspicious activity" - is kind of a...model. i have to say i live in fear of the 2012 campaign, which - if the congressional election this week in new york is any indication - will continue the terminal degeneration of american political discourse into meaningless idiocy. really, i don't quite understand how something like the medicare debate can be so entirely polarized when it's conducted in terms this debased: there's nothing you believe if you agree with either side. if you're not actually saying anything, i can't agree or disagree with you, and the same result follows if there is no you: that's what we professors of communications actually mean by 'messaging': annihilation. 'message' is the opposite of 'meaning.' i hope that messaging is an expression of contempt for the electorate: that would indicate that the people who do it have the capacity to do something else, that they could say something substantial if they thought the audience had minds. surely the contempt of the electorate for the messagers is a reasonable response either way. we're right back to al gore focus-grouping 'risky scheme' and then basing a campaign on the phrase, throwing it down a thousand times. the policies are irrelevant to these 'people'; the only thing they care about is saying what other devices like themselves are saying. they might as well just sing along to nursery rhymes or maybe chorus 'gaga oohlala' for the next 18 months; that would be a more authentic expression of your unity with one another. where's the off switch? just smile at each other or slap one another on the back: there's no call to use words, 'ending medicare as we know it' or 'bankrupting the country' etc. the twin lineups of mp3 players all saying the same words in unison themselves embody an argument for anarchism, or at least an outright refutation of the very idea of democracy. if everything you say is just an attempt to manipulate the electorate by muttering the right words in order, i say quit. go away.