|
Breaking the News to See What's Inside! |
| Volume 2 Issue 4 | STULTI REGNANT | September 2004 |
| CURRENT ISSUE | ARCHIVES | ADVERTISING | SUBSCRIPTIONS | WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE? |
BUY THIS ISSUE Living in a Democretiny Law Barring Ignorant Voters Would Cut Electorate by 80% US & Chinese Leaders Summit Up Alaska State News: Primate Elections in Review Analysis & Advice: Dr. Geyges Advises: Dr. G's Guide for the Perplexed New Dalai Lama Movie to Blow Audiences Away |
Living in a Democretiny For those who missed this news item in February: A woman crossing our northern border, headed for Vancouver, was found by Canadian customs officials to be carrying a hand grenade in her glove box. The border crossing was immediately sealed, but when it became apparent that the woman had no ill intentions or even any idea the hand grenade was in her car (the innocent explanation was that it was her husband’s, a US serviceman), the Canadian authorities released her. One needs little imagination to surmise what would have occurred had the woman been crossing the border in the other direction. But Canada is not the US, and its people do not spend most of their time flipping through channels to find the brashest fear-mongerer who can cathartically drum their paranoia into a frothing rage. The incident saw no handcuffs, no strip-searches, no orange jumpsuit, no “enemy combatant” designations. It was standard catch-and-release. A couple of items are worthy of note: The woman was a Texan, and she was trying to get to Vancouver, Washington, which is in the United States. One would think that some little bell may have gone off in her head when she found herself heading into a different country. Maybe, like her husband who leaves hand grenades in glove boxes, she is just a little forgetful. Or maybe she is just a representative of her enlightened national majority. You know them: The 2/3rds of Americans who can't find New Jersey on a map… The 80% who can't locate Israel or Germany… The 60% who believe the world was created in six days… The majority who didn't recognize the Bill of Rights when they saw it and refused to sign a petition bearing its text because it was “too radical.” The Canadian customs guidelines must surely stress: “…in such cases, release back into their own habitat. Due to the hazard presented by ignorant Americans (who, more often than not, are armed) make sure they are released BACK INTO THEIR OWN HABITAT.” It's a habitat where 19% think that they will benefit from tax cuts to the top 1%. Where some 90% are sure they will go to heaven, but most of them believe their neighbors won't. It's the democracy where at one point a majority of voters didn't want to see Bush re-elected, but 78% said they believed he would be. Where 66% of those who believe the rich don't pay enough taxes also support a repeal of the estate tax that benefits only the richest 1-2%. It's the habitat where neither Bush nor Gore garnered a higher percentage of the electorate’s votes than Adolf Hitler did in 1932. But perhaps what appears to be democretiny may only be a demicretiny because about half of electors in the United States do not vote. Some say these non-voters are apathetic or so happy that they couldn't be bothered, but our own good Dr. Geyges advised the true answer may be back in the cradle, back when the democracy we see today overrunning the walls of Babylon like poison ivy was a mere seedling in Ancient Greece. It is in its seedy cradle, surrounded by disenfranchised slaves, peasants, women, and foreigners that I found Socrates. The smart man had learned that surrounding himself with the weak of mind like Glaucoma (“If you say so, it must be true, Socrates”) was key to making himself look like an intellectual giant. The same strategy was adopted by Dick Cheney when he chose George W. as his running mate, but the similarity ends there. Instead of telling honorable senators to go F@#& themselves, Socrates described those who seek power as squabbling, back-stabbing sailors who drug the ship's captain (representing the citizenry) in order to attain the post of pilot. Anyone who takes time to consider matters germane to actually piloting the vessel is trampled in the stampede to grab the helm. “Is it an honest and upstanding man, my dear Glaucoma, who buys advertising to attack other sailors who want the helm? Should a true leader attain power by influencing the mentally incompetent through sophist strumpets on AM talk radio and Fox TV?” “I am not sure, Socrates, for I do not know what a Faux TV is.” “It's mere shadows in a cave, flickering images of gore and glore for those willfully strapped into their reclining easy chairs by high-sodium, low-carb, 98% fat-free-free, preservative-drenched snacks and carbonated sugar beverages. But should these men lose their remote control, wander from their cave, and suddenly see the sun, they would come to know truth and look upon their cave-dwelling life as one of utter foolishness.” “I see now Socrates! I see it all clearly now!” exclaimed Glaucoma. “It is a miracle!.. Oh-oh… What was that I just stepped into?” “I would have warned you, dear Glaucoma, but when you said you could see clearly, I thought you meant the horse droppings.” Suddenly we’re back with George W. Bush, elected by the 25% of the electorate who dwell in caves. And we’re once again at the nadir of a centennial cycle, having turned from the New Deal back to the days of the robber barons. Yet, the same exploitative forces that want compliant Neanderthals at the ballot box have forced people from their caves to work two jobs in an attempt to make ends meet before taking time to help their kids who are left floundering by under-serving, for-profit schools. These overburdened, who live lives of quiet desperation are much closer to the light than are the cave-dwellers who shake in an ecstatic rapture of fear and anger, as if the hands of the Hannitys, O'Reillys, and Limbaughs of the world had reached up their nether-regions to ensure the traveling puppet show respond on cue with chants of “four more years.” The silenced majority of citizens doesn’t vote, doesn't respond to polls, and knows damn well that their lives and minds are stultified. They are the philosophers who stand above others by knowing that they do not know. They continue to work, occasionally squinting into the sun to see the cavernous shapes of ornate, ostentatious ships as they zig-zag their way out to sea. Perhaps they know that divine providence is on their side, and what they’re witnessing is a Noah's Ark reversal. “Poor piloting will not sink the ship directly, my dear Glaucoma. But a poor pilot will not recognize the looming hurricane, which will scrape the ship clean, much like you are doing with the bottom of your sandal. And do you not believe that the foolish sailors will have met their just fate?” “I do not know, Socrates, for of these matters I am quite ignorant.” “And should your ignorance, dear Glaucoma, not be all the more reason to agree with me?” |
 |