Reality Politics
By fragmad • Oct 4th, 2008 at 1:01 pm • Category: Politics| Hot: |  |  | | | |
This is a subject I have been thinking about for about six months now. If you’ve listened to me gibber, rant and rave about American politics in #ectomo (Efnet) then you’ll have heard this all before. But I think it’s a valid point to make and keep making. I’m not an American. I do not even wish to become an American. But I do admire the American political process as a good idea. I don’t know who said this, but someone must have said something along the lines of: “America, nice idea. Shame about the implementation.” I’ve a feeling it was Warren Ellis. So yes, I like a lot of Europeans who think that republicanism and liberalism are good things watch American politics with great interest. We are always ever ready to quickly shout our views at the American populace. Normally in one united voice of saying “don’t vote for the fucking idiot”. If my blatant pro Obama stance is going to get me shouted down by some roaming troll I’m just agreeing with most of the planet. However we don’t have a voice in the American general elections. It would seem a simple nicety if we did since America currently (although sliding) is the superpower that tries to tell the rest of the world what to do. So why do we care so much?
It’s Big Brother! Not the Orwellian totalitarian state. Not directly at least. But the TV show. It must have started a new season about six months ago in the UK. But why do we outsiders care so much about the American political process? Because it’s the most entertaining multimedia reality event every four years. Yes, Europe cares because it is another state like France who early in the modern era rebelled against the shackles of monarchy and cried out for liberty (let’s ignore slaves, vote most men and all women for later). Like France it is a modern first-world nation with strong notions about liberty. Unlike France however most of its media is produced in English, a language that the rest of the world understands. That means we can follow the election. That means we have the ability to follow on hundreds of TV stations, millions of newspapers inches, uncountable numbers of blogs; basically everyplace that produces news and comment about current affairs is talking about the election. It’s pure entertainment for us. The world decided who we wanted to win long ago. We don’t want the old fart and we definitely don’t want the Barbie Doll hockey mom. They don’t stand for American values. Or at least the American values that us outsiders see. For the past eight years it’s been the party that hasn’t won that we wanted. We’re at fever pitch now. We want our candidate to win political Big Brother.
That’s it! That is the only reason I care about American politics at the moment. But the tone of distant entertainment is evident in our media commentary on the event. Sure, we all have ardent political positions we’d like to see in action over there. I for one would like to see a bit more lite socialism creep into American politics. Do any of you guys remember how great “The New Deal” was? But it doesn’t directly change our lives. America is still going to bomb innocent people in the “war on terror”. It’s still going to offer much more aid to those who desperately need food, clean water and AIDS medication to those who need it. But for those of us in the first world; like in Europe. It doesn’t actually affect us. We care because it’s fun to care.
While writing this Will had the new Mogwai album “The Hawk is Howling” on. Unsuprisingly it has an American bald eagle on the front of it. It is a good album and has song titles like: “I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead” and “The Sun Smells too Loud.”
