Myopias

[degringolade]

 

Native Art / Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula/ Water Dreaming

Misrepresentation is yet another form of lying.  When Deliberate, It is one of the most pernicious forms of lying.   Misrepresentation allows those who use it to take a grain of what is true and then spin a universe of not quite true from that one truth. The small truth that is the cornerstone of that alternate universe needs to be just barely large enough to conceal the lies that they have spun around it .

Thus the birth of marketing.  The one true American science.  The basis of our democracy and our way of government.

But it is a selective myopia.  I am always amazed at how folks can skillfully pick out the misrepresentation from folks they don’t approve of and skillfully ignore the machinations of the other side.  I would say this is obstinacy and partisanship, but that is too easy.  Perhaps partisanship is the closer of the two.  In a two-party system like ours, once you, through your selective perusal of the marketing strategies, have decided who is the “bad guy” you simply stop digging on the actual nature of the other parties candidate and Voila….your decision is made and thought no longer needs to go into the problem.

All of this was on display during the last election between two appalling candidates.  It really didn’t matter which of the two geriatric fools won, the results would be the same.  The problems that have been festering for the past forty or so years are still extant, the only difference will be in the style in which the needs of the bulk of Americans are ignored.

Nope, nearly everyone for the past forty years of the spectacle of misrepresentation that is the presidential campaign industry has made a little covenant with themselves that “this time will be different and that nice man will help me”.  In every case, that little bit of manufacturing has proven to be degraded.  This time the joke became obvious when the two geriatric fools were on display.  I tend to think that the bulk of the electorate realized that they were fucked either way but at least they wouldn’t have to listen to Trump anymore.

Old Joe ain’t gonna last more than four years.  He is also going to preside over a shitshow of historic proportions.  He is the president and the buck is going to stop there, as much as he would like to blame the Trumpster.  The problems that he has to address had roots going back fifty years and he is going to be in charge when the uncomfortable truth that we are running out of band-aids and duct tape becomes clear to him and his handlers.

Nope.  Things are changing and all the old certainties of politics and government are in play.  The solutions are there, but there are a lot of folk  that will try to move heaven and earth to try to prevent a slice of the humble pie landing on their serving dish.