Ineffective Democracy

We have a choice of reasons for being shocked
by modern politics, we can be appalled
by people who register to vote but refuse
to enter the polling booth and make use of it,
not even to invalidate their ballot card, or be appalled
by people voting in their thousands. But by the nature
of the list of candidates, whoever the voters choose,
their vote makes no difference to the overall result.

Narcotics Are Us

Who knew how similar general elections
are to the misuse of certain sleeping pills?

Apparently if it is misused zopiclone
induces hallucinations, insomnia,
anxiety and fatigue-exactly what listening
to too much electioneering in the media
will induce in the viewer, who is too dazed
to withdraw their complicity, and switch off.     

Great Turn Offs Of Our Time (39)

 'We are where we are' and
'I am drawing a line under (insert name of event here)',
meaning 'I want you to stop ask me about... ' 
are modern classic lines for insincere denials,
when leaders and CEOs are asked by journalists
'Do you ever feel the need to apologise?'.

The odd thing is that real apologies
increase the size and esteem of those
that make them when they are due.
But when what you have to apologise for
is a hubris so huge that it will make
the apology stop in the craw of the leader,
and get no further then we should expect
a lot of people with much less to say
about what they have done
to say that less, and say it at length
in every media outlet that will have them.

Still their insincerity is easily confirmed
by the readiness with which they apologise
for every disastrous event
that happened on other leaders watches,
which they had no part in.

Maybe they hope future leaders
will do the same and exonerate them...    

The Nuts And Bolts Of Democracy

The international USA based news
is full of 'Trump did this/did not do that'
type commentaries and stories, as befits 
the news cycles where the media so readily
adopts the tone of a soap opera.

How else are they to report a self-made
 'bad boy' billionaire with such a flare
for self promotion? I don't blame them,
though I tire of them reporting Trump
when he announces 'something big',
that becomes yet another damp squib,
to be filed and forgotten, along
with all his previous bankruptcies.

What I find myself less ready to forgive
is how much, whilst they help set up
future damp squibs, the US media ignores
so many of the other, smaller, stories
where democracy has resulted in
a win-win situations, and further ignore
the numbers for November 5th 2024.

435 House of Representatives seats are up for grabs,
as are 34 out of 100 Senate seats, maybe 30 mayors
11 state governorships, 10 attorney generals,
10 state treasurers, 7 secretaries of state 
and hundreds of seats for the 52 state legislatures.

Last but not least, some states elect their judges.

In 2020 an estimated 599 seats were fought over,
and decided, and 24 states held plebiscites
on issues that included decriminalising cannabis for personal use. 

Whatever the number of seats up for grabs,
and different plebiscites, this time looks like the last, 
the maintenance for the future is what matters. 

Homo Psifoforos*

In 2024 a figure approaching a quarter
of the population of the world will be offered
the latest chance to vote for a government.
Two billion voters will be going to the polls
to choose what their media will predict to be
a new and more vigorous government.

These voters hope to be able to trust
in certain basics for a successful vote
the reliability of the electoral register,
fair regulations for being able to vote,
and most of all, that the public can rely
on the votes being cast being accurately counted.

The media noise of cliches and slogans
doing battle for the voters attention span
is a given that those voting can rely upon.

Even when they know what to trust,
the noise of isms fighting each other
to be claimed by voters is just terrible.
Though it is not quite as much of a racket 
as the purest authoritarian propaganda.

That noise is something that no amount of lessons
in civics and civilisation can ever counter,
because when 'freedom' means we are free
to share only in cliche, the weakness
of our  freedom is laid bare to all.

But if by some miracle, enough scales
fall from enough voters minds for them
to recognise how they have been mis-sold
their new government, then how many of them
will find the means to protest in non-cliched terms?

When slogans sell us our values
we are the last to recognise
how they reverse the situation
of how it we are sold to them.
For repeating them, we become
the cliches that we are sold to. 

We sold them our ears with our listening.... 

*Greek for voter   

The Buoyant Voter

In forty years of being available to vote
I have rarely voted for the candidate
who was to be first past the post
in the ten general elections I could vote in.

My convictions about who to vote for
always left me among the minority
who can't identify with those in power.

I don't mind that, indeed I can't
since it means I have spent my time
supporting candidates and parties
who could well win in the future.  

Tragedy And Farce

Karl Marx said of history,
'History repeats itself, the first time it is tragedy
the second time it appears it appears as farce.'.

Every election I have given my attention to
has continued this theme, with variations.

The tragedies become apparent
when speakers speak in mantras
about their leaders, turning speech
into mantraps for catching votes.

Farce makes it's presence felt
in the bluff and bluster
of speakers who filibuster
to stop others talking.
The speaker only stops
when their audience
has lost all reason
and all will to live.

My solution to this admix
is to keep my distance from it;
the tragedy leaves me angry,
and the farce of repetition
takes all point out of life,
leaving me wondering
'What was I where for...  ?'