Greeting card platitudes from Obama

Dear Joe,

Let me first say how enjoyable Deer Hunting with Jesus was. Very. For someone of a younger generation like myself, it is very heartening to know some of those elders who avoided the mind trap of growing up in society are still freeminded. Do you see Barack Obama's campaign as in any way analagous to George McGovern's campaign in 1972 (ignoring the different Republican candidate)? Hope? Idealism?

Much respect,

Claude
Australia

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Dear Claude,

You are too kind in your assessment regarding my supposed escape from the mind trap of America's crude media driven consumer society. You are talking to a guy who lies around on the couch in his under shorts, eats corn nuts, drinks cheap beer, and watches crime shows fer god sake. ;-)

But no, I don't see any resemblance in Obama's campaign to McGovern's. McGovern was what he appeared to be. Like any other politician, Obama's every move, word and nuance is extremely calculated and orchestrated in ways that were not possible, or even imaginable, in 1972, Same with all American candidates today.

The business of local and state politics is the business of turning virgins into whores. The business of national politics is polishing up whores to look like virgins. Of course some whores are nicer than others, but one does not get to play the back room high stakes game of presidential poker by being idealistic. One comes to the table with a lot of dough, a good cover story and a knife stashed in the boot. And even if you win, the guys running the game still own the country. Hence, while a guy like Obama, who presumably does not take corporate campaign dough, may win, you'll never hear him call for the dismantling of the rapacious big corporations who own our every breath, such as big pharma and big food (which are now starting to merge), big med, big finance (mortgage, credit cards, etc.) and even  our  consciousness and awareness of our nation and the world, such as big media, upon who he must ultimately depend to gain access to the public at all.

As long as Obama can buy ads and deliver greeting card platitudes that have a sort of righteous sound, he has entertainment, emotional and dramatic value to us liberal couch taters out here in the Nembutal republic. As long as Hillary still has the the riotously titillating Bill Clinton blue dress scandal in the background. Frankly, I think it would be cool if she wore Lewinsky''s blue dress on American Idol and sang "A Man Ain't Nothin' But A Man" as a campaign stunt, or maybe delivered Lady Macbeth's "Out damned spot!" lines in an episode of American Housewives.

Anyway, as Lady Macbeth said, "Hell is a murky place." American politics is even more so. The capability for a president to make big progressive changes is nil in this country, although the capability to fuck things up remains boundless -- to wit, Sparky the Chimp Bush. If all of Congress cannot effect change because they are owned by big money, no candidate sucking down corn soup on the Iowa campaign trail is gonna either. And besides, America is dead broke and in hock up to her eyeballs. Even little changes in this country cost big money because there must be big profit in it for -- you guessed it -- big corp. Or big dough to slosh around inside big government bureaucracy. For instance, a Katrina victim reader of mine, who happens to be a cost accountant, tells me that it cost the U.S. government $38,000 NOT to get his family into one of those emergency FEMA trailer homes (hundreds of which are still sitting in storage areas unoccupied). He moved to Nicaragua and swears the quality of life there is better and with far less hair pulling.

I dunno. Come November '08 I'll be casting a vote for the manufactured candidate of my choice. And assuming I don't get cut from the voter list through fraudulent voter caging tactics (not too likely, since I am white) I'll be punching a touch screen voting machine with no accountability, and with no recount possible. Also, my vote will legally be reduced a set of digits that instantly become the intellectual property of Diebold.

I guess what I am trying to say here is that I just don't get a hard-on over U.S. presidential elections anymore. I just vote and go home, turn on the TV, and wait to see if the well groomed illusionary candidate of my illusionary choice won the stake race.

You folks watch out down there. Australia, near as I can tell, is at least half-way down the pike to the same sort of system we have.

Meanwhile, I've been reading about your drought in the Aussie newspapers online, Can I send you a quart of water?

In art and labor,

Joe