Artistic Footprint

Alright this is going to be the last I write about anything political. I find it too conspiratory, far too complicated, and to be honest, damaging to myself. It turns me into a parasitic pessimist. But what I have learned from all this pondering is the awareness and responsibility I have as a citizen of a nation. But in the back of my head I will always have the bad taste of what power does to people, and how easily followers are manipulated into blindly following stupid leaders. Here’s my take on what makes the fantastic and almost impossible concept of democracy able to operate:

The story of a politian:

In order to get into politics, you already need to be one certain breed of person. That is you must meet foreign nationals, spend years in university, be a governor, and be from Virginia or Texas. You need lots of money to finance your campaign, as well as an alliance of lobby groups and conflicts of interest, which you may or may not be able to bring with you to office. You adopt values and beliefs that get you into office like religion, culture, drug enforcement, abortion, gay marriage, international policy, even your favourite baseball team. In the campaign, there really are only two options that the country cannot decide on, and so the vote ends up being 55% to 45% or something stupid, so your citizens might as well not have voted at all. Speaking of which, only half the population votes anyways.  Then you make promises to get yourself into office which you never planned to fulfill once you succeeded. You spend a less than 10 years in office so any long term plans simply never happen, you’re pressured to take a side based on your own affiliations or lobby groups, or you are used as a puppet by your staff who hide behind you, putting your face on their decisions. And if you make a wrong move, its ok because you can control the media and create some other problem to mask the first, no one would be the wiser. You are completely protected from your people in your atom-bomb-proof office, or bullet proof armada of helicopters and jumbo jets. You are mocked all over the world through your personal life, speaking skills, or attempts to destroy/fix the economy. Meanwhile, because you spoon feed your religious duty to your citizens, you feel that you have the right to invade other countries in the name of god and the idea that capitalist, spiritual democracy is the best and only way to run the world. But you remain safe at home in your office with a little red button as your soldiers bleed and die for you. You only come out to embarrass yourself with pre-emptive mission accomplished banners.

And when all is said and done, 8 years later, you retire securely, to appear on Oprah or Late Night and perhaps start some bogus charity campaign, meanwhile your term in office is now called a “doctrine” as if international and national conflict were diagnosed and actions were prescribed.

Ok so I may have twisted that one to resemble more of George W., but I believe the majority is universal to the workings of democracy. It’s just funny because everyone believes that democracy is the perfect solution and we believe that everyone in the world should have it. And in almost every case, this is true. But people rarely stop to look at the other side of the coin. Democracy, like everything, has flaws. Lack of awareness is, put simply, just another form of blind obedience.

Its scary to think that we went to two world wars over for freedom and the right to vote, and yet our capitalist greed has corrupted it since. Dignity, morals, and justice are sold for power, money, and resources.