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Show | : 3 THE ZEPHYR/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2007 society's port hole of reality: YouTube. As I pen this screed, we are engaged in one of the goofiest Presidential races since 1825, when Old Hickory was denied the presidency by the House of Representatives, who chose instead to install John Quincy Adams’ portrait in the West Wing. Back then, such a maneuver was replete with intrigue, home-spun flim flammery, and what historians call The Corrupt Bargain. Our present campaigns are hardly up to such tomfoolery — or are they? Who was it that said: “Any American who is prepared to run for President REPORTING ie)cate aoe should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.” (If you said Gore OE Vidal, you're ready for your 8 seconds of fame on Jeopardy) Any self respecting voter knows what it means to feel queasy in the voting booth. It's one thing to be forced into choosing the lesser of two turkeys; but, when the process is little more than a pantomime between the most myopic political machines in history, the odds of anything resembling enlightened leadership rising above the scum are slim and none. Let me remind us that this piece is about canyons, those deep gouges molded by the effects of time, erosion, and entropy. And our quaint political system, both parties inextricably married to mirror images of the same growth-for-the-sake-of-growth ideology, is just such a geological formation. Nobody escapes from this pit of hell, which is an apt way to describe America’s loony political theater. SPACEof HISTORY notes from NED the desk of MUDD Canyons hold a special place in America’s throbbing gristle of consciousness. Through the fog of our nation’s murky past, canyons served as refuge for those requiring shelter from the proverbial storm. As often as not, that storm wore a badge and carried a Winchester: the Law. “Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is awfully hard to get it back in.” H.R. Haldeman Strange tales from the Canyon Country, indeed! Canyons hold a special place in America’s throbbing gristle of consciousness. Through the fog of our nation’s murky past, canyons served as refuge for those requiring shelter from the proverbial storm. As often as not, that storm wore a badge and carried a Winchester: the Law. The Navajo tucked themselves deep into Canyon de Chelly, secure in their fields. But, as Fate would have it, they inadvertently found themselves smack dab in the middle of America’s march towards endless progress. Their opponent, Kit Carson, understood basic geo-politics: bullets have no respect for indigenous peoples, tribal sovereignty, or Christian decency. John Wesley Powell also had a thing about canyons, attested to by his daring runs down the Green and Colorado Rivers, back when such business was best left to angels and madmen. Powell, his one arm. gesticulating against the mighty rapids, repeatedly defied I mean this seriously: We could elect better representation by computer than via the current paradigm of sleaze, cash, duplicity, prevarication, paltering, and bromides that we're faced with today. If you doubt that statement, record the Nightly News for a week, edit out the commercials, and listen carefully to the goobers pretending to be worthy of leading us into tomorrow. Review your favorite candidate’s shtick. Do they dare string five meaningful sentences together in reference to the poignant issues bearing down on our nation: Health care; immigration; terrorism; ecological melt down; national debt; ad infinitum? In a word — No. “Platitudes-R-Us.” The reason Truth isn’t part of American politics is simple: Nobody wants to hear it. The recent debates confirm this. What we’re offered instead of workable solutions to what ails us is a barrage of nonsense taken right out of Party Politics for Dummies. With rare exception (Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich), Presidential hopefuls tow the party line, spouting warmed-over pablum like mannequins on a string. Just hold your nose and vote. In the nick of time to bolster my erudition, the Original American Contractor, Newt Gingrich, has this to say: “What's the job of the candidate in this world?...... The job death to become the nation’s first Official River Rat. That Lake Powell is named in his honor is an of the candidate is to raise the money. to hire the consultants insult to the sort of man who preached against wholesale development of the West. As the Big Rat understood, to do the focus groups to figure out the 30-second answers to be memorized by the candidate. This is stunningly dan- water gerous.” You have to hand it to Mr. Ginrich — he has a brain. might flow in the channels of dark but it doesn’t But beware the Newt! . Political calculus isn’t rock- canyons, necessar- ily flow anywhere else in the desert Southwest. et science - we simply need a viable Then, or now. the highway, sidewinders, rustlers, claim side-canyon when their they saw one. Many an outlaw appreciated the hunker-down factor of the West's obscure canyons. Better to thieving, remain killing, But this piece isn’t about those sorts of canyons, far from it. Instead, I’ve decided to jump into another breed of canyon altogether, a cleft dividing our collective subconscious, portending disaster to what we offhandedly refer to as “The Union.” Of course, I speak of the current political chasm we endorse at our peril: the two party system. Picture, if you will, a canyon constructed of monolithic political ideology. One wall is the Democrats, the other is constructed of what remains of the once proud Republicans. Imagine these walls reaching aloft, casting dense shadows onto the canyon floor below, where most of us hapless plebes happen to reside. Let your mind wander, filled with images of celebrated political figures as they jokingly engage in what we’ve come to accept as debate. This visualization isn’t difficult, especially if you have access to modern we cash cow constituents, of a lot more interesting, if not borderline funny. Say what you will about Ralph Nader, but his ill-fated jab at the gates of executive or general mayhem. Imagine some of the sordid doings in the old Hole-in-the-Wall; better yet - Brokeback Mountain. Butch Cassidy to the rescue! Then there was the mythical TV hero, Steve Canyon, who toted freight through the friendly skies, when not lounging at the fictional Big Thunder Air Force Base. With Ray Bradbury behind the pen, Monsieur Canyon proved mightier than the sword. At least until the series played out. and a fourth, most of whom never met a political hack they didn’t want to grease. For the rest of us, things would become a hell as far off the grid as possible when engaged in party fifth, or even sixth while we're at it. The big losers would be the Behemoths behind the wheel of America’s gridlocked two party system. And jumpers, and assorted omery honkies knew a good third need it now. Maybe On the other side of power was a refreshing burst of political flatulence. America’s political process requires elbow room, even when it steps into the surreal. We need a diverse political dialog that transcends the compressed ideologies of 21st Century politics. The minute a viable third party appears in the game, the body politic will experience something akin to a blood transfusion, platelets of truth seeping into the dim recesses of what currently parades down America’s electoral high- way. I’ve said it before, might as well again - We could “elect” the House of Representatives in the same way our juries are selected and end up with the same riff raff we have now. Minus the slime, lies, and wasted gobs of moola. For many of you, this kind of talk sounds preposterous at best, pathological at worst. So be it. Patriots still married to the old system resent any efforts to liberate American politics. Greed, selfishness, and myopia tend to support stasis, until the pendulum swings and the losers begin smelling yesterday’s dog turds stuck to their loafers. Canyons can be dangerous places, especially during surprise gully washers and unexpected flash floods. The same holds true for the canyons of American politics, except the terrain is made of feckless hucksters with gallon-sized bottles of snake oil to sell. Old PT. Barnum wasn’t kidding when he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Unfor- 30) tunately, that sucker is us. |
