Bread and Circuses

I used to believe that political lying was a matter of historical relativity–that in effect lying had always been central to democratic elections, and accordingly we shouldn’t’ be surprised by its prevalence. During the terrible Bush-Dukakis campaign, when Willie Horton was used by George H.W. Bush’s campaign advisor Lee Atwater as a semiotic fire alarm for white terror, I told myself this was in no way different from the caustic and ugly campaigning during the time of Thomas Jefferson. That was a good argument, and sufficiently contrarian to bother my liberal friends who felt the end of civil engagement was upon the land.

 

I was wrong of course, because I was willfully ignoring the big dog in the hunt: paraphrased from from Zappa, the big dog says, “politics is the entertainment side of the military industrial complex.”

 

This means that the lying is now more sinister than ever before. A thing to be remembered during this campaign.

 

Also to be remembered: a million dead Iraqi civilians. They are left out of the televised American political discourse about the unrest spreading around the middle east and north Africa. 1 million dead civilians. That they are not mentioned in our public media is shameful, particularly as these victims of in Iraq are never far from the minds of people across the middle east. The entertainment side of the military industrial complex wouldn’t have it any other way.