Politics

Politics

Polite people shouldn’t speak of 2 things: politics or religion. But fuck it, nobody ever said I had any manners and I do so love to start an argument. Politics, what can I say about it? “Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should on no account be allowed to do the job.” from Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Recently I saw two interesting, if completely opposite looks at the same subject, idealism and politics. One was Robert Redford’s “The Candidate”, and the other one was “The Campaign”. So I’m talking about two completely different genres of movies, the first being a drama and the latter being a comedy, but both broach some of the same ideas. 

The first being that the modern political apparatus has a way of subverting even the most idealistic, platforms are built upon strategically marketed slogans or “issues”, completely neglecting the underlying truth, that the system rewards the maintaining of a certain status quo, where the power hoarding groups just, a) change at regular intervals predetermined by arrangement or the balanced nature of the opposing forces, or just b) stay in power for indeterminate amounts of time. So in both films we have the incumbent, an almost immovable rock who runs practically unopposed. Then we have the contender, idealist and young, with a political ascendency. The political machine uses them both up in sort of parallel ways, were they slowly give up on their morals and ideals, trading them for a few extra points in the polls. That’s just fucked up, and while comedy gives us the hopeful ending, the drama leaves us questioning how deep we will continue to fall. Just with a “What do we do now?”.

In Latin America, historically politics have centered on semi mythical figures labeled “caudillos”, typically political groups are raised around them; and in the populist tradition, they work the poor huddled masses, legally compelled to vote, buying them with t-shirts and trinkets. But going back to the movies, that system has its own agents in the form of the campaign managers. Lucas and Wattley, twins born in the pit of politics who twist their men to conform to a mold, these are the creators. So now we have political effigies, made out of carved husk empty of their morals and ideals. Just slogans, platforms and baby kissing, though punching babies would get my vote, that’s the modern candidate, the political animal. But shit, that sounds so made up, so common, so ughhh! Because it’s so much easier to just jump back to these known places, not make the intellectual effort and just ride the wave, let yourself be pulled down by the surf and drown in salty waters.   

So it might be a valid concern, the idea of the Manchurian candidate, the system is ripe for such a ploy. God I keep tripping with this shit! But yeah, with the right conditions it would be an easy thing to manipulate the system. Not in the typical Hollywood, straight to VP or bullshit like that, but as a long term plan, working from the bottom. Grass root type crap, technology makes it so much easier these days, you know the door to door type campaign, just twitter the shit out of it, tumblr a few poignant images, and position a facebook fan page, shit got done.  

And just to get back to these two movies I really enjoyed, it’s interesting that in 40 years the concerns of writers or producers, you know, the film makers, have not really changed. It’s just the packaging that has had to adapt to devolving masses and dim witted youth. Maybe Aristotle’s second book becomes more and more a true tome to knowledge in our ever shrinking world. Maybe I’m just being a whinny asshole, but shit, if MTV and History continue to reality show distort and pop the shit out of social sciences, hell maybe I’m just sitting on the wrong side of the curb, already kicked without even knowing.