#567 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #16. Six months from today, it'll be Wednesday, November 7, 2012…

… the United States will wake up to the residue of the 2012 election.
There will be campaign offices in disarray, activists everywhere with hangovers, either the euphoria of victory or the depression of defeat, victors, vanquished.
Election 2012, America’s biennial Civil War, will be over…for a few hours, then election 2014 will begin.
We do Politics as War in this country. The talk will always be in war terms: “battles”, “campaigns”, “wins”, “losses”, “victories”, “defeats”….
We will pretend that this is constructive.
It is utterly insane.
Political A-Bombs and Poison Gas will be in the form of television advertising and mailers and robocalls and on and on and on.
There will be billions of dollars spent on campaign advertising…carpet bombing claiming one is good, another evil.
It has been proven that negative campaigning works.
Politics has become amoral: lies are neither good or bad, they are, in fact, expected; indeed, they are demanded. They are entertainment, like TV.
And like the rubes at the carnival, many of us will lap them up. “Boy, he got in some good licks”. While we all get fleeced.
Many, far too many, will retreat into caves and try to ride out the war: “I can’t deal with it”; “war hasn’t ended, they can all go to hell”, Etc., Etc., Etc.
There are never permanent winners in war. The winner of the battle is marked for a later loss. But, really, we all lose.
Personally, I’m going to be actively engaged, personally and financially.
I will be supporting President Obama, as I think he has done a great job overcoming overwhelming odds – his opposition has, since his victory, sworn to make him – thus all of us – fail. They haven’t succeeded.
His major criticism from 2008 supporters was that he attempted to compromise with partisans he knew wouldn’t compromise unless forced. I consider that a major strength he had, not a weakness. We are a country of diverse opinions.
There is, in my opinion, a major contest this time between a truly radical Republican Party, and a more moderate Democratic Party. There is far more than “a dime’s worth of difference” between Republicans and Democrats; this is not going to be a contest between the “lesser of the two evils”. (This is a recent phenomenon. Today’s Republicans are not the Eisenhower, or even Nixon or Ford variety. The leaders are radicals, sworn to take control of the government they despise.)
Today’s Democrats are probably quite similar to the 1950s and 1960s Eisenhower Republicans. One can debate if that is good or bad. As I said, “we are a country of diverse opinions.”
My plea, at minimum: before you vote (or refuse to vote) on November 6, know what the issues (plural, issues) are, and know what the candidates truly represent, as opposed to their campaigns, and vote well informed on all the many officials you’ll be electing.
It is the least you can do for yourself and for your childrens future.
More here.