American Politicians 2008: What planet are they from?

The campaigning for the 2008 presidential elections continues to feel surreal, as usual. Back some 4-odd years ago, all that talk about invading Iraq seemed awfully surreal, quite obviously spun on giant web of lies that surely no one would ever fall for: and so I ignored it -- I'm not political, and why bother with the hulaballoo when it will blow over shortly. Well, it seems like everyone else fell for it, which is quite perplexing to me: why was my perception so distant from that of the masses? Why is my world so surreal?

Well, there is a new political season upon us. Upcoming primaries in Iowa; well, I guess Iowa must be a rural, farming state or something like that, and maybe that is why the Huckabee and freinds are talking to farmers and ranchers about cattle and corn. However, I live in the city. Lets see: 4 out of 5 Americans live in the city. How come the presidential candidates aren't talking to city-folk about city-folk issues?

Let me introduce you to my strange, surreal world. I live in the city, and my mind is warped by city-folk issues. Here are some of the things that I think about. Daily, even. Like, every day. These are all things that I guess are so strange and unreal, that I have not yet heard any presidential candidate express any opinion on:

• Public education. I've got kids, 7 and 12, and I worry about the education they're getting. OK, let me be blunt: the education they are getting is not as good as the one that either I or my wife got. Why is that?

• MRSA. I exercise for my health. I row. I heard rumours of another rower getting a staph infection. Staph, aka MRSA, is an antibiotic-resistant bacterial strain that is now killing more people than AIDS. My understanding is that CA-MRSA first got its antibiotics-resistance on a pig farm or a chicken farm, and crossed over into humans. How come the presidential candidates that are doing all that talking to all those farmers aren't talking to them about antibiotics, close-confinement livestock raising, and MRSA? How come the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control, etc., is doing nada zero zippo zilch, doodley-squat about MRSA? When Phen-Fen killed three people, there was national outcry. When MRSA kills by the tens of thousands, there is utter, complete silence. Its like, surreal. A Salvador Dali painting, with melting clocks, burning girafees, and actionless government officials.

• Air pollution. Oh yeah, there's the Kyoto protocols, and global warming and all that, and I'm sure its quite important, but its not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the local stuff: you go jogging or bike riding and inhale giant lungfuls of fumes from garden weed-wackers, acrid wood smoke from cheery Christmas hearth fires, and smog from passing pickup trucks and SUV's. I can almost hear some fat, artery-clogged Republican chortling now: "Air pollution? Jogging? You're looney, looney!". Yeah, well, I'm planning on living to be old. The quality of the air I breath, as well as the purity of the food I eat, are of considerable concern: especially as its something that I have very little or even no control over. Maybe that seems surreal to the presidential candidates, but it seems very real to me.

• Highway safety. Right up there with heart disease, cancer and stroke, automobile accidents are one of the leading causes of death for all age groups. In my case, I think I've got heart disease and its cousins mostly under my thumb, it seems that highway safety is the leading killer. Now the Democrats and the Republicans love to argue about gun control, but really, now, guns don't kill people, cars do. Highway safety seems to be a mostly laissez-faire thing, with consumers driving demand for airbags and anti-lock brakes. Oh, make note: cars kill more people than gay couples and abortionists combined. Please stop talking about gay marriage and abortion; it makes you sound like you're from outer space or some wacko Waco religious cult or something.

• Urban transportation. Can any talk about highways ever be complete without talk about light rail, toll roads, urban transportaion, urban sprawl, urban planning? All that talk about ethanol and corn is nice, but it really very far way from the world where I live. Urban trans is a very real problem. It may be difficult, but being ignorant to the point of completely flaccid about it is ... ignorant. Oh, right, none of the presidential candidates live in cities, so that's why they have no clue about this.

• Tax breaks. I solved my transportation, and highway safety, and fuel cost problems by finding a job where I can work from home. Let me be greedy: I'd also like to get the IRS home office exemption. Let me be truthful: the IRS home office exemption rules are written so that its impossible for anyone working at home to actually meet them. OK, so, on the list of real irks irking me, this is minor. But it does make me think of class inequality; it really really ticks me off when my richer Republican, umm, partner/boss brags about the $2,000 tax discount/rebate/whatever he got on his brand new SUV because he wrote it off as a business expense, while I'm, ahem, driving an old beater? Can the rest of us get tax breaks too? Why are these always just for the rich people? Grrr.

• Internet Costs. Speaking of working from home, why does my internet connection suck? I've had an internet connection for a decade; its speed has not gone up, but its price has. I live in the center of the city, and AT&T has a "lightspeed" fiber shack less than a few hundred feet from my house. These wrist-sized bundles of fiber-optic have been there for, what, 7 years now? Will I ever be tied into that? OK, sure, internet costs are a small part of my life, maybe a few percent of household income, about the same as my other utility bills combined. So what am I bellyaching about? For the record: the U.S is ranked 20th, or something like that, in terms of the quality of its internet connection. Now, is that surreal, or what? Didn't we invent the internet here in the US? Then why does the US internet suck? Is it because of AT&T?

• Health insurance. One thing that does make a huge impact on my expenses is health insurance. Its big, and its scary, and there seems to be no safety net at all. Someday, when I'm old, I'm going to get screwed on health insureance, and I know it, I can feel it in my bones. Please, please, please: can some politician start talking about some way where I won't get screwed on health insurance?

• Retirement. Speaking of getting old, I'm not feeling particularly secure with retirement. Now, I've got a PhD, I've been working in high-paying hi-tech jobs all my life, and I should have it made, right? Well, it sure doesn't feel that way. Je n'ai pas arrivee. I have got this feeling, deep in my bones, that I'll be penniless by the time I'm 80. The good news: I think I can make it to 80 and even beyond. The bad news: I'll be broke. WTF.

• Spineless Democrats Part of my ongoing detachment from the political process is the continuing unreality of it all. Why can't the New York Times use the word "torture" instead of "extreme interrogation techniques"? It walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, but the New York Times (or the Washington Post or any of the others) seems to think that its not a duck. Like, ahem, are all Democrats spineless globs of lumpfish eggs? Don't know about you, but I voted Democratic in the last elections because I thought that they'd do something useful, like start impeachment proceedings against Bush, and start taking steps to bring the nightmare of the Bush administration to an end. They've done no such thing. Who am I supposed to vote for to get things done around here? Anyone? Are all Democrats sleeping zombies? Are all Republicans immoral, dishonest, scheming liars and cheats? Aren't there some normal people in the ranks, there? Someone who will show some courage, and do the right thing for the right reason? Instead of the wrong thing for evil reasons? Anyone? Hellloooo ....

• Nightmares. Orwellian nightmares. Am I really one of the few people who are bothered by the rampant wire-tapping of American citizens? Am I revealing my old age by knowing what the Cold War was, and why we fought it? According to my recollections, the Cold War was fought between the United States and the Soviet Union, over issues like personal freedom and freedom of the press, and the KGB spying on Soviet citizens, and the need to present ID papers where-ever one went. So why are we talking about national ID cards? Why do I have to flash ID all over place? What's up with that insane shit at the airport? And this news of domestic spying? Didn't we fight a cold war to end this? Didn't we win?

  Its as if the Soviets decamped, inflitrated the U.S. Presidential cabinet, House and Senate, and are now running the show. Where are those crazy gun-toting NRA members when you need them? Shouldn't they be mounting an armed defense against an invasive government right about now? The newspapers say that the CIA is torturing foreigners, and wiretapping Americans. But maybe they've started torturing NRA members? Is that why we haven't heard even the tiniest blip of a bleep out of the right-wing libertarians? Maybe the black helicopters have been quietly rounding up the right-wing looneys and putting them in extra-territorial-jurisdiction camps, where they can't be seen or heard or tried by a jury of thier peers. That must surely be the explanation why they are so absent from the national debate. So... either I'm in a Hollywood movie, or the Soviets won, and I'm being brainwashed right now. Oh wait, a better explanation: the space aliens have taken over American politics. Yes, that's it, that's surely it. There is no other rational explanation...

Linas Vepstas 31 December 2007. Happy New Year!