September 3, 2008
by Philip A Farruggio

You remember the old Monday Night Football show, back in its early years, during the 70s? Whenever a game was lopsided and the ending was never in doubt, Dandy Don Meredith would start singing "Turn out the lights, the party's over!!" Well, my fellow Americans, "Turn out the lights..... These two political parties are..... Over!"

Each election cycle, doesn't it get worse and worse, all the hype and rhetoric with little or no substance? Tune in the latest disgrace, the Democratic Convention, and catch the litany of longwinded speeches. With the exception of Rep. Kucincih's outstanding oration, the others purposely avoid viable solutions or plans. Instead, we get broad and sweeping demagoguery from these elected officials and party hacks.

Perhaps it is my growing older and more mature that I see through this skullduggery. Or perhaps the subtleties are gone completely from politics. They have won the battle to totally dumb down the American public.  And in a now we have the greater of two evils, the Republicans, in their 'smoke and mirrors' convention of fear and polarity.

Since so many out there have been the victims of our dumbed down America, let's speak through the lowest common means of communication, the comic book world. Many Americans have given up reading real books, choosing instead movies and comic books. The next level of understanding comes from viewing cable television (so called) 'news shows', where they pair together (so called) experts and pundits from the Two Party/One Party system.

For now, let's go down the comic book road, OK? Comic book Amerika is like this great big prison farm, where the inmates think they are really breathing free air. After all, the alternative to this farm is the 'lock down shut em down? caged fortresses seen on cable news shows each weekend. Now, in comic book world prison farm Amerika, we have the mass population, or folks like you and me. Then we have the guards, called the Republican officials. They are all macho 'law and order', looking out for the interests of the warden. The warden is looking out for the interests of the super rich , who actually designed and built prison farm Amerika.

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Next we have the trustees, called the Democratic officials. They once were regular prisoners like you and me. After 'sucking up' to the guards, and then to the warden, and so on, they became trustees. Their job is to keep the prisoners in line, without threat of violence. The Republicans, the guards, they couldn't care less about using threats of fear and violence to maintain order...The trustees do it with a little "I feel your pain" .

How long will it take for we who work this 'prison farm? to finally get it? How long before many of you will trade in those comic books for real books?

As a final thought, I know two young guys at my local gym. Good guys. One is 32, an ex marine, and a real deep thinker. The other guy, 21, attends a prestigious university, and is obviously very bright. I recently mentioned Orwell's novel 1984, and how it had resonance to this current American experience. Both of these guys did not know what in the hell I was referring to! They never even heard of the book!

When I was in high school (light years ago, in the late 60s) we had to read 1984 in our English class. What happened!!? Perhaps, in lieu of the two conventions going on, and an election churning forward at us, maybe Orwell's Animal Farm would be better reading. After all, isn't that what politics has totally regressed into?

By election night, they predict that perhaps one billion dollars will have been raised for the presidential election. One billion dollars! One candidate for president has (supposedly) 'made his bones' by advocating campaign finance reform. Where!? Not in his campaign!

The other major candidate keeps preaching about 'Change' as he rakes in big money donations from very rich wall street and corporate types. Change!? The only change that will occur if either of these two men move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is that the 9 to 5 American's life will change...For the worse!

"Turn Out The Lights..."

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Philip A Farruggio [send him email] is a free lance columnist, small businessman and activist. Since the 2000 elections, he has had over 90 columns posted on various websites and in many newspaper op-ed sections. To review some which have been shown, just google his name.

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