don't hate the player

hate the game.

and i do. a thousand times over. superfatuesday or whatever we're calling it this year is yet another nail in the coffin. please narrow my choices to only the front runners so that when i vote, i can vote for someone i disagree with less. please. i've always wanted choices to be made for my in my life so that i don't do something stupid like choose something that no one else will choose. i want to vote for winners, not losers.

talk about "grabbing the front runner media advantage." talk about "the economy being a major issue now that we're headed for a recession." all of it is just fluff for the cameras. putting a spin on what is going on. explaining the inexplicable. sampling, polling, spinning.

who are my candidates? what do they actually want? what are they actually like? why are the actually here?

the answers to these questions are not talked about. instead, their thoughts are filtered and homogenized through so many machinations and advisers to be the same for every candidate. instead of voting on knowing the candidates, i must vote on shadowy representations of candidates. (You SHUT THE HELL UP about your damn cave, Plato. We've all heard enough.) representations designed specifically to fool us and lure us as voters, not as citizens and humans and residents. as VOTERS.

they want nothing but your vote. everything is predicated upon that. the VOTE. VOTEVOTE. VOTERS. not people. they're appealing to us as voters. what's the difference? well, voters vote. they don't feel, they don't think compassionately, they cast a vote. (etc) well, how do you get more people to cast votes for you than someone else? differentiate yourself ever-so-slightly on just the right issues and you'll get the vote. ever-so-slightly. if you change in a big way, you'll get discarded like that midgetcinich.

sure, maybe they've got noble intentions. maybe they don't. but it doesn't even matter. you're buying a bill of goods. political and social pasts constructed specifically to win this race. to get your vote. what you see is not what you get.

but i can't be mad at the candidates because if they don't play the game, they don't have a chance. if they do play the game, they give themselves away.

another return to douglas adams: "anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."