THAT'S why

A friend i've never met, on the opposite side of the world, pointed out the idiocy of what's going on in American politics right now.  Yep, and it gives nobody a bigger headache than it does us, but there is a reason.

You see, American children are brainwashed with certain notions from earliest childhood, but the ultimate irony is the "freedom" part.  It's largely bullshit, but it is feverishly embraced.  Hell, i'll bet half the conservatives out there would die in an apoplectic fit if you tied them in a chair with their mouths duck-taped shut, and made them listen to an international panel discussing the subject.

[evil grin] ...i'd pay good money to watch that happen!  [rubbing hands together, fiendishly....]

"They hate us for our freedom!"  Fervently believed nonsense ... by some.  They hate us because we arrogantly bomb other countries, and there's not a goddamn thing we-the-people can do about it, because our country is completely controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex.  COMPLETELY.  All of our media are controlled by their buddies down at the Rich Guys' Club, and some of their servants are clever people.  They manipulate us into believing in goofy ideas like American Exceptionalism, Creative Design, and the importance of giving to health charities.

We have our moments in the sun every two to four years, when we have the glory of choosing between two pre-chosen leaders.  The "primary" season, which we're in now, is like qualifying rounds at sporting events, evaluating which final contestants have the best chance of winning the gold.

Oh, there's also a side-show game at the carnival, in which we can dally with self-promoted "third party" candidates, but it's just a show that distracts attention enough so that representatives of the major parties can slip in and pick the audience's pockets.

The reason that THIS year is special is that "somebody up there" slipped in a plot-twist.  We actually think we have an opportunity to burst out of our clockwork-orange country and into a wider world.  You know -- that world in which Europeans have lived for quite awhile, with education instead of indoctrination, and the idea that society and civilization are GOOD things, not the silly, sissy, bleating of "sheeple."  Where a man with clean fingernails is not sneered at as a "metrosexual."

The United States of America desperately needs to enter the 21st century.  Some people don't want that to happen.  Some want to go back to the 1950s, or actually the 1850s would be better.

GRRRR.  I read the voices of the past -- i DO history.  Not the idealized history of the appalling books that are used in schools, not the Old West of Hollywood, and certainly not the cultural myths that way too many people here embrace.  All that is BULLSHIT.  It never happened, so it cannot happen again.

THAT is why THIS election is important.