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i was more struck by george's announcement that he had decided that kosovo should be independent on the weekend than by the other parts of his little speech in bulgaria.
o and we ARE irrelevant to government.
americans are politically free one day every 4 years. apparently, this is adequate for us.
when we collectively disagree (with any depth to that disagreement) with what an administration is doing, we feel this 1 day every 4 years problem for what it is: when we dont disagree, we dont feel it.
so somehow it has come to pass that we do not really experience our lack of any actual, ongoing role as the people in governance to be a problem. we experience it as a problem as a function of something more local/circumscribed. it is like it has no independent status. the only explanation i have for this is that we, as little amuricans passing through the ideological indoctrination of primary school, pick up the argument that this is the best of all possible systems and reproduce that meme throughout our lives. of course, this repetition is constantly reinforced by the various ideological relay systems that circumscribe what is means to be in this the best possible system in the best of all possible worlds--but that too is not a problem on its own, not really.
it's a funny kind of "democracy" this representative republic has.
all that cowboy george and his gang have really done is to demonstrate to everyone how strange it is: the system can be gutted from the inside and no-one reacts. we drink. we go home. we stay home. we watch tv. maybe later we go out and buy things.
it's all good.
this is the best of all possible worlds: how could anything be otherwise?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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