A Single Guy Weekend in South Carolina

I was a single guy for the weekend. Did I want to leave the house to see The Kite Runner and subject myself to the harsh realities of existence in today’s Afghanistan or watch a fairytale flash back in Atonement laced with romance in the first half of the last century? I decided to stay in and watch “The Good German” which I’ve had for at least a month but just can’t seem to bring myself to watch in two dimensional phosphorescent light what I watch in everyday three dimensional life here in the homeland.

I was in the process of setting up the DVD player when John McCain was declared to be the winner of the South Carolina Republican primary by MSNBC and the camera was set up at McCain Headquarters where the crowd was chanting USA! USA! USA! as McCain took the podium. USA! USA! USA! What’s that all about? Perhaps it is the same kind of excessive exuberance experienced by good Germans when the Furher was on the stage during the first half of the first century. But really what did McCain win in a state perhaps the only state in which George Bush has a favorable rating?

South Carolinians have to be the most blissful people among us because apparently they didn’t hear John McCain say that we could be in Iraq for the rest of the century or worse yet maybe they did hear him and absent the ability to have an independent thought that doesn’t die of loneliness they had no problem voting for that loveable warm and fuzzy old maverick who will serve the common good by spending 2 plus billion dollars a week for the next hundred years of our occupation in Iraq. It’s the economy stupid.

That’s something else I’ve noticed about the mainstream corporate media. Once they define someone and repeat it often enough the illusion begins to take on a reality all of its own. The fact of the matter is that John McCain is not a loveable old maverick. His voting record reflects that when this commander-in-chief said “shit” John McCain squatted and grunted like the rest of them marching in lock step staying the course toward the way forward.

At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter which of the acceptable mainstream candidates becomes the president regardless of political party affiliation because not one of them has any vision for our Republic. As such we can expect a future much like our present yet far worse in the cost of blood and treasure to our empire in a state of collapse as an increasing number of citizens become more alienated and admit to an apostasy of the American dream that can be quantified by the over 50 percent of the people who don’t bother to vote because it really doesn’t matter to them for whatever reason or excuse who wins or who loses because the existing political order will not change to better their lives. Meanwhile a simple people who prefer the comfort of a simple mind chants USA! USA! USA! and I take refuge in Nietzsche’s observation that madness in groups, parties, and nations is the rule as my single guy weekend winds down.