That’s what I love about politics it smuggles in so many different
sins: greed, hypocrisy, pride. Oh delicious pride. Sweetest of fruits.
Of course, you don’t call it that. You never do. What’s worse,
though, is how you disguise it. You cover it up with such wonderful alacrity.
That’s the beauty of politics, it has woven itself into the very warp and weft
of your governmental fabric. So much so that one is very much mistaken for the
other. Politics and government, politics and civic duty, politics and
citizenship. They are one and the same in your eyes! And that’s where the true,
how shall I put this, insidiousness of it is.
I told you that the way to win was to not play. Ah, but nowadays the
not-players are the outcasts. Your society condemns them. How dare they! To go
against the very framework of democracy. Little realizing that all the things
you now consider democracy were never part of the framework, but the dressing
added by the corrupt and the power-hungry. But you don’t care. Why should you?
The system moves on, and it “works”, to a point. Power volleys back and forth
between your parties: one taking the ball until they fumble it to the other who
does no better in their treatment. Each in an endless cycle of desire,
conquest, abuse and reversal. The system is self-perpetuating. Because you only
have the two options, and you’ve never asked for another or for the options to
be better. You’ve simply accepted what was given to you by those who know how
to play the game, in ever increasing stakes. In the arms race of words, empty
promises and meaningless accusations. Because that’s the big secret: they are
both playing the game. Hilariously, while maintaining that the other side is
really the one who is abusing the system. And you see how it goes on.
But as if that weren’t enough, what it does to you, to your kind, is
delectable. You have set up hope in your politics. Perhaps in the one place it
is least suited to thrive. After all, how can the seed last among thistles? You
think your country has fallen far, don’t you? That it was once so great, and
now so threatened by… oh, it doesn’t really matter what. Never mind that the
time of national greatness you point to never existed; if it did, it was almost
certainly contemporaneous with slavery, racism, manifest destiny or a thousand
other state-sanctioned sins. No, what is really the kicker is this desire, this
illusion that you’re nation is under judgment, and if you don’t act, if you don’t
perform up to par you are doomed.
And do you see how subtly, under the guise of righteousness, a
works-based philosophy is snuck in? That if you don’t pass the right laws,
elect the right people, the wrath will come. Now, where do you suppose you got
that idea?
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