I've just been reading the posts in PLRC and not posting as much as I (postdiluvium/mvpena) used to. What I see commonly discussed from regulars on this board is either people talking about the game of politics or people playing it. Either people are discussing what one candidate or another can do to gain a demographic or some political mojo or people are just spitting out the same exact lines a candidate and his/her campaign fed into the media. Is it entertainment or have you somehow fallen into the game as the media has?

I'm just curious. When I read these posts, it seems like people forget that those candidates out there have made everything that will affect the rest of your life into a game. They will be the ones in control of the laws that tell you what you can and can't do. They will be the ones that will make laws that indirectly regulate how our market is ran, which in turn decides the wealth and power of our nation. They are the ones that will send us aggressively into foreign lands as they see fit. All of that is some pretty serious shit. I know that people understand the kind of power that is being handed over to these candidates, but when I read these posts it seems people are perfectly contempt with something as serious as what was mentioned is being made into a game.

When Hillary was running, the main argument her supporters spat out over and over again was that she is a Clinton and Clintons know how to play politics. But is that what everyone really wants? They want to trade actual substance with image and pander? Do people just want a good salesman and not a good leader? Are we so entrenched into our buy and trade market economy that we see everything as such?

To me, all of the candidates that ever had a chance in my lifetime, so far, are used car salesmen. Except the used car wasn't sold to them or traded in for a new car. The used car was their car. They really fucked it up, but made it pretty on the outside so they could actually sale it to poor saps like the average American voter. They will pander to the voter in a really dumb condescending way trying to convince the voter that the used car is like new. It is different. It is everything they need. Then the poor saps buy it and find out its a lemon. Its exactly what they were expecting to get when they initially were thinking about if they should get a used or a new car.

Its always, at first, a new car. Something new, refreshing. Something that will be reliable for the next 120 k miles. But then again, they can't risk spend all that money on a new car. There are bills to be paid and mouths to feed. To be on the safe side, financially, they'll go for a used car. Its cheaper and it can get from point A to point B. Maybe some other time they can get something new. Just not now. So just trust the used car salesman on this one. Be happy with mediocrity. Don't reach for greatness and excellence. Mediocrity is safe, while excellence is too much of a risk.

I guess what I am trying to get to with this analogy is that, when I see people talking about the game or being part of it; I just see people discussing strategies for a used car salesman to sale a heap of junk with a new paint job. I see people just using the same lame ass sales pitches the used car salesman threw at them and they in turn are throwing these pitches at others. As if there was some kind of genius to these pitches that made the pitch worthy of being repeated over and over again. Why? Is it interesting? Do people get lost in all of it and accept this mediocre act as reality and how its going to be?

For TL;DR - Why do you guys buy into politicians making the government into a game? The founding fathers structured this government so we would have control over it. Yet we hand over the control to a bunch of people that are nothing like us that think its all a game.

What would you have us do exactly? Not voting, or protest voting means you just gave up your infinitesimal sliver of democratic power.

It is a bitch though... I mean you never really know what someone's actually going to be like once they hit office, although you can certainly have a decent idea.

I mean... you look at Obama, and maybe he really is different and fresh, maybe he really isn't mired in the Washington political machine just yet. But you think back to how new and hopeful someone like Blair looked in 1997... Well he did ok until he became Bush's best buddy/lapdog tbh.

But I digress. I would still much rather vote Obama who has a good chance at doing something postive and effecting change, than vote for a guaranteed stick-in-the-mud like Grandpa Simpson.

Wrong. This government was structured so that the wealthy could retain power.

"In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The Senate, therefore, ought to be this body."

- James Madison, 1787

So it is just an acceptance of the reality of the matter? Reading these posts, it seems people like talking about how the whole thing is just a chess game. Or is it that everyone is just tired of reading stuff like what I posted since its been said over and over again? So as to not just talk about that tired old stuff again, someone might as well talk about the political game itself since there is not much other stuff to talk about in terms of politics and government?

ADDED - I mean not much other stuff to talk about in terms of what the media will actually give us. I'm sure there are tons to talk about, but it seems the main source of this stuff is from the media that covers politics which selectively reports stuff that will get ratings.

because by understanding the game you inflitrate and take it over. yeah its all bullshit and yeah all the candidates are the same and yeah your own personal opinion will probably never really be seriously taken into consideration by a "public servant" but only through knowledge can you stand up for yourself and act against the political machine (whatever your views are) because otherwise they will fuck you mercilessly in the ass...(they probably will any way, but still). don't buy into politics of candidates and parties and nations, that is all petty bullshit, but you must find what ideals/issues/philosophies are important for you, and decide them for yourself, and fight for them (and knowledge is the only way to do that)

idiotes=[greek] someone who is uninterested/unaware of public affairs

oh, and fuck the media, the more you pay attention to it the more you realize they don't know what the fuck is going on and/or are simply a propaganda machine.

Accepting politics is a game, doesn't mean I buy into it.

If I could wave a magic wand, and make the millions of sheep in America wake up and stop voting on stupid emotional political gamey issues and vote on the real ones, I would.

Since I cannot, it is important to recognize that this all important figure you speak of, WILL get elected based on how well he/she can play the game. A game which in no way reflects how good a leader he will be.

A person can be aware of the game, and of the score, and realize the winner of that game is not always gonna be the best person for the job.

----

Hopefully, you will overcome your apathy and begin posting again, and at least discuss the game you are watching...

I noticed this has become popular among politicians and the news media. Why is everyone suddenly saying this? Every time some one has messed up or has been called to recognize a messed up situation that people ignore, they always start the answer with that phrase. Its like one of those phrases that was reborn by speech writers trying to reach a type or a larger demographic audience. Like "flip flop" or "sending mixed signals" or "family values".

Very well, if I could do something to make people vote intelligently I would...Does that sit better with you? The point is moot.

Now perhaps you would like to discuss the points I raised as why a person "buys" into the game.

Well, I understand that people just accept it because its there and has been there for a while. Kind of like its already indoctrinated in the system and all one can hope for is a savvy player to come around, beat it, and change it. But what makes it sit right with a person to comment and discuss it as it is a perfectly acceptable aspect of life? Does it really sit right with people? Or do people just tune out that part of their mind that tells them how wrong it is?

When I watch news and political commentators on TV doing the whole back and forth, I notice one common thing among them. Most of the time its Republicans versus everyone else. Republicans address it as a game and everyone else play it with directly addressing it. You have people like Rove on FOX that openly admits its a game to be played and won. Then you have Olbermann on NBC calling people out like Rove on it, yet he himself lines up his program with a political bias. Even further, you have Moyers on PBS that will call out Olbermann for politicizing issues that dont need to be even more even though Olbermann says his task is to point out how those issues shouldn't be politicized.

Obviously these guys do it for money. Well... maybe not so much Moyers because he belongs to a publicly funded network. But Rove is obviously making big bucks, evidence in Tony Snow saying he had to leave the White House and go back to TV because he was running out of money, and Olbermann has got to be making money with the kind ratings his program is pulling. These guys get paid to turn off that little voice in their head that tells them what they are saying is not logically right. Why would posters here do the same?