I’ve begun watching the new “Netflix Original” political drama soap, “House Of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey as Francis Underwood, a scheming House Majority Whip who will stop at nothing to achieve his own less than amenable goals and political fixations. Directed by David Fincher, a favorite of mine, the taut and piercing drama sets out to uncover a small “behind the scenes” glimpse of the grown-up, political shenanigans of the Beltway.
I haven’t the slightest clue as to the veracity of HOC’s portrayal of how “business” is conducted in D.C., but I suspect that if it strays from reality, the gap is too small for patriotic comfort.
Perhaps what the show does best is to illustrate what a vile and self-protective group of scumbags we’ve allowed to fester in their own self-perpetuated castles of lustful power and elitism under the shameful pretense of “public service.” The show reiterates what we know: any person heartless and depraved enough to seek national political should not be entrusted with such powers.
Politics serves no purpose other than as a dirty old band-aid that desperately tries to keep a wound’s parting edges from splitting. Politics, especially of the national variety, only serves to prop up this shaky fantasy while gratuitously congratulating and rewarding its own players. Politics, as a profession, is designed for the power-hungry and greedy. As long as these are the types of people we allow to rule this nation, the results will invariably be a rising tide of sea scum brought to us by our so-called political representatives. Legislation is meaningless pomp and circumstance, utter bureaucratic banality we believe is the tangible product given to us by all the mysterious officiousness that lurks in the shadowy hallways of the nation’s capital. The political system is designed in such a way that what they do is shrouded in an elusive coat of incomprehensible self-engorging code that alienates us from our own leaders. But they are stupid people.
The real revolution will occur when we lift the curtain and expose their pallid motivations. When we throw the rascals out on the street and govern ourselves. When we learn that entrusting our life to morally and socially removed elites can only dig our hole deeper.
Actually that is what a lot of the Tea Party movement is about. We governing ourselves. Having less government involvement in our lives means less government. It means that politics has to stop being a “profession”. And it is a parasitic one at best. One of the reasons I back part-time legislatures is that it means less government. In Texas, the rascals only meet 140 days. Every TWO years. That is all. California, well don’t get me started. Most people have no idea that congress was once a part-time legislature. All the justifications for this mass of corruption are pointless. Really. Look at here what the hell they foist on us. Maybe that is not the point of this post. But I think this show from what you describe would make people stop reading or watching left-wing talking points and read up on the Tea Party movement and what it is really about.
My vote is for NOT voting; when there’s enough of us properly disillusioned because the elites give us no true, real choices, no-one worth voting for, then they’ll realize their power, reliant as it is on our consent, is threatened, will go “Oh shit!”, and make sure they give us at least visible choices, if not real ones.
Then maybe I’ll vote again. Or, maybe not.