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Scrap the conventions
Word on the street has it that the Democratic National Convention pre-empted Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune on network television last week. I wouldn't know, I didn't watch it, but my game-show-watching friends were livid. "Alex, what is a national convention," and, "Could I buy a vowel with that?" These types of quasi-nominative presidential conventions, Democratic or Republican, are all worthless, excessive, expensive channels through which wealthy people express their version of the truth and the media acts like a lap dog. I went to the Democratic National Convention Web site (www.dems2004.org) to try to find out how much it cost to throw the big red-white-and-blue balloon party, but I couldn't find a price tag. However, I did find some links -- like www.kerrygear.com -- where I could buy the balloons featured at the convention, along with all kinds of other neat schwag like jackets, hats, bumper stickers, mugs, posters, etc. There is also have a great history lesson on the site about where the Democratic donkey imagery came from. "What is another word for jackass, Alex?" From the site, my favorite statistic about the convention was that of the 35,000 total attendees, 15,000 were members of the media. Why on earth do 15,000 people need to cover an event in which everyone already knows the end result, all of the speeches are pre-written and the whole four days are scripted almost to the degree of a movie? The money, time and resources spent throwing this shindig could have been better spent on practical issues. It makes me want to vomit seeing front-page newspaper coverage and prime-time news coverage day after day, all of which tells me nothing new, and none of which I believe anyway. You know, I considered myself a Democrat for a long time because in grade school I was always taught that the United States was a democracy. Why would I want to be a Republican when I could be a Democrat in a democracy? It was a semantic equation. Later on, I found out things were not that clear-cut and that both parties don't make sense in different ways. Once again, the events surrounding the Democratic National Convention remind me not to choose sides when any side I choose is fishy. And you don't get much more fishy than when almost 50 percent of an event audience is made up of the media, the actual performance of the candidates and speakers have an unreal smacking of unfettered propaganda and it is vague who is footing the bill for all the pretty balloons. I'm a little paranoid that it might be a combination of me, Rupert Murdoch and Proctor & Gamble. Combining my own suspicions with films like Fahrenheit 9/11, Outfoxed and reporting from the Center for American Progress, I am dubious, to say the least, of any occasion that mixes money, politicians and lots of media. Even when John Edwards does have the most American-looking, happy-on-camera, photogenic family in the history of modern, media-driven politics. "Yes, Alex, I'd like to buy an election -- I mean, a vowel." |
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