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If
the recent U.S. and Canadian elections are any indication, politicians
and their lackeys love to prey on the ignorant and credulous to
further their own ambitions.
Inflated
claims, questionable math skills and poor memory are on full display
in the ads and platforms of the major candidates on both sides of
the border. Of course, the only way they can get away with this
is through complicit voter ignorance. Voters will believe (or want
to believe) what politicians say because they can't be bothered
to research the facts for themselves. Research takes work and we've
got too much work as it is.
Politicians
realize this. They know that they can say pretty much whatever they
feel so long as it isn't so outlandish that even the average hick
can see through it.
For
example, Stockwell Day, a party leader whose agenda runs toward
tax cuts, ran a campaign ad trumpeting a $4,500 tax cut. Sounds
great, right? If you read the not so fine print you'll realize that
this tax cut would be reserved for single-income families earning
$60,000 or more. Never mind that the average income for a single
Canadian is in the $30,000 - $40,000 range meaning that this tax
cut would benefit only a small, well off minority. I'm betting,
and so is Stockwell, that the average ignorant Canadian won't put
these two pieces of information together. “Tax cut good!” they say.
“Give me tax cut.”
This
is a small example of the head games politicians play. The "stooges"
in this set up are good, honest trusting people who believe what
the candidates are telling them.
More
often, it seems, non-voters are the only ones that are formulating
clear opinions about political candidates. No one is telling the
truth and no one is worth electing so why bother? I suspect that
if an additional box was added to the ballot and labeled "Someone
other than the jackasses listed above", a vast majority would check
that box. Can you see the headlines? "Non-candidate wins in a landslide".
So what's
the alternative? Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be one. Credible
candidates with solid agendas that have been thought through are
usually sidelined. Citizens refuse to vote for candidates that don't
appear to have popular support. This leads to a vicious circle where
nobody wins. This circle is endorsed by the current powers-that-be
who use scare tactics if any person with half a brain in their head
shows up on the scene. You only have to look at the treatment of
Ralph Nader to see what I'm talking about.
Politicians
are usually characterized as corrupt and scheming. Is this portrait
justified? Considering the way that they manipulate credulous voters,
it's fair to say that the caricature is true.
Too
bad.
Copyright
© 2000 Stephen Van Esch. All Rights Reserved.
Stephen Van Esch is a writer and instructional designer living
near Toronto, Canada. He is the owner and CEO of the Text
Pound (http://www.textpound.com) and runs a weblog called
BlindEye (http://www.blindeye.net).
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