June 24, 2000:
The Tinkerbell Factor
June 24, 2000:The Tinkerbell Factor |
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Do you remember how easy total suspension of disbelief used to be? Growing up on comic books, science fiction movies and fairytales, it was a regular thing for me. There was always some smartass kid bringing up annoying facts, such as the impossibility of spaceships going "KABOOM" because space is a vacuum. True or not, nobody wanted to hear it. Look kid, George Lucas said it, I believe it, OK?
When we left the theatre, it didn't really matter what we believed. We'd had a good time, laws of physics be damned. But the mistruths being shoveled at us in this election are more insidious, and we need that smartass cynical kid to point them out now more than ever. Otherwise, we may well wind up choking to death on our own suppressed disbelief.
Think about it. Al Gore is asking us to believe him when he tells us that he's committed to Campaign finance reform. This is a lot like Yogi Bear asking us to believe his solemn vows to forsake purloined picnic baskets. Al Gore's addiction to soft money is well known, and like any hardcore addict, his personal morals and ethics are swept by the wayside in pursuit of a fix. Al would gladly don Amos n' Andy blackface and do a vaudeville routine at an OPEC meeting if he thought it would put another million in his war-chest. We cannot condemn him for this - he needs that money on a cellular level. The junkie at least gets a brief post-fix respite, but Al's cravings are insatiable. We can no more believe his commitment to finance reform than we could believe the assurances that our own brother, a long time heroin addict, just needs that $150.00 "to buy a new suit for a job interview." But like agent Mulder, we want to believe…
And Dubya? His campaign hinges on a web of suspended disbelief. He is a the governor of a state that whose long list of executions contains the names of people condemned under dubious circumstances, based on the testimony of one witness, and recently, a mentally retarded man. But he is "compassionate."
Pardon me George, but this is a use of the word that I am unfamiliar with. His state ranks in the lower forties in academic performance, but he is "the education candidate". Environmentally, Texas is quickly becoming polluted by companies owned by Dubya and his cronies, but he is "the environmental candidate". As with anything that is hard to swallow, lies like these have the cumulative effect of keeping our collective tongues depressed. Which may be just what the candidates are hoping for.
Enter Ralph Nader, also asking America to suspend disbelief for him. The leap of faith that he asks is this: He wants us to believe in the possibility that a third party candidate could get enough votes to win the presidency, bypassing a political machine that exists precisely to keep this sort of thing from ever happening. Asking us to suspend this disbelief is no less hard to swallow than either of the alternative Illusions. It only digests easier.
Lets imagine a reality in which Nader was a third party candidate running in an election against two other candidates who merely differed in ideology, and were not themselves wholly and inextricably corrupted beyond belief. Go ahead, visualize this mythical reality.
Nader has been a bona fide public servant for over a quarter of a decade. His position as a consumer advocate makes him an ideal choice for the position, for what is modern politics but a massive product, one which we are force fed daily? Nader will, at the very least, try to make sure that the product gets to us a bit purer, without the rat hairs and excrement. His acceptance speech at the Green Party convention was nearly two hours long, germane to the issues, and actually engaging. Try to imagine Dubya speaking intelligibly on any topic for two hours straight, without Lifting entire sentences from old Clinton speeches (which is how he managed to seem at least partly lucid during his own acceptance speech)
They say that people get the government they deserve. For me, it's not a matter of whether the Green party, with Ralph Nader at the helm, deserves a shot at running the show. I wonder if we actually deserve him. I got the title of this essay from the story Peter Pan. Remember that scene in Peter Pan where Tinkerbell drank poison, and Pan told all the kids at home that if they kept repeating "I believe in Fairies" then Tinkerbell would live. Well, I did, and Tink didn't die. This sort of pro-active suspension of disbelief might be just what's called for in this election. If you're sick of choosing between dumb and dumber every four years, just keep repeating the following phrase all the way to the polls on November 4:
Win, Nader, Win...you can do it, Ralph!
Next Week: Grizzly Al, Constipated George and The Great Oz
comments? Email me at "josambro at josambro dot com"
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