Wednesday August 13, 2003

WE WILL FLEE THE NUCLEAR WINTER ON OUR SEGWAYS! Whatshisname (God, I hate linking to him) points us to Schwarzenegger's official site. "Where's the campaign blog?" is the only question Whatshisname advances. What I want to know is: where's the part of the site where the candidate tells us, oh, what he would do as Governor of a large, debt-ridden state?

(Of course a weblog would be more likely to appear at the site, as the ill-spoken Arnold could use PR specialists to invent for himself a voice that is free from gutteral friction, careless misuse of basic English, and meaning -- which last is, while do-able, a slightly harder trick in the "policy paper" format.)

I wrote this because the bile was overflowing and I couldn't help myself. I do realize that we Americans are now totally detached from our government, and that elections of Governors and elections of Star Search winners are more or less the same to us.

The funny thing is, Dick Morris seems to realize this, too, though, less unusually, his further analysis is less acute. "Why are voters so cynical, apathetic and downright surly?" the disgraced consultant writes. "Count the reasons. In 2000, the supposedly nonpartisan United States Supreme Court voted, almost along party lines, to deny the voters a chance for a recount in the presidential election..." Of the California debacle he adds, "Voters know that the political system is fundamentally corrupted by special interests and their campaign contributions. They realize that Gov. Gray Davis can no more cut the budget or close tax loopholes than could one of a Roman galley's slaves steer the boat."

Sounds about right. Despair will lead to desperate measures, and voters, like malcontented children, have good reason to believe that they will only be attended when they misbehave.

But that isn't what Morris means at all."Is there a salvation for our democracy?" he asks. "Yes. It will come through the Internet."

Omigod.

"...Dean campaign spread virally through the 'Net..." blah blah blah "...the free communication of the Internet will create an alternative to top-down manipulation..." blah blah blah "flow of information" blah blah "This is a revolutionary era we are entering." Blah.

Almost as reliable as Algren's classic formulation about places called Mom's and card players callded Doc is the (I should hope) by-now universal maxim that anything that has to be revolutioned by "the 'Net" is doomed already.

"The 'Net" was supposed to revolutionize music. Music now sucks. "The 'Net" was supposed to revolutionize publishing. Literature now sucks. (At least it hasn't been completely digitized, though. Remember hypernovels?) The only areas of human life web communications have improved are special-interest community building (which, while very nice, tends to militate against consensus politics, not for it) and access to porn (also very nice, but -- well, just very nice).

Sad, no? Reynolds and Morris, two reputable pundits, look at Conan the Barbarian's candidacy and ask, hm, what's the technology angle? I guess that's why they're both so chipper in these parlous times: in their view, as long at the iPods and Blackberries are running, Western Civ is advancing.