[Newspoetry] Derrida Dead At 74

[emerick at chorus.net]

>From a story “Tightening Race Increases Stakes of Final Debate” By Adam Nagourney, that was printed Wednesday 13 October 2004 as part of their multi-authored serial novel in The New York Times – the spin title of which is rumored to be THE FAKING OF THE PRESIDENCY 2004 -- said rumor originating here and now, with this writing, and is therefore wholly aware of what all rumors ought to say, which is that a proposition about its falsehood is most certainly warranted and believable as true.

(In referring to campaign messages-themes-slogans-labels – a jerking knees in taps-of-memories that never were --, a) senior Kerry aide, Michael D. McCurry, responded:  "It's like the greatest hits of the 1970's and 1980's.  That's a message that resonates peculiarly with the Republican base.  But the irony is that it helps to shore up our base, too."

William’s poems reflect a brittle logic -- the effects of bricolage – as portrayed, cinematographically, by a Robert Redford movie, the CANDIDATE, some many years ago.

It may be a pity that the electorate expects a few pithy phrases to summarize all that they truly need to know about a candidate, an issue, a topic.  Advertising is not what the public is thinking, or else they would not air it.  Advertising has the objective of displacing thinking.

Once any matter becomes a competition of advertisers, the race to the bottom -- to the lowest-common-denominator -- is on.  In the classical sense, Everyman could be a very high-standard -- because Everyman was a term sometimes used normatively.  Everyman was supposed to have reason, and to use it when on suitable occasions.  Everyman was supposed to be concerned with the welfare of all, as well as his own personal welfare -- so much so that the public weal was supposed to be the stuff of the public offices.

The public today appears to think that any public discussion at all is simply flatulent academics, unless it has high dramatics associated with it – e.g. “debates” when suitably hyped acquire dramatic value – especially if most of the audience has been previously identified as fans of one or the other of a pair of debaters.  Hence, character poltics has emerged in the last three decades -- as if character were some kind of valid guide to a choice of leaders and representatives.  Such character themes aid and abet the conspiracy against thinking -- promoting the star-system's trivialization of experience or intelligence.

The tendency of any two-party system is toward an ever-increasing stupifaction of its own electorate.  How low can it go?  Is there an absolute level of public stupidity, lower than which we can not sink, beyond which we can not be further debased?  Perhaps, but I rather pessimistically doubt it -- as each successive election seems to introduce further reductions to human dignity, to civility, to sensibility.  Spin sucks us all down the vortex of its maelstrom -- wrecking our ships of state and drowning all who there upon were aboard.