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Bombast Bursting in Air
The best read on the 2016 election. I recommend subscribing to Harper's and/or Lapham's Quarterly. - GeorgeBombast Bursting in Air
The story, so far, of the 2016 election
By Lewis H. Lapham
We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cant have both.
Louis Brandeis
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, directed by John Ford
Between democracy and concentrated wealth the country throughout most of its history has preferred the latter to the former, the body politic asking only that the big money make a credible show of caring for something other than itself. For the past thirty-five years the modest requirement has been met with prolonged and costly stagings of a presidential-election campaign invariably said to be, as it was this past summer by Jeb Bush, everybodys test, and wide open exactly as a contest for president should be.
It is neither wide open nor, strictly speaking, a contest. It is a ritual re-enactment of the legend of democracy as fairground spectacle: the proving that our flag is still there with star-spangled photo ops and bombast bursting in air, the candidates so well contrived that they can be presented as game-show contestants, mounted on selfie sticks until they come to judgment on Election Day before the throne of cameras by whom and for whom they are produced. The contrivances dont come cheap. Luxury items made to the order and under the supervision of concentrated wealth, they can be counted upon, if and when elected, to stand, foursquare and true blue, for the freedom of money, moralizing and vigilant against the freedoms of movement and thought. Names of candidates inclined to think or act otherwise wont appear on the November ballot.
But why then, if the race is already come and gone, the pretense of a democratic running for the White House roses and the heavy spending for multiflavored sound bites and dawn-to-dusk press coverage? The short answer comes from John Ford, the Hollywood director, whose movies called forth from the mist of heavily redacted memory the existence of a wide-open American frontier West that never was.
Please go to Bombast Bursting in Air|Harpers for the rest.
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Bombast Bursting in Air (Original Post)
ExPat2Mex
Feb 2016
OP
7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)1. Welcome to DU. You need to know there is a 4 paragraph
rule. You can share links, you can snip out parts but you cannot post whole article without express consent.
It is a copyright issue that is strictly abided by for the sake of the DU community.
Go in and edit out most of what you posted.
Great article! Thanks for posting.
ExPat2Mex
(19 posts)2. Done, thanks for the heads up.
7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)3. You are most welcome and again thanks for great
article.