Only in America, You say…

It’s a Mad World. I came across this news clip , which relates a third party’s $2.6 million political smear campaign another candidate’s ties to plutocratic self-interests. The irony, not likely realized by the perpetrator, is that the TV ads are themselves sponsored by Super PAC, largely funded Tom Steyer, one of a handful of uber-rich Americans who are increasingly flexing their muscles in U.S. Politics, who intends to fork out $100 million. One special interest disparaging another special interest for being a special interest that corrupts the political process.

If he was British, it might be seen as an expensive endeavour in satire. But North American culture doesn’t do satire; or at least, doesn’t do satire very well; or at least, lacks too unsophisticated an audience to appreciate it. But being American; either the billionaire plutocrat is entirely oblivious or whose contempt of his fellow nationals is such, he genuinely believes that the wool can be pulled over in blatant chutzpah. I choose number two. The fearful thing in a nation with an arsenal of WMDs; what if his contempt is justified?

I am not picking sides. Current politics in America is a matter of choosing the lesser of two weevils, where all the children are insane. Nor do I care that Tom Steyer is opposed the XL Pipeline, when it is in our best interests to diversify our trade before the Americans implode in civic conflagration and/or a debt/deflationary vortex caused by an irrational debt-induced mother of all asset bubbles.