Reality is Priceless
The Greeks had their Olympics; the Romans the Coliseum, we the people have television. Television is a medium that has
proven its ability to sell us things we don't want or need but end up consuming anyway. Its latest product placement
promotion is what we laughingly call "our primary contests".
Networks round up the usual suspects: the pundits and strategists, talking heads spending hours of time we will never
get back again, bobbing and yammering about this "epic" election. One might be fooled to believe "we" have a dog in this
race. All this bickering and chatter is about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Yet, every four years there is a resurrection, a senseless kernel of hope and a need for change. It's part and parcel to
our belief in free elections nicely wrapped in a nationalistic realm of pure myth followed by pure pathos. Nothing is
free in the New World; absolutely not a thing, you get what you put up.
The election of 2008 will be the most expensive to date. The final two corporately funded dilettantes(candidates) will
be answerable to big oil, drug, insurance, banks, credit card industries and last but not least, war profiteers.
With over 260,000 lobbyists, and voting machine results that are questionable, we the people are powerless as cyphers in
a zero sum game. National elections are as fixed as the 1919 World Series. Left to examine power and motive and the
status quo leaves us lost and abandoned without a voice. For those seeking answers from ancient texts for questions
facing us today, I offer Corinthians 13:11: "When I was a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when
I became a man I put away childish things."
ENDS
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Philip J. Rappa is an award winning writer, documentarian, filmmaker and gifted lecturer. To his credits are: a United
Nations Award, 8 gubernatorial awards, and an Emmy nomination. His writings have appeared in numerous publications.
Presently he is working on a television special in development, entitled: "Bar Stool View of America". Feedback to
philiprappa_AT_aol_DOT_com.