On Foreign Elections
So, am I the only one in Canada who isn't following the US presidential race?
Am I the only one who doesn't care?
Seriously, nobody around here gets excited when there`s an election in Ecuador, Mexico, or the UK... Hell, we probably wouldn't have heard much about the elections in the Ukraine a few years back if Viktor Yushchenko hadn't allegedly been poisoned by agents of Moscow...
I'm hearing it everywhere - on the bus, at work, at the pub, everywhere. I even heard some dolt on the bus this morning exclaim (quite proudly) that McCain is going to do great things for this country, and that Obama doesn't stand a chance, that he's voting McCain all the way. I laughed out loud when his seatmate reminded him that he (the dolt) was a Canadian living in Canada. The look on his (the dolt's) face was priceless.
I also love it when people who can tell you all about the US Presidential race have no idea who their MP (or city councillor) is, let alone to which party they belong. And you know what causes this?
Television.
People watch far too much TV. Far too much AMERICAN TV. So much so, some people evidently think they ARE American (not that that's a bad thing - if you're in the US!). It's as though the whole Presidential race is the next American Idol-type reality show (So You Wanna Be The Next President?), trotting out the contestants (candidates) week after week, convention after convention, city after city, on every channel every hour of every day, eliminating contestants state by state until you get to the final two on each side, whereby the final four (the winners on each side, plus their runners-up) battle it out to see which party rules the roost for the next four years.
Politics as prime-time entertainment. That's a scary fucking thought.
Am I the only one who doesn't care?
Seriously, nobody around here gets excited when there`s an election in Ecuador, Mexico, or the UK... Hell, we probably wouldn't have heard much about the elections in the Ukraine a few years back if Viktor Yushchenko hadn't allegedly been poisoned by agents of Moscow...
I'm hearing it everywhere - on the bus, at work, at the pub, everywhere. I even heard some dolt on the bus this morning exclaim (quite proudly) that McCain is going to do great things for this country, and that Obama doesn't stand a chance, that he's voting McCain all the way. I laughed out loud when his seatmate reminded him that he (the dolt) was a Canadian living in Canada. The look on his (the dolt's) face was priceless.
I also love it when people who can tell you all about the US Presidential race have no idea who their MP (or city councillor) is, let alone to which party they belong. And you know what causes this?
Television.
People watch far too much TV. Far too much AMERICAN TV. So much so, some people evidently think they ARE American (not that that's a bad thing - if you're in the US!). It's as though the whole Presidential race is the next American Idol-type reality show (So You Wanna Be The Next President?), trotting out the contestants (candidates) week after week, convention after convention, city after city, on every channel every hour of every day, eliminating contestants state by state until you get to the final two on each side, whereby the final four (the winners on each side, plus their runners-up) battle it out to see which party rules the roost for the next four years.
Politics as prime-time entertainment. That's a scary fucking thought.
Then there are those obnoxious people like me who don't really follow US Politics but feel compelled to comment about it anyhow. :-)
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