I’d been preparing all day to give you my review of the second Obama/Romney debate, but I kept getting distracted by this “Internet” that is all the rage. I tell you, the Internet is like some sort of LSD carnival ride though Willy Wonka’s factory! It is damn near fucking impossible to deliver sober political analysis with the Internet tugging at my sleeve. So, I’ll try to stay on target, but I apologize if my attention wanders.

The debate then: I didn’t see it. I told you I’m not watching these dog and pony shows! Anyway, you can learn a lot more just by following the coverage the next day, and the verdict seems to be in that Obama didn’t suck like he did in his first go, but also that Romney didn’t falter in any major way either. So, they are tied after two rounds and, according to Hollywood logic (which appears also to be newsroom logic), one of them will deliver a knockout in the final debate in the form of the world’s most dazzling laugh line or (less likely), a gob-smacking show of political gusto.

(Hey, Is Nancy an imp from another dimension? This recent cartoon leads me to wonder…)

Meanwhile, back at the circus, the real action was taking place outside of Hofstra University, where Green Party candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, were arrested for attempting to attend the debate.

Denying the Green Party (or any third party) a presence in the Presidential debates has been a quadrennial event since the Commission on Presidential Debates was formed to replace the League of Woman Voters, who withdrew from moderating the debates in 1988 when the Democratic and Republican parties entered into collusion to exclude third parties from participating.

That collusion was codified by the CPD itself, which is operated by Democrat and Republican mucketymucks in a manner very much like a crime syndicate. They alone decide the rules on who may stand  for president in the most significant forum imaginable, and exclude anyone they think can’t win the election (based on their own polling, rather than the candidates’ placement on national ballots).

Now, you may think that the CPDis full of itself,  but theirs is as nothing compared to the ego of the Pirate Bay!

The Pirate Bay, your one stop P2P shop for downloading the entire Starship Troopers-for-Christ saga or Cinderella’s greatest hits, recently announced it’s evolution into a higher life form thanks to the Cloud:

The site that you’re at will still be here, for as long as we want it to. Only in a higher form of being. A reality to us. A ghost to those who wish to harm us.

This hubris of a digital fencing operation portraying itself as some sort of Tibetan deity put me in mind of my favorite scene from the movie Excalibur:)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjlYPjQ40mg&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

(Haven’t seen Excalibur? the Pirate Bay probably has it, and dubbed in Esperanto!)

Back to the debate. Given that both major parties, then, are signatories to a pact that denies a voice to legitimate third party candidates, why should anyone take seriously the resulting publicity stunt? Forget the Green Party, Constitution Party and other excluded participants whose ideology you probably don’t endorse anyway. When you watch Obama and Romney debate, the only matter that should concern anyone in our “free ” land has already been settled: neither one of them has faith in democracy.

This is not to say that the two behemoth institutions the candidates represent have anything to fear from the mice that are America’s upstart third parties. But we regularly applaud when competition is forced on a corrupt system, whether it is at the expense of Microsoft or Hosni Mubarak. Why then are we so indifferent to the  obvious cartel that is our own political system?

I’ll let you chew on that thought for a moment. Meanwhile, you  all know what a cool guy I am, but the art below will probably get my picture into the Cool Guy Hall of Fame, where it will hang between Fonzie’s jacket and some of the bloody glass Bruce Willis pulled from his feet in Die Hard:

 

Pictured here is the cover to the new electronic sci-fi ‘zine Perihelion, operated by Whatisdeepfried homie Sam Bellotto. Pay a visit and tell ’em Jason sent you, and that you want some protection money or you’ll break Sam’s kneecaps.

Anyway, with one debate left to go, I urge you: join me in tuning this nonsense out. Not because we as a nation consent to having legitimate contenders for President arrested as though they were opposition candidates in Putin’s Russia, but because… oh wait, that is the reason! In fact, in a true democracy, that would be all the reason anyone would need to doubt the legitimacy of the entire process.

Election Day is November 6th. There is an 85% chance that Dr. Jill Stein is on the ballot in your state.

Happy voting.