A Kabuki Theater of Dunces

Here on the outer layer of the onion known as the United States, free men and women are arguing over health care reform. It is the latest debate. Previously, we debated issues like torture, war, and the economy.

It’s all pretend, of course. It is Kabuki theater of the highest order, with American citizens playing their part as they always have. We are a Democratic nation, after all. Appearances must be maintained.

Think about it. The “will of the people” is almost always completely ignored when it comes to massive moral and economic issues.

The U.S. is now a nation that knows for a fact that our government has tortured people. The latest torture story involves threatening prisoners with electric drills. Yet the GOP now says that the U.S. will be attacked by terrorists if there is an investigation into any of the crimes. And President Barack Obama has made it relatively clear that he has limited interest in the crimes of the previous administration.

Americans are also aware that the U.S. – which still has troops in Iraq – is now gearing up to accelerate its latest failed war. The lessons of Iraq, Vietnam, and of course, Afghanistan, teach us that this latest attempt to create a mini-U.S. in Afghanistan will result in little more than a waste of taxpayer money, lives, as well as ongoing chaos in that region of the world.

Most in the U.S. are also aware that profit-hungry investment banks created an economic disaster. And we rewarded them with obscene amounts of money. And the biggest of them have had their hands held until they have resumed making profits, to much applause from both sides.

And with health care reform, we should all be well aware that it is a battle of health insurance corporations versus the American people. And, thus far, the health insurance corporations are winning. Handily. And politicians – with pockets stuffed with Health Insurance Corporation cash – will work as hard as they can to insure that, in the U.S., sickness will always equal profit.

In the film “Quiz Show,” contestant John Turturro takes a dive on the show, and laughs when asked if it’s possible that he cheated while his opponent didn’t. Torturro replies by asking what sense would it make giving the answers to just one contestant? If you are going to throw a fight, both sides must work together.

And that, in the end, is the situation the U.S. is in. We are a two-party system. And corporations learned long ago to bribe both sides.

With an impotent (if not complicit) media, a President that seems desperate to hold on to the status quo on the biggest issues, and a citizenry that is arguing over issues that don’t even exist, we have become a Kabuki Theater of Dunces. We have kept ourselves on the outer layer of the onion, having been long-ago convinced that there is nothing underneath.

How do we end the play? How do we change our perspectives? We probably can’t. After all, the election of Obama was supposed to be a massive victory for intellectualism. Problems would no longer be ignored or overwhelmed by rhetoric.

Yet, here we are, in August 2009, and the biggest debates are about whether we are becoming a socialist state, whether we want to kill Grandma, and whether Obama was born in the U.S. For now, most other topics are conveniently being left off the table.

In the end, what it comes down to is the fact that most U.S. citizens are comfortable in their Kabuki roles. This is by no means to say that there aren’t many Americans out there trying to fight the good fight and help the citizenry. But they are playing by rules that may have never actually even existed.

At this point of U.S. history, the status quo could not be more safe. The very few will continue to take the majority with them in their search for never-ending profits and their strategies to forever stay on top. And the majority will continue to let it happen, as the corporate media keeps them too afraid, self-satisfied or oblivious to look any deeper. Americans will continue to play their roles, while those that run the nation are working from a completely different script.

Because it’s all Kabuki. Period. And the show will go on.

–WKW