Mushrooming Corruption

That Our government is corrupt, crooked, criminally-inclined and disgusting is an understatement. Why it is that way, when handled with the disconnect typical of a scientist, reveals a less revolting yet equally disgusting result.

Here's a take on government corruption, Stateside, from Richard J. Tofel, who says that it stems from fewer reporters keeping an eye on government and the distance from state capitals to population/media centers. In other words, the media is not living up to its duty and the politicians are hiding "out there."

Now that might be a fairly accurate portrayal of things in California (Sacramento versus L.A./Hollywood glamour and San Francisco/Silicon Valley tech-glitz), New York (Albany versus NYC) or Texas (Austin versus Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and a murderous moron), but it doesn't hold much water in the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho and other such states where the capital is practically the only big city around. (Then again, these are not your most influential states, right?)

But does Tofel's observation hold water on My Island? Not really, as San Juan is in the Fargo/Pierre/Helena/Boise mold of being the biggest city around here, albeit on a densely-packed bit of rock. In fact, distance is not an issue here, as the guy who came in from Culebra to the recent CAC Games attests. (For you gringos, Culebra is an island-municipality east of PR and the Games were being held in Mayagüez, at the western end of the island.)

However, change Tofel's observation of "distance" to the concomitant results--ignorance and/or indifference to what's really going on--and his formula for government corruption fits Us like body paint. Our media has the collective IQ of sand, the collective guts of punctured amoeba and the collective integrity of fog in a gale, so in a sense, We do have "fewer" reporters, since as math has proven, hundreds of zeros are still equal to zero. And it is Our "distance" that causes the ignorance and indifference that characterizes the worst of Our political environment, one in which the same idiots vote for the same idiots every idiotic time they can.

Can We change this? Of course We can. But We don't want to. We prefer gossip to policy, innuendo to facts and salaciousness to analysis. We don't really want to know how big a thief/con artist "Our guy/gal" is because We're too busy slurping up the drool the media feeds Us about how big a thief/con artist "their guy/gal" is. The media "feeds" Us because they say "that's what We want" and We continue to let them do it because--and this cannot be overstated--IT IS WHAT WE WANT. As My dad used to comment wryly, We're a "Don't confuse Me with the facts" kind of people.

And because We're this way, We are implicitly condoning corruption. And because We expect it to benefit Us eventually, We only get enraged when it's propagated by and to the benefit of "them." And ultimately because We're thirsty for the next batch of warm spittle the media will plunk before Us. As the old joke goes, We're like mushrooms, voluntarily keeping Ourselves in the dark and eager to have shit shoveled over Us, day after day.

Only some of Us aren't and never will be mushrooms. That's Our hope for the future.


The Jenius Has Spoken.