The show must go on

Yes, the show. Where would we be without the show? Over the past couple of weeks, especially in America, there has been nothing but non-stop show.

I'll tell you, though, what is tough for us ex-pats to explain: why all the show, and why doesn't substance matter anymore? I realize, of course, that the statement/question is a bit oversimplified and something of a rather platitudinous generalization, but it's not completely without merit. After all, as I asked a couple of posts ago: why conventions? they really don't do anything except put on a show.

Well, without thinking about it long and hard - which I'm sure I'll do eventually - I think that the lack of substance that all of sense is a simple defensive reaction. There's too many stimuli in our environment, there is too much noise, too much movement, too many unresolved issues, too many things that just don't seem to work anymore, too many unanswered questions ... and beyond the shadow of a doubt, too many opinions. We're being overwhelmed, we are drowning, in a flood of data, information and issues, too many of which are simply beyond most of our understanding.

There are things that we probably can do very little about without Herculean efforts: global warming (it may not be just humans causing it, but if you don't acknowledge it, you can't do anything about it, but it'll happen anyway); economic inequality (not just personally and individually, but globally); debt and deficits (what can I say); militarization and war (if there is anything that 100,000 years of human history should have made clear: it's not even worth thinking about as an answer). But, in all the conversations that I've had, especially over the past two weeks or so, everyone whom I talked to said the very same thing, almost as if it had been scripted by someone else: "Well, that's just the way things are, there's nothing that a little guy (or gal) like me can do about it."

To my mind, that's the biggest problem of all.

I think one of the reasons we think we can't do anything is simply because we're overwhelmed by it all. There's just too much to think about, and thinking about stuff - whether you want to admit it or not - is a lot of work. There's too much to keep track of, there is too much for me to figure out, there's too much that I don't know enough about, there's not enough time in the day, there is nothing I can do. Same old same-old means we get more of the same old stuff.

How frustrating is that? There is obviously something wrong with the picture.

Flights of fancy

Talk about making things up ... one has already and next week the other of the two-ring circuses is going to start in America. I'm talking about the national conventions for the two big parties. And a party they will be, I am sure: lots of balloons, confetti, streamers, zippy music, yelling, singing, jumping, bumping, dancing and applause ... lots and lots of applause. But who's being applauded?

If I remember the last time I watched part of one of these spectacles correctly, it was a lot of just applauding oneself. For example, as a delegate, you got to put on a funny hat and hold up a sign and jiggle it or wave it when you were told, and every single one of those delegates was from absolutely the best state America has to offer. It will be the best convention ever held, in the best city by the best hosts, and it will produce the best results ever. Both of them. It makes you wonder.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against fun. I'm all for it. I don't think we have enough fun in our lives, but the lunacy that is about to be unleashed upon us, is really not my idea of fun. In a certain regard, the shows in Tampa and Charlotte are simply emblematic of what's wrong with America these days. Really. I'm not bashing, I'm just saying. Over the next couple of weeks, I'll have a lot of explaining to do, because for an outsider, well, it's just hard to get your head wrapped around all that craziness.

Don't we already know who's going to be nominated? If the platforms have been established already - and they have - why hold a convention? If the campaign approaches have already been decided upon - and they have - what's the convention for? Hasn't the real election campaign already begun? If the people to run were picked ahead of time, what's the purpose of the convention? I don't know, and that's what I'll tell all who ask me. But, it's not really what I think.

I remember the first convention I ever watched ... OK, saw parts of ... it was the Republican convention in the run-up to the 1956 election. I was home sick and that was all that was on either of the two channels we had back then. I didn't understand much of it then, and it was unbearable to watch. (No wonder I became a voracious reader. It wasn't so limiting.) Back then, my parents really couldn't explain to me what the show was all about, and now, so many years later, I'm not better positioned to explain to my friends and co-workers what's going on either.

No, back then, it was just too silly. A whole lot of hoopla, and not a lot of substance. I don't think it has changed, but all the heads will be talking and "analyzing" and discussing, and my friends and co-workers are going to be asking what it's all about. It was silly then; it's silly now. And for the next couple of weeks, that's the impression America will be making on the rest of the world: silly.