You've arrived here by self-selection so I'd better give you some proper reality cracking. Remember that your comments are welcome even, and perhaps particularly, if you disagree. I am actually quite honoured that you have decided to peruse this 'bottom ten thousand' site in preference to all the other distractions that the World offers.
"Say: I am real, this is real, the world is real, and nobody laughs. But say: this is a simulacrum, you are only a simulacrum, this war is a simulacrum, and everybody bursts out laughing. With a condescending and yellow laughter, or perhaps a convulsive one, as if it was a childish joke or an obscene invitation. Anything which belongs to the order of simulacrum is obscene or forbidden, similar to that which belongs to sex or death. However, our belief in reality and evidence is far more obscene. Truth is what should be laughed at. One may dream of a culture where everyone bursts into laughter when someone says: this is true, this is real."(from Baudrillard's 'Radical Thought').
I am not a politician. I am a Socialist. Call the pot black. He reads. He is a witch, a politician, a devil in disguise. Burn the witch. Burn the witch. Burn the witch.
You may disagree at any stage. The world is mostly organised under the economic system known as Capitalism. Capitalism is concerned, above all else, with the accumulation of private and corporate wealth. Capitalism is counter-democratic - individuals have never been asked nor given their consent to this system of economic and social organisation AND economically powerful organisations are powerful politically. Cap is above such matters. You cannot be credible or real in opposition to such a situation. It is above question the natural and god-given state. You cannot discuss cap. You cannot criticise cap. It is Natural. It is Real. It is Good.
I've been doing some web-based research for a friend's essay on post war British politics. These stats are for the U.K. and are shamelessly cut and pasted from www.jrf.org.uk. There are hundreds of sources available on the net. You don't have to be a politician to read these stats and they already know, it is their business.
Prejudgice and arrogance stop learning. The politician is not concerned with truth, justice, reality or any such notions - he is concerned with maintaining his social standing, his ego, (uh-oh Freudian term) maintaining the adoration that feeds his megalomania. He does not realise that you cannot learn what you already believe to know and you cannot know what you have not learned. He does not even attempt to know or understand. To do so would recognise a failing, a flaw, that compromises the arrogance that is demanded. His social standing is important above all else. He will sell his grandmother and rationalise it and sleep well and rubbish his opponents in the process. He is not concerned with learning or knowing because he has an unshakable conviction in his own omnipotence and perfection.
Should we accept and adore and debase ourselves to this model - that there are Gods amoung us?
Well, it's quite simple. By incarcerating Le Pen in a ghetto, it is
in fact the democratic left which becomes incarcerated and which
affirms itself as a discriminatory power. It becomes exiled within
its own obsession and automatically grants a privilege of justice to
what it demonizes. And, of course, Le Pen never misses an opportunity
to claim republican legality and fairness on his behalf. But it is
above all on the imaginary but very pregnant figure of the rebel and
persecuted soul that he establishes his prestige. Thus, he can enjoy
the consequences of both legality and illegality. A victim of
ostracism, Le Pen has an incredible freedom of language and can
deploy an unmatched arrogance of judgement.
(from Baudrillard's A Conjuration of Imbeciles).