Vase v. Rock - Can one win by losing

This is being written to help me make this decision

I just finished reading the Wikipedia article on Fair Use of copyrighted material.  It's probably some five thousand words or more, yet every sentence is needed to define what this means in principle and in law. If we include the links to other Wikipedia articles and ancillary references it could be a years study, but would be worthwhile.  It represents the history of the written word and how it is used to convey not only information but the ideas that have marked Enlightenment's prevailing over primitive superstition. 

Now, imagine if the demand had been, "put it all in one paragraph with bullet points."  It could be done, but oh what would be lost!  Yet this is the world that we are living in, where few want to engage in a lifelong endeavor to understand this thing called humanity.  And those institutions dedicated to scholarly study must do so with a wink, an understanding that the goal is to mete out markers of erudition that provide certification of a mastery of knowledge that transcends that of the masses.  These certifications in the form of degrees have special value among those who have lost the capacity to independently evaluate such knowledge.

It's an interesting challenge to put one's self on a ballot for an office like Mayor of a city, as it evokes responses from the public that are usually never stated.   People tend to defend that which they do, especially when challenged.  They won't let the antagonist define the weapons of the duel and will want to get off the first shot, to put an end to a challenge that could shake the coherence of the infrastructure of one's existence.  Politicians, defined as those who master the public's needs, both on surface and deep levels, to win enough votes to gain political power, either understand this or put themselves under the direction of those that do.  Personal self actualization is not the motivation for them, rather, succeeding in a career that requires mass support is the primary imperative.  So, Candidate Barack Obama eventually put on that Flag lapel pin, and when challenged about his not properly reciting the pledge of allegiance at a public forum responded, "certainly I do, do you want to do it again now?"  

His prize was certainly worthwhile, and he has the internal confidence to take every insult to his being with equanimity, something shared by those Presidents for whom the office was not soul destroying, such as LBJ and Nixon.  Those lucky ones like Franklin Roosevelt, although reviled by many, could respond to any calumny by raising his regal chin in laughter as he did in this classic riff, "you can insult me, even my dear wife Eleanor, but I will not abide the opposition attacking Fala, my little Scotch Terrier."    

I now have my required nomination signatures and even tentative approval for a highly regulated three word  ballot description, "Political Website Publisher."  With this achieved, I'm taking pause, thinking whether this candidacy will be other than the public exposure of what my life has not been, what I have not achieved, those private places that for most people are full by my age, but for me happen to be empty.  Wow, that's a lot of vulnerability, and for what? 

The "what" is the question of the moment.  Will the press attention to my positions by the few weeklies struggling for survival even reach this community, much less beyond?  Will my attempts to explain complexity, such as the bizarre referendum that defined this Mayor position being not at all what people think in spite of their vote reflecting a belief that they understood it be seen as an insult.  The first person whom I explained the actual meaning, took this as arrogance, irrespective of my being correct in my clarification of the effect of the referendum.  For him to have gone back and reviewed this law and my explanation would have meant losing the intellectual duel that he avoided by "sticking to his guns."  I learned something, but in the process lost a casual, but valued, friendship.

There are so many reasons not to subject myself to this that I want to write about the reason that I may do it in spite of these personal costs.  I have in mind the enthusiasm, the vicarious pleasure in the eyes of Len when he signed my petition.  This man, who was among those Marines who stormed the shores of Iwo Jima,  relived his personal agony of those horrible hours when we talked about invading Iraq at the Y in 2003, "Oh no, nothing is worse than war."  I will be speaking for him, continuing that chain of the hundreds of lives never lived,  horrors that he shared of that era only available first hand for a few more years as he now approaches his mid nineties, still full of the joy of life that he had come so close to losing.

Will anyone doubt his patriotism as they can so easily mine?  Would Len agree with me, when I tell him how for me, the universal coerced recital of our Pledge of Allegiance shapes the character of our country, one that made it too easy to be led into that invasion that we both deplored, that destabilized the middle east and could be a curse on a new century.  Would Len understand that this is why I can't bring myself to recite those words that proclaim national perfection, a justification to impose those obscene words,"shock and awe" on the innocent people of Baghdad because we are Americans.

"Whether the rock hits the vase or the vase hits the rock, it's very bad for the vase," as spoken by Sancho to Don Quixoti, has personal meaning to me.  I am willing to be that vase but not to be dashed against a rock so solid, so intrenched, so immovable, that I will not even make a dent.  The polity of this city of Encinitas is that rock,  an enclave walled against the pain of poverty and violence that is the fate of most of humanity.  The closest we get to it are those buses full of refugees from the chaos of central America that shuttle back and forth on a nearby highway.  We don't talk about them, and rather focus on how we can expend resources for public art, as a way of congratulating ourselves on our municipal sponsored high culture.

And so it was a cause for celebration when a handful of enthusiasts won over that single deciding vote to purchase a plot of land just off the ocean called Pacific View to be held in trust for the city, rather than be allowed to go to developers- greedy, shallow, destroyers of all sensibilities-- for their own profit.  Those that pointed out, as I did, the serious challenges of owning such a land were consigned to the enemy camp, guilty of trying to sabotage this movement to save this "legacy property."  Feedback from the public, evaluation of potential usages along with other alternative locations, consideration of postponement of unmet needs this would cause, were not allowed to be discussed.  And certainly, the possibility of this city using some of the ten million dollars purchase price to help those children who are escaping violence in Central America was kept far from the city's agenda.    

There is another reason to "run this campaign" which is why those words are in quotes.  The passage of a series of Supreme Court decisions, culminating with "Citizens United" has allowed those with great wealth, using communication image delivery systems undreamed of by our founders, the way to turn the very concept of democracy into something unrecognizable.  The great daily newspapers are dying, which included some that delivered not only the news, but multifaceted historic context; with this loss is the expectations of the readers, the voters, who digested this in deciding on those who were vying for electoral office.  The dumbing down of America has been a long process which has reached that invisible threshold where having the requisite informed electorate may no longer exist.  I savor a single line from a long running television program. When two buddies of Homer Simpson were discussing local elections and the difficulty of deciding who to vote for, Lennie turned to Carl and shared the solution:  "It's easy -- as you drive along the streets you keep count, and vote for the one with the most signs" 

I'm about to either become a small time public figure or pull back into my hole.  As I think about being that empty vase who takes on the rock of the established social order I ask: will this a farce, a tragedy or an engaging drama that brings the public into the play.  Could it possibly be both interesting and accessible to the audience and maybe even reach outside this little city.  Is there even the remotest chance of replacing the "Lenny and Carl" system with something that demands so much more from the voters, the citizens of this country.  Or will it simply be doomed by "too many words" --  a fate that at least will protect this vase from being smashed,  as it will never have made contact with the rock of our culture. 

I guess that's not such a bad outcome, and I will have the satisfaction of knowing  that I tried.