If our democracy were working, public discourse about the 2012 election (this year!) would be centered on things like: 

1. What's next after the NDAA? How long before we decide it's more efficient to round up all people who meet a certain profile and relocate them to a central location. What with the debt and everything. We need to streamline things. (Think it can't happen here, what about all the people we're incarcerating for violating prohibition.) 

2. We love the Internet, but what is the Internet? This is where the people letting us down are the political pundits, who don't appear to read tech bloggers (if they do where are the links). We read them, of course. But their view of the world must be that somehow the "technical" issues of the Internet don't concern them. They're just as bad as the members of Congress who put the blinders on when it comes to tech, and they're just as easily manipulated.  

I'm thinking of writers who I admire, who seem to have a huge blind spot. Krugman and Greenwald for example. We can make it so that Internet issues are not very technical, and in the meantime if you write using blogging software, you are yourself actually becoming more technical than you give yourself credit for. 

2a. There's something about the mainstream press that feels immune to criticism. This is the bigger bug. 

3. Climate change. It's early January and the only snowfall we've had in NYC so far was a freak storm in late October. It's been springlike weather so far all season. We're about to get some bitter cold, thankfully (what a relief) but it's not forecast to last very long. 

4. Look at the idiots the Republicans are seriously considering nominating. How could our political process be more wrong. That's a theme that should be echoing on all the news reports. It's the actual story. As opposed to the BS they actually report. 

5. There's a war starting in Iran and we're the ones starting it. Discuss. 

It's hard for me to believe that anyone takes the coverage of the election seriously. I admit I love to watch the Republican debates, but I don't mistake it for political discourse. It's appealing to a very low intellect and morality. It's relaxing to think the world could be that simple.  

Here's the new American doctrine: "We're right and that's it." That's why Ron Paul resonates, even though his idea of returning to the gold standard shows that he too is out of his mind. Unless he's not serious, in which case he's as dishonest as the rest of them.