Keeping the populace entertained

By Ervin Hladnik-Milharcic
The American presidential election has developed into a never-ending court drama -- and it's a blockbuster. It has wiped out every other production. The story of the US president that started with a failed attempt at throwing Bill Clinton out of office is ending with an unsuccessful attempt to find his successor. The president, who was obsessed with his legacy at the time of his greatest embarrassment, has been revenged. Faced with the impossible task of replacing the most glamorous political figure of the end of the century, the Americans have elected two.
"Your honour," I hear George W Bush's lawyer in a courtroom in Tallahassee. "We are in a similar situation as Alice in Wonderland." He quotes from the page where the king orders a trial and is interrupted by the queen. "First, we must have the verdict and then the trial," she cries. "Your honour, the situation is clear," echoes the lawyer. "There can't be a recount."
According to Bush, the verdict was cast on 7 November and the subsequent court proceedings are illegally trying to disprove it in a looking-glass war. Not a very logical situation. An absolute must for the preservation of democracy, according to Al Gore.
It is Saturday, and the trial in Florida has been going on for 10 hours. There are six 24-hour news channels. For a month all have been broadcasting trials and little else. I seek refuge with the radio. For the past four hours The National Public Radio has been re-broadcasting the tape from the Friday session of the Supreme Court in Washington. Ten other stations are hooked on Florida, where Judge N Sanders Sauls has ordered a convoy to transport ballots from three problematic counties. I can follow the slow procession live on three different channels. Every day The New York Times publishes a special section on "Contesting the vote". There have been 30 days of lawyers and courtrooms. But who killed whom?
Before I came to the United States my legal education was limited to LA Law and Perry Mason. I knew I had the right to remain silent, the right to three phone calls and that everything I said would be used against me. But it's impossible to shut up. After a few weeks I can engage in intelligent conversation about mysterious cabalistic sentences that Gore's lawyer, David Boies, throws to the judges. In one of four of the undervotes or nonvotes in Miami-Dade before the manual review ceased, it was possible to identify a legal vote for the president. I am amazed, but I actually understand what he is saying. And so does everybody else. It is impossible not to. The world has ceased to exist, there is nothing but pregnant chads and an election that cannot give birth to a new president. On the fringes of "The Florida Recount" there is a crisis somewhere in the Middle East; a candidate from the opposition has become the new president of Mexico and ordered the withdrawal of the armed forces from the Chiapas; the president of Peru has resigned; French and Jordanian planes are landing in Baghdad; the stock market is slow and there are rumours of a recession; Bill Clinton went on a historic visit to Vietnam. But none of this really happened. America is looking at herself, and isn't bothered by anything else.
I was trying to find an interpretation for this peculiar phenomenon, and remembered a conversation I had with a history teacher in Cairo in December 1998. I was waiting for an Iraqi visa. After one of his peace missions in Palestine and Israel, Clinton had just ordered another bombardment of Baghdad. It looked like a serious war, but in Washington they had other preoccupations. The deconstruction of Bill Clinton that the Republicans started in 1993 had just reached Congress, where impeachment was being discussed. America was at war, a situation in which the media usually go on a rampage, but this time the Americans were discussing explicit sex in the Oval office and little else. Cruise missiles were flying in splendid isolation.
"I leafed through a few books on the Roman empire at the time of its maturity," answered the teacher to whom I expressed my consternation. "It makes interesting reading. Two thousand years ago the Middle East was in one of its periods of instability. We were discussing the next war in the East, and there was great concern with strategic resources and secure transport routes. The problem wasn't with oil, it was with grain from North Africa. There were big migrations of people, opposing civilisations were coming into contact and creating frictions that destroyed old states and formed new ones. The Romans were the hegemonic superpower with the only functioning professional army around. We were obsessed with studying their every step, analysing their strategic interests and trying to figure out their next move. What do you think they were discussing in Rome?"
"Strategies of expansion, probably," I guessed.
"No. The main topic in the Senate was the emperor's sex life and the intrigues surrounding his favourite mistress. And what do we do today? We are discussing the next war in the East, the price of strategic resources and their transport routes. It's not grain from Northern Africa anymore, it's oil from the Gulf. Civilisations are elbowing each other, old states are falling apart and there are hints of new ones. America is the hegemonic superpower with the only functioning professional army around, we are obsessed with studying its every step, analysing its strategic interests and trying to figure out its next move. And what do they do in Washington? The Senate is discussing the president's latest love affair."
"I deduce," he closed the argument, "that the American empire has reached maturity." At the time I was sceptical. Three years later, I am tempted to agree.
Related stories:
Keeping the populace entertained
All hat and no cattle 30 Nov. - 6 Dec. 2000
Bushestan defeats Gorestan 30 Nov. - 6 Dec. 2000
The Florida fiasco 23 - 29 November 2000
The Undecided States of America 23 - 29 November 2000
Democracy laid bare 16 - 22 November 2000
See US Election 2000
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