Why Walruses?

Funny you should ask. Although your Bloguero is officially on hiatus, he has been posting walrus photos and videos on Facebook. And he will continue until the election has been decided.

Why is that? inquiring minds might ask. It might just be that your Bloguero is fascinated by Walruses, and particular the baby walrus in New York City. But that's not all there is to it. No, it's not.

Your Bloguero offers The Walrus And The Carpenter as a partial, but probably too metaphorical explanation. Surely you remember Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass." No problem if you can't summon up the details. This is, after all, the Internet and Wiki always refreshes your memory (or creates a new one for you):

The Walrus and the Carpenter are the eponymous characters in the poem, which is recited by Tweedledum and Tweedledee to Alice. Walking upon a beach one night when both sun and moon are visible, the Walrus and Carpenter come upon an offshore bed of oysters, four of whom they invite to join them. To the disapproval of the eldest oyster, many more follow them. After walking along the beach (a point is made of the fact that the oysters are all neatly shod despite having no feet), the two main characters are revealed to be predatory and eat all of the oysters. After hearing the poem, the good-natured Alice attempts to determine which of the two leading characters might be the more sympathetic, but is thwarted by the twins' further interpretation.

Ralph Nader, of course, seized on tweedledum/dee in 2009, saying,

"Our two parties are basically one corporate party wearing two heads and different makeup," Nader said. "There is a difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, but not that much."

"

Oh was he ever right about that. Yet, there are important differences between the candidates on a whole host of issues. Your Bloguero accepts the received wisdom that returning the White House to those who destroyed the economy and created Iraq would be a mistake. At the same time, your Bloguero has no illusions about how very far to the right the Obama White House has migrated. And your Bloguero is saddened, when he's not angered by that. Where, he asks, is the single payer? The closing of Gitmo? The repeal of NDAA? On and on your Bloguero goes. It is ok to tune him out before he starts ranting about this.

In 2012's election race, your Bloguero feels he should draw your attention to and quote this part of the poem:

"I like the Walrus best," said Alice, "because you see he was a little sorry for the poor oysters."

"He ate more than the Carpenter, though," said Tweedledee. "You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn't count how many he took: contrariwise."

"That was mean!" Alice said indignantly. "Then I like the Carpenter best—if he didn't eat so many as the Walrus."

"But he ate as many as he could get," said Tweedledum.

This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, "Well! They were both very unpleasant characters—"

Both very unpleasant characters. Indeed.

This is not to say that your Bloguero will not vote. He will. Definitely. He always does. He always votes against the callous, the out of touch, the plutocrat, the oligarch, the racist, the moralist, the sentamentalist. Whatever you've got. But he has few, if any illusions that this voting against someone for more than 10 elections leads to good governance. It doesn't. Where, your Bloguero wants to know, is the candidate who embodies your Bloguero's idealistic views? Will there ever be one for him to vote for?