The US Election is Next Week... Oh, and Star Wars VII is Coming Out

My despondency from the upcoming US election, which, to be honest, is only going to result in the triumph of words, not actions, lifted unexpectedly this morning. All thanks to a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. And this one doesn't involve overdoses of rhetoric, bullshitting or political correctness.

Star Wars: Episode VII is coming out. Yes, Star Wars: Episode VII. No... I'm not joking... Star Wars: Episode VII. I just reentered puberty again.

Forget the fact that it's coming out because Disney Corporation, the schizophrenic owners of both the brilliant Iron Man series and the craptacular John Carter, acquired Lucasfilm. It's... fucking... Star Wars... Episode VII...

What I'm trying to get at it is that this news means a whole lot more to me than next Tuesday. Sure, in large part the fate of the Free World, in all its diluted-capitalist glory, depends on the outcome. Or does it? Are we just getting more of the same super stupidity no matter who wins or could either of these men actually change things for the better? Personal nuances and ideological pronouncements aside, I'm discarding Option B. I put more faith in one man over the other, but it counts for relatively little. I won't even mention which I prefer.

George Lucas: disillusioned and fed up

Image Credit: AFP

The US election has only reiterated to me the fraud of so-called belief in change (Democrat) and pledges for renewal (Republican). Obama, having vowed nearly four years ago to halve the Bush era deficit, has seen it rise to $16 trillion (so much for "change"), approaching Greek house-of-cards levels. Romney, not to be outdone in the (lack of) accountability stakes, faces some hefty obstacles in proving he can make his declared cuts without disembowelling the middle-class through the sword of taxation.

Star Wars at least promises to entertain me. The fanfare alone does that, without even thinking about the (possible) glory of the films once released. A US election only ensures melancholy and perhaps an unpaved road to alcoholism. I see that, despite our commendable progress in technology, social awareness and human decency, we are all still slaves to a system where ideology is but a front for power. Hopes of reform are invariably squandered and frequently drowned. Obama and Romney in their hearts are not evil men. They genuinely believe they are doing the right and honourable thing. But they are products of conditioning. Neither will make a substantial break from years of politically elitist thinking.

Importantly, Star Wars creator's George Lucas' disillusionment with Hollywood and the moviemaking clique in general mirrors my own (and perhaps your) growing indifference to politics. Already an outlier and misfit, Lucas demonstrates that while success outside conventional methods is possible, it's certainly rocky. The Star Wars saga's emphasis on good, evil and the often blurred distinction between them should not be lost on us, either. Political discourse represents this kind of spectrum more so than ever before. Rhetoric has become the bully-boy of common sense and action. I'd love a political outsider - a Jesse Ventura, Ron Paul or some third-party candidate from the left - to really shake things up.

In the meantime, let's hope the new Star Wars trilogy lives up to the hype. Because politics never does.

Interrupt an Elite Boat Race... Get the Jail Time of a Serious Criminal

Oxford vs Cambrige protestor gets six months jail

How Trenton Oldfield, an Australian-born "anti-elitism" campaigner, received a six-month prison sentence for gatecrashing the Oxford-Cambridge boat race meet in the Thames is beyond a mystery to me. Oh, wait, no it isn't, because this sort of mangled, disproportionate sentence has been handed out in Western legal jurisdictions for years. And to think a serious criminal would often get less jail time for their deplorable actions than Oldfield has for this.

What I find especially appalling about this outcome (and the very muted response it garnered) is that it follows hot on the heels of a Western outcry, particularly in Britain, against the jailing of feminist punk rock band Pussy Riot. Kudos to the reality-bending Guardian journalists who lambasted Russia for detaining anti-Putinists for their disgusting intrusion into a religious ceremony, replete with a "Holy, holy, holy shit of God" altar-side parody of the Sanctus Prayer (think the Our Father of Eastern Orthodoxy). Nonetheless, such types have been remarkably silent over Oldfield's plight.

Image Credit: Getty Images

It seems legitimate protest in Britain depends on who the responsible authorities are. If it's a traditional Eastern European rival, all bets are off and you can conjure up any spectre of Stalinism you wish to describe their handling of three hateful protesters. But if it's your own backyard and the protester just happens to oppose institutionalised privilege, the length of which in Britain makes Wall Street bankers blush, then throw the book at him and forget your idealistic words towards other nations' court sentences and processes.

If you think this could not epitomise super stupidity any more, you're wrong. The sentencing judge had the audacity to describe Oldfield's protest as "prejudice" targeted at the rowing teams' association with Britain's two most exclusive universities. Admittedly, Oldfield interrupted the race because of its history and the prestige of Oxford and Cambridge. But to cast it in terms of "prejudice" is shockingly misleading and glosses over entirely the social prejudice endemic in UK society today. We never hear that a thief exhibits "prejudice" by targeting victims smaller than him or herself. A testament to modern legalese, the judge here has fully butchered the term.

I'm not for one moment saying Oldfield should have got off scot-free. He put himself in danger and did deliberately go out of his way to cause a ruckus. But six months? Please. Unless you count the Summer Riots in London and other places in 2011, proper criminals in Britain rarely face their fair comeuppance. Britain today seems more obsessed with initiating actions against people falling afoul of draconian free speech laws than targeting actual felonies. No wonder the Home Office and its cronies are so interested in schemes such as retaining everyone's internet and telecommunications data. Orwellian, you say? Nah, just typical nanny state politics in Britain.

The topicality of privilege is highly relevant in the context of the Global Financial Crisis and European debt crisis (don't you just get sick of this c-word?). The issue Oldfield claimed to be rallying against is blazingly true. Though a historical stalwart of free speech and a fair legal system, Britain still shields an intricate and longstanding system of social class divisions. The ability to be upwardly mobile may have increased exponentially since the 19th century but the stark juxtaposition of rich and poor in the UK is undeniable. At least in the United States, wealth can be said to have been "earned" more recently by the rich. The British example, by contrast, is far more hereditary-based. Unless you count the late Roman period and the Dark Ages, Britain was not a sovereign state largely founded on penniless immigrants as in America.

Unfortunately, though, such political correctness (aka lunacy) is not confined to this large island off France. The UK is in many ways a lightweight when it comes to free speech violations. The broader problem comes from a criticism-afraid European Union hell-bent on legislating political correctness. A stream of EU-sponsored dictates on free speech continued to erode a person's ability to express themselves or stage protests without fear of prosecution or at least not totally unreasonable criminal sanctions.

Agree with Oldfield's actions or not, this guy got an end of the stick he just didn't deserve.

Bristol Palin - A Good Place to Start

I had a choice.

Amidst the continuing catastrophes in Syria, Afghanistan and Libya, and the doom and gloom surrounding nuclear-hungry North Korea and Iran, I needed something to fully symbolise the lunacy exhibited by the world we live in. Then, turning my thoughts away from the thorough pre-election analysis of CNN and USA Today, I learnt Bristol Palin recently exited a Dancing with the Stars series - for the second time.

If there's anything that validates my belief the world we live in is full of madness, it's Bristol Palin. Forget the American Dream. Forget egalitarianism. Forget my own native Australia's emphasis on people's right to a "fair go". It's all pie-in-the-sky theory!

Image Credit: Getty Images

Excuse my insensitivity, even as Hurricane Sandy rages across the United States, but Bristol Palin, and a number of other fame whores who I don't have time to mention here, represents a manmade disaster of ignorance and stupidity. Or Armageddon, if you're being really accurate.

Sure, hard work, commitment and vision are necessary qualities for true and lasting success. But the juxtaposition of a society that claims to give (most) people opportunities to achieve their dreams is completely shat on by a young woman whose only bonafide claim to fame is having a lunatic Republican mother and being knocked up so she can be paid squillions to speak about it later. So, yes, Bristol Palin is indeed a good place to start - if you want to feel depressed, angered and outright confused by the silly course of celebrity culture in the United States. All at a time when life for the middle-class - the bread and butter of the Western mega-economy - is getting darker and darker.

As a libertarian, I'm more than ready to extol the virtues of a well-oiled free market. Free enterprise is the name of the game, unless you're interested in a gulag-style existence under a clone of Stalin. But what infuriates me is this knack for privilege - particularly its most undeserved forms - to suddenly find itself in the hands of the unworthy. Bristol is one of those very fucking fortunate recipients. And it undermines the idea that Palin's own Republicans, who endorse a system with a contradictory mix of "opportunity" and keeping the wealthy wealthy, can fix anything they put their minds to.

By contrast, Sarah Palin's firstborn, Track, is an Iraq War veteran. We should not assume that he holds a grudge against Bristol for her fame but it beggars belief when you compare the different paths of these two elder Palin children. Track could be an angel or an asshole, for all I care. My point is not to make him out to be the greatest man in history: it is to illustrate how undeserving his sister is. I would not watch a hypothetical reality show about Track yet I would sure as hell see more of a reason for it than the one about a girl whose most marketable life experience seems to have been getting pregnant on a camping trip.

Image Credit: Getty Images

*Focuses rant more.*

Perhaps the super-celebrity of Bristol Palin, which I'd say has now eclipsed that of her somewhat less IQ-lowering and untalented mother, is feeding a despondent US public's need to dumb themselves down from the melancholic national circumstances of the last half-decade. Who knows. But it certainly inspires no confidence in me that a sudden American cultural and economic revival is around the corner. Not to mention the fact that Bristol Palin has had a New York Times bestselling book. How's that for expanding the minds of the next generation, the one inheriting a $20 trillion national debt in the coming several years?

Like or hate Hollywood, at least most of its favoured sons and daughters built their success, rather than acquiring it in the most ludicrous and inane ways. So when someone tells you the world is screwed because of celebrities, make sure you ask if they're talking about Bristol Palin. If they are, then they're right.