From ImNoSaint.wordpress.com, February 19, 2014
Season Two of House of Cards is now on Netflix, thank goodness. It’s been a long wait. While what little experience I’ve had in DC made me suspect an undercurrent of truth in the series depiction of politics-as-usual, NPR’s David Greene’s interview with show star Robin Wright confirmed my misgivings. In the interview, Wright talks about a conversation with Washington politicians who watch House of Cards where she asks how much is actually accurate about the show. Their response was, ninety-nine percent. The one percent being, “You wouldn’t get an education bill passed that fast.”
And we laugh.
Kiev is in flames as I write this. The revolution is over Ukraine’s regime resisting an alliance with the European Economic Community.
House of Cards is a display of Machiavellianism at its highest function and I suspect the show belies Kevin Spacey’s agenda in displaying this to The People, a constitutionally protected agenda. Imagine Spacey’s fate were this North Korea. Not just Kevin’s, but any folk who find relation to him, anyone involved in the show’s production, distribution and audience.
If indeed the content and portrayals of congresspersons, senators, NGOs, NPOs, lobbyists, the Administration, the NEA et al is truly that congruent with reality, the infractions and corruption compare to those of regimes and governments protested and fought against in Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan, Africa (where there are dozens of conflicts), Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Iran, Tunisia, Turkey, Brazil, Venezuela, and more.
Here, we sit, watch it on a screen, caught up in the drama and the art of it, and shake our heads and mumble under our breath. We complain about minimum wage policies over the counter at the auto parts store, we bitch about the Affordable Care Act in our cubicles, but despite the flagrant machinations of the business of making laws, the deep-seated methods of persuasion and blackmail so eloquently produced before our eyes, we do nothing more.
Maybe it’s because we don’t want our Netflix binge-watching interrupted.
But I wonder if it isn’t because we are in our own cold war; two sides becoming increasingly polarized, empowered and angered, knowing full well that if that figurative button were to be pushed, the damage from the revolution would be unrecoverable.
