Apparently there’s an election coming up in California in about a week and a half. And apparently it’s a pretty big deal, based on the volume of mail and pre-recorded phone messages I’ve received in the last few weeks. Most of the flyers are comically vague as far as details, calling opponents unqualified and ineffective. The phone calls go something like this: “I’m someone you might have heard of, asking you to vote for my friend, who will do a great job because I’m famous and I’m telling you they will.”

Thank goodness (and not for the first time) that I’m not a Republican. They are in a fierce primary battle to put their least electable candidates on the November ballot. It’s like a complicated dance move, as they keep trying to position themselves to the right of the other candidates. They have given us many reasons why their opponents aren’t conservative enough (or conservative at all), but most of those reasons boil down to one thing: At some time in the past they have had the good sense to vote their conscience rather than the strict party line. Oh, the shame!

It’s come to the point where I believe almost nothing. I’m not quite at the stage where I believe in nothing, because I still think the process can be rescued from the greed and corruption that make things tick now. But if Fox News has taught me anything, it’s that you can’t take anyone’s word at face value, and you can’t accept anything you hear as true. Fox thrives on the fact that a lot of people want to believe lies more than they want to know the truth.

If a “news” organization can blatantly make up “facts,” it makes it even easier for politicians to run smear campaigns without relying on proof or accuracy. Any random innuendo will be taken as gospel by some and will be spread further by those who can benefit from a lie, even if they know it’s a lie. What a demented hack scribbles on his blog today could be news tomorrow, and once it escapes into the atmosphere it’s out there forever.

It’s hard not to be cynical when our state utility monopoly, PG&E, is spending so much money trying to convince us that an attempt to allow municipalities to purchase cleaner and cheaper electricity elsewhere is actually a threat to “your right to vote.” What Proposition 16 actually does is make my vote count for less, because it would require a two-thirds vote, instead of a simple majority, to allow cities and counties a choice of sources (thus protecting PG&E’s monopoly). It’s dismaying that voters are falling for this because of the expensive campaign that PG&E is running. They can’t use my utility bill money to buy my vote, though, and I’ll be voting no.