I’m so sick of politics. Actually, that’s not entirely correct. I’m more sick of politicians than I am of actual politics. And considering that it’s going to be nothing but politics from now until November 4th, this is a bad time to be sick of politicians.
But I am.
And I don’t know why I’m surprised and disappointed.
But I am.
Maybe I’m an idealist, but every election since I’ve begun to vote, I’ve expected and anticipated issues-driven, substantive campaigns. And every election since I’ve begun to vote, I’ve gotten exactly the opposite. Elections in this country, and the presidential election in particular, seem to be much less about who is the most intelligent, the most enlightened, the strongest leader, the greatest visionary. Instead, what you have is a person trying to convince you that the other person or people are not worthy.
The message that I get from candidates in any election can usually be summed up as: “
Maybe I suck,
BUT THEY SUCK WAY WORSE.”
Is this acceptable to honest, intelligent, hard-working people? Because to me, I got enough of trash talk about people in high school; I really don’t need it anymore. Maybe people revert when they get the national spotlight on the political scene. I don’t know, because I cannot name a single politician in recent memory that has impressed me as anything better than an insincere panderer. Because what these politicians do is say whatever they feel will garner them support among the voters. Truth, research, enlightenment be damned! If they feel that it will cause people to look at their opponents in a negative light, they will say it.
Apathy is our biggest problem. I am always dismayed when I express these feelings to people whom I feel are intelligent, and get the stock response, “well, what do you expect?” with a look of defeat on their faces.
I just want to scream, “Wake up people!” They are talking to US! WE are the ones who have to demand better, and we don’t. Us. Average Americans. The people that are “served” by the politicians. Unfortunately, very few Americans actually care enough about these elections to demand better.
And the ones who do care are the ones who eat this stuff as though it were nectar from the gods.
Did you see and hear the reactions of the delegates at the conventions? Hanging on the every empty word of these people. It doesn’t even seem like they cared what the words actually were, because not a single one of them said anything worth listening to. Their celebrities were talking, and that’s all they cared about. I remember one woman interviewed at the end of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, and she didn’t talk about the speech at all. All she talked about was how when she was a young woman, she couldn’t even vote because she was a black woman, and now a black man is running for president. She became so emotional she broke down and walked away from the interviewer. I got the impression that Obama could have been proposing a special tax on black women and it wouldn’t have made a single difference to her. It was the same way when Sarah Palin spoke at the Republican convention. People in that audience’s eyes were almost glowing as if they were standing in front of the Pope himself giving a speech. What was especially interesting about that is I’ll bet at least 80% of the people in that audience had never even heard of Sarah Palin until a few days before that speech. I mean, honestly. How many average Americans can even name two past Alaskan governors? And here they are treating her as though she is the Second Coming.
I think a lot of this stems from lack of choices. We have two parties in this country, and I will get into my hatred of the two-party system in a later post. Tonight, I am so angry at the McCain campaign I can’t think of anything else.
I have heard nothing substantive from either of the two major presidential candidates. I’ve heard some ideas, like taxes should be lowered, our troops should come home from war, the economy should be stimulated, change is good, change is bad, whatever. How any of this is to be accomplished remains a mystery. Most of what I’ve heard can only be described as mudslinging.
OK, let’s say for the sake of argument, well what do you expect? They all do it; they’ll all continue to do it; nothing I write or say will make that change, at least for this election. So go ahead, do the smear thing, tell us why Obama sucks, if you’re McCain. Or, if you happen to be Obama, tell us why McCain sucks.
But when you get nit-picky, you lose me.
When you turn obviously viciously nit-picky, you aggravate me.
When you knowingly make unsubstantiated allegations just for the fact that your base of supporters will latch onto it as fact without bothering to check the truthfulness of your allegation, you are scum.
And when you get hypocritical, you completely turn me against you.
Up until now both campaigns have been doing a magnificent, and pretty equal, job of reinforcing my belief that every intelligent person in this country should move to Mexico and live like royalty on $11 a day.
But the McCain campaign has crossed the line. When you’re vicious and mean and twist the truth to suit your purposes, it’s one thing. But my biggest pet peeve is hypocrisy. I think that hypocrites are the ultimate anti-humans. Hate black people? That’s fine. Hate women? Okay. Hate gays? Go for it. Hate Asians, Hispanics, Canadians, New Yorkers, South Africans, Italians, Greeks? Why not?
It’s your right as an American. No one can make you love, or even respect, your fellow man. It doesn’t mean that I agree with you, or even like you. But I respect your beliefs, until you make me believe otherwise. You hate black people? Fine. But walk out of the interview when you find out that your potential boss is a black man; don’t sit there and kiss his ass in the hopes of appearing to be what you are not. The same goes for anyone who harbors hate against any person or group of people, or even all people. Some are what I like to call equal opportunity bigots and hate everyone equally.
That’s probably the most despicable example of hypocrisy, lying when it suits you. Another example of hypocrisy is when you condemn someone for saying something that YOU YOURSELF HAVE SAID. But this is entirely what John McCain’s campaign did today.
When talking about McCain as an agent of change, Obama said, “That's not change. That's just calling the same thing something different. But you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change; it's still going to stink.” That the McCain campaign interpreted that statement as an attack on Sarah Palin is absurd. It shows me that the #1 priority of the McCain campaign is to tear down Barack Obama, not to extoll the virtues and ideas of Senator McCain.
Read the story here.
It is often said that, as Americans, what unites us is much greater than what divides us. Let’s start talking about what unites us and how the candidates will enhance that part of America for each of us. Oh, and while I’m pissed off at the Republican ticket tonight, let me state that it’s more divisive than unitive to
make rape victims pay for their own rape test kits, Mayor Palin. I’m just saying.
GroanI went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day, but I couldn't find any.
