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IT has been a while since I have posted. I initially made a promise that I would cease political posting on this blog but I did not realize how therapeutic the writing process can be, particularly in keeping moral outrage in check. So…onward and upward, brave friends!

On one of his recent pod-casts, Dan Carlin discussed a book by Bob Woodward titled “The Agenda” that was written at the end of Clinton’s first presidency. One of the themes Woodward addressed in this book was the propensity of politicians to promise change and “sweeping reforms”. When they get into office they are hit with the complete lack of maneuvering room on pretty much every issue and the lack of power a president of any party has to truly create change while they are hemmed in by career politicians in both parties, special interests, misinformation from partisan media outlets, and the overall scant awareness of the issues by most Americans.

When I voted for Obama I suppose I knew on some level that he would not be able to accomplish all that his campaign promised, but change was needed, even if it was a change of party. I find the quickness of many conservatives to nip at Obama’s heels for the lack of immediate progress on issues that were (for the most part) the result of the G.W. Bush presidency to be hypocritical at best, and deliberately obtuse at worst. It is both depressing and does awaken anger to a degree. The anger is not necessarily directed at either party, but at the unworkable political situation we are in where we lie to ourselves about the fact that we are no longer in a functional system with representative democracy.

I have heard a good deal of theories about this. One of the better ones is that we are in a situation similar to Rome when they transitioned from a republic to an oligarchy, but kept the senate, patricians, and plebeians to play lip service to the concept of representation. Is it OK that politicians have become followers of fads rather than a means to govern. Have there always been things like Social Security lock boxes and town hall meetings where ill-informed citizenry scream things like “Keep your government hands off my medicare”. The instant I saw the second example on TV was the instant I knew in my heart that we would not have any meaningful change on the health care issue. To paraphrase Spock, Our passions became our undoing. Political fads of the moment cater and inflame those passions. The spectacle of the town hall meetings would seem to be the logical outcome of this.

You hear people angry about health care reform and bank bonuses, global warming fraud and even Obama using a teleprompter at a school photo-op. You hear nothing about the Supreme Court repealing 30 years of campaign finance reform this week. Nothing. Nada! No angry speeches on the senate floor and no targeted news stories on Fox or MSNBC. It is almost a non issue, which is frightening because we can all expect a flood of corporate money going into every politician’s coffers. Dan Carlin wisely points out that (paraphrasing) we mock countries like Somalia where you have to grease corrupt palms to get anything done, but (in that regard) are we any different? Have we merely legitimized it? Do we justify it simply by disclosing it? Do we depend on it with our two party system with a vetting process that stipulates that candidates must be “viable” to run for office – viable meaning that you have raised a certain amount of cash from private sources? Anyone in either party that rises to the level of senator or executive office has been heavily vetted and greased.

We get mad at each other as “news” personalities seed the waters with toxic rhetoric and well crafted pseudo lies to get liberals and conservatives misdirected from the true causes of their anger. We watch our political blood pressure rise as we direct our fury at the opposing party, when the real thing that is killing our systems is corruption, and both parties have a vested interest in seeing that the systems remains in-tact. The truth of this statement is obviously something that Liberals will dislike but it should be of no comfort to anyone of the Conservative party either – as they solidly prove this hypothesis with equal aplomb.

Two things that anger and frighten me far more are the usual reactions to the truth of what I stated above.

“Well, that’s how it is, thanks for pointing out the obvious, tell me something I don’t know”.

“American is the greatest country in the world, and if you don’t like it you should move to Russia”.

Both seem like something you would say to make yourself look intelligent and politically wise, or in the case of the second example to wrap yourself up in the flag to avoid having to defend your views from these issues. Both seem like a red-herring someone throws out when the argument is effectively lost. It was Samuel Johnson (I believe) that so wisely said “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. Both scare the hell out of me because they are both defeatist and stab at the heart of my Santa Claus – like belief that democracy…true democracy is the highest and most noble form of government.

Several years ago a good friend (we’ll call him Tom, because that is his name) voted for Perot. At the time I could not understand why someone would consider doing this. I admit I looked at his decision with a degree of smug amusement. This was one of the bad personality traits I had when I was younger and endeavor daily to suppress. Now that I am older I not only understand his decision, but respect him for having the political courage to act on it.

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