Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Frustration.

I keep myself pretty busy these days and its starting to bum me out. Hopefully I can get accustomed to a new schedule and stop being a lazy bastard.
I am legitimately hating the current presidential primaries. Initially, they were exciting because things were up in the air- but at this point, i feel as though the primary system does nothing but filter out the truly decent candidates by way of survivor/reality tv style tactics of forming temporary coalitions to take out the strong player. That, combined with the typical political tools of exaggeration and downright lies, guarantees that the laughably insufficient TWO CANDIDATES that we get to choose from come november are NOT the candidates that would be best for the country. (yes, i understand that you CAN vote 3rd party, but thats a topic for another time. and i don't think any third-party supporter out there would really debate that we live in a TWO-PARTY system). and now here we are, facing the national elections which (as of right now) appears to be shaping up to be John McCain vs. Hillary Clinton. Emperor Palpatine of the Galactic Empire vs. that bad lady from Chronicles of Narnia (she represents Satan right?). The primary system has ceased to serve the interest of the american people. However, perhaps people will be able to see that the 2 party system is no longer sufficing to represent the american people. When both the Democratic and Republican parties are so divided that they cannot decided upon ONE OF THEIR OWN to be a candidate for president, it is obvious that the Party cannot truly represent the full body of its members. The other benefit that these primary campaigns may unknowingly bring about is to make people recognize the disproportionate role that media and money currently play in politics. I am SO sick of political analysis telling me who won a debate. Isn't the point of the debate to allow me to hear the candidates and decide who is best for me? I don't need Chris Matthews, Bill O'Reilly, Lou Dobbs (no offense Lou, you know we're bros), or ANYONE else broadcasting from the effing spin room, to tell me why i should disregard the opinions i formed during the debate, because its "obvious" that their man won. How is it that what was last week the election that was going to "change" washington and bring new hope to american politics, has now been divided up between two long time washington professional politicians. the fact that professional politicians even exist in america is a sign of the failing of the american experiment.
I was raised in a patriotic family. some would even go so far as to call it a nationalist family, although i would disagree. and whether you know it or not i consider myself to be a believer in america and subsequently a patriot (the sad part of this statement is that i am squeamish about calling myself a patriot, because the meaning of the word has been so distorted as to imply the person who blindly obeys and is complacently complicit in all of the twisted policies that come out of government these days). I can truly say that i am discontent with the political direction of the nation, and that what i grew up believing in as American and decent has fallen into nothing more but reactionary reality tv on an embarrassingly large scale. It's no wonder i've always loved anarchist thought- it is certainly more reminiscent of what america was founded on than anything we see coming out of our nations 'leaders'.
shameful.
im sure i have more to say about this. but i can't think of anything that won't come out as meaningless complaining. if i can come up with more, you'll see it.
peace.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bam.

manda said...

i have been thinking, what if america were broken into sections according to the presidential candidates and instead of everyone being forced to be under a leader they didn't really choose, we would just go live wherever ours was, and then be governed only by them. wait... i don't think that will work, right?