Political Apathy

When I started this blog, I had intended to stay away from blogging about politics. I’ve experienced some very emotional political confrontations online since 1994 and I’ve run into more than a few plain ole nutcases. I was bitter for a long time between 1996 and 1998 and it had more to do with the interactions I was having online with both lefties and conservatives than it did with the actual politicians, though they really added fuel to the fire. I admit that I was also angry at the political system, my country, half of the voters, all of Congress, everyone in the White House, and so on too. I felt helpless and lost. There was so much that I felt needed to change and there was so much anger and hatred in our own country and so much that wasn’t being done and wouldn’t get done because of the extreme blind rage everyone felt for everyone else over misconceptions and quotations taken out of context and blown out of proportion by talking heads and supposed leaders. I honestly felt that we were stuck.

I can’t say that we are any better now with a Democrat as President of the United States than we were with a Republican. President Obama seems to have done very little in his first year than take a World Tour and push a few buttons to make it look like he’s working. He announced that he wanted a Health Care Reform bill but he was rather vague on exactly what he wanted so he let Congress do all the work and basically let that drag on most of the year until it never got done. He promised to close GitMo but a year later, it still hasn’t been done — and all of those other secret prisons that he promised to close? Well, there’s a catch to that, because he’s closing all but one, which he’s transferring all the prisoners to. He seems to be embracing a lot of President George W. Bush’s policies after spending a year and a half talking trash about him; and after promising us peace, he’s increased drone bombing in the Middle East this month by about double.

Then there’s the economy…I have to say that I saw a lot of road construction last year, so I know some of that stimulus money was sprinkled around, but I don’t think it got very far. I know that the banks aren’t lending money and one of my credit cards that I had since college and have kept paid off for over 10 years, dropped me — just because I kept them paid off. I can’t get a debt consolidation loan, nor can I refinance my house, but I have excellent credit. Plus, I just got a bill for $1000 from the hospital for my emergency appendectomy. Got to love unexpected expenditures — like having to buy a new car last year right after the Cash for Clunkers ended.

Anyway, I’ve had to reduce my payments to my 403(b) and I’m looking for anything and everything to cut from my budget. Loki will be getting the cheep dog food and homemade doggy treats, it seems. I might be wishing I hadn’t taken that bag of stuff over to the soup kitchen.

So, anyway, I didn’t listen to Obama’s State of the Union the other night. I had a good idea of what he was going to talk about. He was going to try to put a spin on how he inherited a bad economy and 2 wars from Bush and that’s why nothing got done last year and because he’s an excellent speaker, he was going to make it sound so good that everyone who heard him would believe that everything will magically be all right if we just clap our hands and believe in fairies. Well, I never understood why everyone hung on every word that came out of his mouth. Words are just words; they are inanimate; they have no real power and like thunder, they do nothing but get attention. Action, deeds, lightning — those things have power; those things change the world forever. Like Janet Jackson says, “What have you done for me lately?”

I suspected back in ’07 that Obama was going to be all talk in the White House — he had very little experience and his voting record showed that he preferred not to commit, decide or be more than a warm body. I said as much then, but everyone was swooning over him. At least I can honestly say that I remain critically distrustful and very much apathetic.

I can’t say that much has changed in Congress even though the majority has changed with the Presidency — still nothing is getting done, despite Obama’s promise to bring them all together. As I told my mother, I still feel that anyone who voted for The Patriot Act should be voted out of office and an all new Congress should be elected. I don’t think anyone who voted away our rights without reading the document and then voted to continue it should remain in office. Maybe if we get rid of all of the old standards and have an all new Congress and everyone is on the same footing, work will actually start getting done again.