When I Wanted Political Change
Some years ago, I wanted there to be a big shakeup in the political landscape. I was young, I had only a nascent interest of politics, but I wasn't satisfied with what I was hearing or seeing. It seemed that things were becoming polarized and that parties weren't doing much more than being obstructionists to the agenda (real or perceived) of the opposing party.
Then that became the status quo, with the thing Republicans were for was to be against the Democrats and the thing that the Democrats were for was to be against the Republicans. And the people who were sending these persons to steer the future of the country mattered less and less.
And then we got into wars that haven't ended - that have run the entire lifetime of some high school kids. Wars that were falsely presented and that have no end in sight. War became our job as a country, with education being relegated to the back-burner and money seeming to become the only issue of national interest that either party could agree on. And somewhere along the line the downward spiral led to where we are now.
I don't think we have hit the bottom yet.
And sadly, the shakeup I wanted so many years ago has happened. Though not in the way that I had hoped. I suppose I wanted a Jimmy Stewart kind of person to arrive in Washington and pull us out of the mire and into an educated, honest, respectable future in which the interests of the people were looked after, where health care was talked about in terms of just how much people have to pay in a doctor's visit or at the hospital - not just insurance, but the cost people have to pay while big pharma gets wealthy of the sick.
And I wanted the old guard to stop thinking about itself and about the planet. We cannot be isolationists, though that is a point of view I sometimes still struggle to let go. We cannot remove ourselves from the world. We are too interwoven into the lives of all around us to try and extract ourselves for the sake of ourselves.
I had hoped for a noble leader who would champion human rights and be a shining example for all the world. I had hoped that politics would be upended by and for the people.
I guess when I wished for a political shakeup, I didn't offer the specificity I needed to. And now? There seems to be a haze or a daze surrounding each news broadcast, where Tweets replace journalism and the claim of fake news becomes the shield behind which people can hide instead of having to take responsibility for their actions.
I look around and, as the Who sang, I get on my knees and pray we won't be fooled again. But I realize for us not to be fooled again, we have to realize that we have been fooled already. And I had hoped for more from our leaders. But I find that George Carlin summed it up best:
"Everybody complains about politicians. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders."
As Sheryl Crow sang, "A change will do you good." I thought so, too. And maybe, if we keep singing it, we might keep that idea alive for the future. For now? I don't know if we can overcome the change we have wrought.
Then that became the status quo, with the thing Republicans were for was to be against the Democrats and the thing that the Democrats were for was to be against the Republicans. And the people who were sending these persons to steer the future of the country mattered less and less.
And then we got into wars that haven't ended - that have run the entire lifetime of some high school kids. Wars that were falsely presented and that have no end in sight. War became our job as a country, with education being relegated to the back-burner and money seeming to become the only issue of national interest that either party could agree on. And somewhere along the line the downward spiral led to where we are now.
I don't think we have hit the bottom yet.
And sadly, the shakeup I wanted so many years ago has happened. Though not in the way that I had hoped. I suppose I wanted a Jimmy Stewart kind of person to arrive in Washington and pull us out of the mire and into an educated, honest, respectable future in which the interests of the people were looked after, where health care was talked about in terms of just how much people have to pay in a doctor's visit or at the hospital - not just insurance, but the cost people have to pay while big pharma gets wealthy of the sick.
And I wanted the old guard to stop thinking about itself and about the planet. We cannot be isolationists, though that is a point of view I sometimes still struggle to let go. We cannot remove ourselves from the world. We are too interwoven into the lives of all around us to try and extract ourselves for the sake of ourselves.
I had hoped for a noble leader who would champion human rights and be a shining example for all the world. I had hoped that politics would be upended by and for the people.
I guess when I wished for a political shakeup, I didn't offer the specificity I needed to. And now? There seems to be a haze or a daze surrounding each news broadcast, where Tweets replace journalism and the claim of fake news becomes the shield behind which people can hide instead of having to take responsibility for their actions.
I look around and, as the Who sang, I get on my knees and pray we won't be fooled again. But I realize for us not to be fooled again, we have to realize that we have been fooled already. And I had hoped for more from our leaders. But I find that George Carlin summed it up best:
"Everybody complains about politicians. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders."
As Sheryl Crow sang, "A change will do you good." I thought so, too. And maybe, if we keep singing it, we might keep that idea alive for the future. For now? I don't know if we can overcome the change we have wrought.
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