bitterisataste . . . words and ramblings . . . v.6.0

A Few Things I Learned Over the Summer of 2009 Part 4

Thursday, September 17, 2009

this entry brought to you by sleater-kinney, "the wilderness"

here's a link to yesterday's entry, and it has to do with dick cheney.

I've been through two different elections that were stolen, both of them by George Bush. It was obvious in 2000 how it happened, more subtle in 2004, but even Tom Ridge, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, who was responsible for changing the color-coded terror alerts, thought something was fishy in 2004 and is only now speaking up.

And even though I saw the Republicans at the absolute most bat-shit desperate and crazy during the 2008 elections, it's only now, during the summer of 2009, that I feel like I'm honestly losing faith in the democratic process.

It's not that I dislike Obama, or that I distrust Obama, or feel that he's doing a bad job. I do not regret having voted for Barack Obama. I feel like no matter what things are like right now, we would have most definitely have been worse off with McCain/Palin as the President.

With that said, in poll after poll the vast majority of Americans-- an average of 73%, and there have been polls saying as high as 83%-- support a single payer health care system, and amongst Democrats only the percentage is even higher. And yet time and time again we hear that there aren't enough votes for a single payer health care system. In fact, as it turns out, it was never in the proposal, it was never an option, and Obama himself sold it out for the support of Big Pharma.

Forget the Republicans for a moment. Why in the world wouldn't the Democrats have the votes for a single payer system? Almost a full three quarters of the country support it! Who are these people representing? It's certainly not America.

I don't think the system works. The system was created to support a growing fledgling nation. It was designed when there were still only 13 colonies on the flag, and while they designed it with the idea that the country would grow, they could have never, ever even dreamed of a day when television would appear. "The Media" at the time meant newspapers and journalists, where at the very best it would take days after something happened and anybody else that wasn't actually standing there found out about it.

Our system of government was not created knowing that there would one day be a thing that could broadcast the news as it was happening, our founders had no idea that there would be stations that had 24 hours to fill with news, and, seeing as how there just isn't that much news in the world, that every piece of minutiae would be dissected by a desperate and thirsty media.

Keep in mind that I'm not necessarily trying to make media fundamentally evil. If it's one thing that I dislike, it's the demonizing of the media. For the record I think broadcast news sucks and I don't get my news from it at all, and haven't in over a decade. But I hate it when "the media" is demonized because in this day and age "the media" is a rather amorphous, vague idea. We all know exactly what it is, but would have a hard time describing it exactly in five words or less, and if we did, the description would differ from the next person's. "The media" as a pejorative has become a lot like "The Man"-- a thing to point at when things go wrong, a thing to hate and mock, but a thing that doesn't at all exist the way its being made an example of. You could say "the media" 150 years ago and be dead on-- anybody in the journalism industry that didn't make a fringe newsletter because he knew a guy who knew a guy who worked at a printing press and could print up things during off hours. Nowadays even the idea of "off hours" at a printing press is non existent-- those machines are always printing something, and it costs so much to do so that only major conglomerates can afford to use them.

But this is actually a good example of what I'm talking about. There was once a point in time where anyone with some money could make a newspaper and make a profit off of it with smart management. Nowadays this is virtually impossible. I hope I'm quoting this statistic properly, but I'm going off memory-- in 1984, there were over 50 major media groups. In 1998, there were ten. In 2003, there were six.

The reason the news sucks is because members of the media don't work for news organizations anymore, they work for weapons manufacturers and appliance makers. They are at the mercy of their corporate overlords, and when their corporate overlords don't like the message being told, they pull the plug.

The reason politics suck is because in order to stand a chance at the voting booths they need to have a presence on television in order to get people aware of who they are. They can't get the money to put their names on television without taking corporate sponsors. The very same corporate sponsors who already own the media. They are at the mercy of their corporate overlords, and when their corporate overlords don't like the message being told, they pull the plug.

Anyone who knows anything about politics knows these are the facts. And it's one thing to know how dire and frustrating the background of politics is, but it's another to see it in action.

When was the last time Congress passed a major piece of legislation that didn't benefit corporations? When was the last time Congress passed a major piece of legislation that had lasting and major social change? And it's not like we can't say we haven't needed it until now. Even our President hasn't been able to get rid of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" by simply signing it out of existence.

For the record, I understand that we're not just talking about social change, we're talking about perhaps the most major single piece of social change in the history of this country after civil rights. And I understand that can't happen over night, and I understand that it can't happen easily, or else it would've happen generations ago.

Yet it seems like our system of government would inevitably come out this way, that the way it was set up and the way technology has evolved meant that it couldn't not turn into a mentally retarded sloth incapable of saving itself or doing anything but feed the parasites that enslave it. And when you look at other Western democracies that seem to be flourishing where we are faltering, and you wonder if its their youth that made them overcome all this. They were young enough to see the problems in the future and could do something, whereas for America, stuck in its ways, it was far too late.

I honestly don't know what to make of America right now. I don't blame its woes on the current President. I still like the guy, and not just because I voted for him, but because I know for as frustrated as I am as a progressive person, I know that he's not me, that he would probably be eaten alive if he were me, and I know he needs to be a little more moderate to get things done. We don't see eye to eye on the way to bring about change, but we're different people, and I accept that.

I don't want to say that I want my country back, at least, not in terms of politics. I'd like my country back, but when I say that, it has nothing to do with the constitution, and everything to do with wanting the country that once knew creationism was for church and the idea of evolution being controversial or somehow equal to creationism was something to be argued when Polio or pneumonia was a genuine threat to the lives of Americans. But that's not what this is about. This is about the idea that our government-- big or small-- does not seem to be working the way it was intended, and I'm beginning to wonder if it can. This is more than just feeling disenfranchised, this feels like a ride in a car with no brakes and all the locks are broken off. Maybe it's only moving 5 miles an hour, but eventually it will ride right off of a cliff.
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with love from CRS @ 8:36 AM

Thursday, September 17, 2009

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