To the Death.
Lately I have felt a vague apprehension regarding the level of political upheaval in the world. I don’t know enough about the issues to have strong opinions, but I’ve been trying to catch up. Highest on my list of priorities has been learning about what the heck is going on in Wisconsin. A friend told me that the governor wanted to take away all public employees’ benefits, and then I heard that he wanted to prohibit collective bargaining. I switched my radio from music to NPR to see if I could find out some more about what was going on and came across a segment which suggested that the GOP wanted to break up unions because they usually backed Democrats. I’ve been hunting around on the internet and have found a secret memo that suggests this is true, but have yet to find the quote, attributed to Karl Rove, that essentially said that it was important to bust the unions in order to undermine the Democrats in elections. If you have links to this please share in the comments, if you have links to suggest otherwise please share that as well.
Now, if this is true, our political situation is quite a bit worse than I had suspected. I know that many will say I am naive to have ever thought differently, but I thought we were at least still pretending that this was about philosophy. An attempt to crush an organization because they are funding the other party says that it doesn’t matter what is best for the people, they just want to win. When I say “they” I mean all of the politicians that are keeping us hostage in this two party warfare, who would rather have their team win than see us succeed; and I know there are plenty on both sides who fall into that category.
This struggle for power means that no matter what one side tries, the other will try to prove they are wrong. We are pulled into this. We want our side to win because we think it will benefit us, but “winning” alone benefits no one. In order for most of us to win we need to see good policies put into place, and we need them to be left alone long enough to have an effect. The pull for power ensures this wont happen because if a policy doesn’t magically fix everything in five minutes we move on to something else (except the drug policy, we doggedly cling to that despite decades of failure).
We are all losing, and we are supporting the people and policies that leave us to struggle. This kinda colored my week and made me feel not so awesome.
For more information about what is going on in Wisconsin click here.
At the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland
2 Comments
Unfortunately, politics is about power and image. I’m not sure its always been anything else. This is why people can’t just expect to limit their civic duties to watching campaign ads and voting for the president. I myself don’t do a whole lot else besides inform myself, but do very little else on the ground, admittedly. I suppose I try to live my life according to my beliefs, but I’m little involving in volunteering and collective action.
We can tweak our system here and there, try to improve things on the behavioral level, but it will always look dirty up close. But, looking at the big picture, democracy sucks, what else you gonna turn too? Wasn’t there some Churchill quote about democracy is the worst system of governance, beside all of the other ones?
Yes, that is a lovely quote, but it seems to me if you look at some of our stats in health, happiness, and drug use compared to other countries the question of whether or not the US has the best government seems pretty valid.
I am under the impression that political debate in the past included more arguments around who had the best ideas, now it seems most of the focus is on tearing the other side apart, often with fabrications. I am specifically thinking of the death panel fiasco now, and how politicians (or pundits) twist things around to stir up controversy, without any regard to accurate reporting. I think there should be a punishment for misleading the public. Maybe tar and feathering?
Post a Comment