Tangent

My brain has been churning for a few days after the midterm elections. I am a political junkie of sorts. I oscillate between hope and severe cynicism. Anyway I think there may be something at play that I wanted to jot down.

I think there is national funk going on. I think that many people (especially outside the Washington beltline) are starting to feel that the best times are behind the USA. They see that incomes are flat or falling while at the same time things (health care, food, utilities) are increasing in price, even though the government says that inflation is flat or non existent. Young people have to go into debt to get through college and still cannot get a job. Senior citizens see their life savings riding on the stock market roller coaster or no cost of living increases from Social Security.
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What this all means is that people are scared, angry and frustrated. What do you do when you are in this funk?
1. You can become a Tea Bagger . Yes government is failing to solve anything. They keep spending money they do not have.
2. You can latch on political party and hope beyond logic that they will finally do what they say in the soundbites.
3. You can look for someone to blame for all the problem: illegal immigrant, socialists, aliens?
4. You give up. You do not vote because you believe (with some good logic) that nothing will change.

We are in trouble! Why would the same parties that have been in charge for the last 100 years do something radical to change the direction of the country? If you add in the factor of money and special influence, it is unlikely that we will see any real change in the next several years. A Tea party activists is not much different from a hard core Democratic party idealist. I think they hold these strong and passionate beliefs because the alternative is to accept that it possibly hopeless.

I got into a heated discussion with someone after a 'progressive rally'. This person was criticizing me because I was critical of Obamas middling health care reform, lack of follow through on closing Guantanamo and the practise of assassinations of both foreigners and US citizens without any due process. His point was that we have to support the Democrats because the alternative is so much worse.

I really hope that is not what we have come to. I also feel that things are in a bad shape in this country. We cannot continue to do nothing because we are sliding backwards.
I often fantasize about a party or group of leaders who would lay out a vision for the future. I hope that things do not get much worse before we see some alternative future.