Political Fatigue

There was a time when I was really into politics. This began around the age of 22 or so - I began seeing the world in a different light.  My interest was piqued around the 2004 re-election of president Bush.  I read blogs about politics - wrote my own - watched documentaries about the election and about politics in general.  (Yes, even Michael Moore's demonized documentaries.)  The new picture of my world was bleak. It was then that I realized that adults are actually just kids with wrinkles with [sometimes] better grammar. I was always told to respect your elders but these elders often spoke with venemous tongues in a fashion that was reminiscent of schoolyard banter. Fighting for change is a common mantra and rebelling against the system seems to go hand-in-hand with the mindset of the youth trying to make sense of the world around them. It's cool to protest against something, it seemed. I don't know what's changed within me these past few years. It's almost as if it's pointless when I realize an injustice of some sort has been done, yet all that I can do is become upset about it. At the end of the day I have all of this knowledge about political misdeeds and what I had to show for it was nothing but pent up anger and disgust.

Maybe it's good to be angry and disgusted about something to a certain degree - but maybe the cynic in me believes that democracy is an illusion and the energy and anger I feel toward the system leaves me with just that at the end of the day. We are quick to question the validity of elections in other countries unless the new leader is someone we'd gladly rather deal with.  We are quick to invade another country when there's an opportunist incentive to do so, yet we turn a blind eye to many far worse situations out there.  Money is what makes the world go 'round. Politicians can be bought and operate smoothly, and invincibly as if they possess the Ring of Gyges.

But then I begin to feel that 'they've won' if I let this get to me.  To quote someone named Adolf Hitler, he said, "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."  That's the problem in a nutshell.  Many people do not think.  Even those that do are overwhelmed by the majority that don't.  You see people voting against their own economic interests yet they don't think twice about it because the stuff they're spoon fed often goes down easier when they're assured it's aligned with their Christian faith anyway.  Politicians know they can exploit the fundamentalists.  You often hear of politicians running on a family values platform and then getting caught fucking their secretary.  I am sure that some of it is because of the two-faced religious politicians but I think a majority of it is that they're actually just clever politicians that just got caught.  They're smarter than we think they are--they use religion as their platform because people eat that shit up.  Then when they get caught being a human being, we understandably throw them under the bus.

I think it's just that I'm fed up with the sophomoric dialogue.  The talking heads talk their shit and get a paycheck, often contradicting themselves so much that they begin contradicting their contradictions.    They run on a conservative family values platform, fuck their secretaries, harass their pages, and solicit sex in men's rooms.  Now all that to me sounds kind of fun and I might be more apt to give you a pass if you weren't a bigoted fuck who represented himself as a saint to get into office.  So you have to understand why it makes sense to point out why you're a dick.  This goes double if you've actively hampered the progress of those who want sexual equality and you get caught trying to fuck men yourself.

It's a big sideshow out there.  Maybe that's part of what turns me off.  I can't see myself having the tenacity to keep at writing posts like these.  They drain me, though admittedly there's something sort of satisfying about letting it all out.  Maybe that's a good enough reason to keep up with the drama even if it feels hopeless?  I don't know.