Here's why Ms Snowe is full of shit: she (entirely unoriginally, and like every retired elected) says what's needed is for people to speak up. Right. But there's a tiny problem with that: the people who elected the obstructionist denialist and uncompromising legislators are perfectly happy with the situation. Think people who elected Michele Bachmann or Louie Gohmert regret it? Think they'd be telling them to compromise? Same with Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell. It's simply bullshit. It won't change, ever; not until it's too late (it already is.) Not until people stop thinking Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity are gods of the gospel. Not until people recognize that public education and respect for science are critical to our future. They won't. In numbers enough to thumb the scales, they've already made up their minds.
And that's the other end of the turd that is Ms Snowe's hey-it-ain't-my-fault contention: the system is set up so that even if the idiots are in the minority, they have the power to block progress. Witness the "failed" background check legislation: a 54% favorable failure. So she can shift blame to a propagandized or disinterested public all she wants. Calling your congressman, while probably still a good idea because who knows, simply doesn't stack up against the stacked deck and the power of big money.
Or am I missing something?
Alrighty then. So now what? Howl like hell, raise hell, or what? Complain like hell- you've been doing it, we're all screwed? I hate to say it, and I don't mean it to be offensive, or derogatory, but it's all sounding like a broken record. Kinda like listening to the pundits. Nothing new, nothing changes regardless of your efforts, or ours. Our politics and politicians are all on the take- lobbyists, and big money, us peons don't stand a chance. I've already thrown in the towel with regard to thinking that my voice, letters, emails, or my calls, may make a difference. They don't. It's all bullshit. So now what? Don't you ever get tired of complaining? Throw us some ideas for a change. Propose some solutions, start a commune, grow your hair down to your ass, wear tie died t-shirts, flip flops, and raise goats. Hell I don't know. At times it's like listening to Jackson Brown- sometimes after hearing one of his songs a fella just wants to sit in a corner and suck on a bullet... bring me my whiskey, bring me my shotgun and my sleeping pills. Oh wait, that's Siegel-Schwall...
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with anything you said, Cory, including the quality of my writing and thinking. I ask myself all the time why I'm writing at all, and I have no real answer other than I feel like doing it. There's no expectation that it'll accomplish anything for anyone except me.
ReplyDeleteFact is, I don't think there's anything that can be done. In our state, we have thoughtful legislators. They're (relatively speaking) not the problem. And the ones that are are safe from unelection, because they're exactly what their electorate wants: backward-thinking, obstructionist, religionists, for whom cutting taxes is the only thing, no matter the impact. On bridges, for example; or education.
There's nothing you or I can do to stop that woman from hauling her kids away from Bill Nye because he said the moon doesn't generate its own light.
And I can tell you, based on my newspaper column, that there's no amount of factual refutation that'll affect false beliefs; about the economy, or Obama, or liberals, or education... In fact, the more I reply with facts, the more they dig in, and change the subject.
It's really amazing, and as foreign a way of thinking as I can imagine. I can only wonder what it is in people like that who prefer to believe in the demonstrably untrue. And I sure as hell don't believe I, or anyone, can change it.