We the People...Is it Wednesday yet?

Well, there’s just one more day left until election day, and let me tell you, I will dance for joy when it’s finally all over. I am so totally disgusted by the electioneering process that I may vomit.

Notice the word electioneering. You know other words like this: buccaneer, privateer, puppeteer…pirates, mercenaries, and manipulators, oh my! Gee, do they have anything in common? This is not disgust with the election process, this is revulsion at the way the parties, all of them, have abused the national tolerance for bad taste with an endless barrage of lies, damned lies and statistics. (Thank you, Mark Twain, for bringing that phrase back from England.) What we have witnessed is the debasing of the fundamentals of democracy though abuse of the media. And what’s worse, the media has aided and abetted in that exitium veritas.

Call me a naïf, but I used to believe Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, and David Brinkley told it to us straight, without rancor and hyperbole; unvarnished truth even when we didn’t want to hear it. The news was delivered without bias; you could listen, hear two sides, and make up your own mind.

Enter the opinionators. What they offer is not news.  I don’t need shrill screed pouring out of my television to know that there are differing opinions in America. I don’t need the verbal assaults of Glenn Beck or Chris Matthews to know that they are both twisting the truth, if not lying outright. They are not about electing the best possible candidate; they are about influence peddling. They are clearly not interested in reality; they are only interested in self-aggrandizement at the expense of our democratic souls. 

Because we have permitted those pseudo-journalists to twist and turn every utterance, the electioneers have used that vituperative, vitriolic meanness in an unceasing barrage of negativity concentrated on slander, obfuscation and prevarication, treating us as if we are too stupid to understand the basics of economic theory and practice.  

But we are not too stupid. In fact, most of America is pretty smart…or at least we’re smart enough to know when our chain is being jerked. And to that end, I would make the following statements for the benefit of the others who haven’t figured it out:

• Anyone who thinks that the Federal budget can be balanced without raising taxes should think about what alternate mode of transportation he/she is going to use when there’s no money to maintain the crumbling interstate highway system.

• Anyone who thinks fighting two wars didn’t cost our country billions in squandered resources, both human and financial, has never given much thought to where his/her tax money  goes…and doesn’t go.  

• Anyone who thinks we need less government oversight of industry has never heard of Toyota, Wright County Egg, Enron, BP, or thalidomide.

• Anyone who thinks that this nation’s economy can be turned around on a dime has forgotten that it took 8 years of reckless economic policy or lack thereof to get us here in the first place, and it’s going to take some time to staunch the bleeding and begin the hard work of economic repair.

© 2010, Emma E. Simon

This is no longer about being a Democrat or a Republican. This is about being an American. If we fail to let our would-be elected officials know this is unacceptable behavior, we get exactly what we deserve. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were right: stopping this insanity is up to us, We the People.

We the People have two years until the next presidential debacle. Let us use this time wisely; let’s make sure the unelected electioneers know we’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.

Wifely Person’s Tip o’the Week

Vote

It’s just that simple.