The Current State of Affairs

 I wrote this during the last Presidential election.  Believe it’s still very apropos . . .

The Current State of Affairs

You know, you read the news anymore and you wonder.  Is there hope for the next generation?  What will become of my son Ian in the future?  Is life all about greed and who has the most power and money?  Is it about every level of government sleeping in bed with special interest groups and corporate America brokering power? Seeking to control the people and ultimately silence them?  We have become so far removed from the precepts of the Declaration of Independence and its basic core values.  Our founding fathers have to be rolling in their graves and shuddering.  The present government is prostituting everything contained in the Declaration, diluting it, making it cheap, by slowly and insidiously writing out and excluding the common people from government.  Perhaps I’m waxing a bit cynical these days, huh?

The presidential debate we are currently in has been captivating at times, but it also shocks me the candidates seem to think that the people are stupid and gullible.  As if we can’t see through their bullshit and political posturing – to the truth.  Politics aren’t civil or about public service anymore.  They’re about getting the vote, getting the power no matter the cost.  Platforms change like shifting sands, rendering it difficult for the people to get a baseline on what the candidate actually believes. Are they telling the  truth, or is it all a pack of lies to get that vote? The end result is, we wind up choosing someone else, and even from another party, just to avoid electing someone we don’t trust or believe in.

These days, elections are all about splitting hairs and mudslinging.  It’s about who has the most funds to buy the vote.  The notion that say Clinton and Obama are going to share the ticket and work together is a joke when you look at their public conduct in recent debates.  One minute they’re buddy-buddy, and the next minute they’re cutting each other’s throats.  What’s with that?  The self-aggrandizement is so arrogant and pompous, it makes me sick!  People say, well, that’s part of the game. I hear that, but why does it have to be that way? It’s not a game. It’s about the lives and livelihoods of every American.  Hanging by the twisted umbilical cord of choices made by our elected officials.  When I think of all the funds garnered for the political campaigns and see the often immoral and unethical conduct of the politicos, I’m disgusted!  People in our own country, in our own towns, are out of work, struggling to hold on to their homes, languishing in poverty and just trying to make an honest living.  To many, the American Dream has been shattered to pieces. There is a great gulf fixed between middle class America and the powers that be.

What will become of us “commoners?”  What would happen if we asked the candidates to put their money where their mouths are?  What if we asked them to take all the campaign funds and donate them to worthy causes to reduce poverty and pull people out of this horrible recession?  Oh my God!!  We could affect so much change with these funds!!  So much!  But unfortunately I just don’t see that happening anytime soon. Too much power-mongering and greed.

It would be neat if we could get an honest, simple answer to any question posed one of the candidates instead of them dithering around while trying to compose an answer that will get them the vote.  Why all the hem-hawing and politico-speak?  The end result is the people know that the candidates are liars and cheats.  They learn not to trust government anymore.  Is this what the founding fathers had in mind?  I doubt that very much.  We now have a watered-down Declaration of Independence.  We the people is rapidly becoming we the government. And oh what a shame it is. . .