Obama came off as a bored poli sci teacher? Romney went back and forth between lies and vague claims without any meat behind them? Obama made such balderdash as Mitt Romney's cuts would add $5T to the deficit and that the middle class actually improved under Clinton (both things TECHNICALLY true - but technically in that $5T is if Romney's cuts hold over 10 years and Clinton made things a little better for the middle class but INORDINATELY better for the upper class and, when accounting for how much middle class prosperity was bought on credit and how much cost of living went up, it actually wasn't so good - so basically these were, in fact, at best well-stated deceptions).
You wanna fact check them? Here, this is a pretty good bipartisan analysis of the liars on both sides.
But we're officially 1 month out, a midway point as it were so I'm gonna just talk about how sick this whole thing makes me.
Next week I'll get back to analysis with a rundown of both men's track records and qualifications but for this week, let me just echo the rest of America in wondering what the fuck?
What the fuck is happening when Romney is unable to admit that Obama's health care plan is almost exactly like his Massachusetts plan?
What the fuck is happening when they both just repeat catch phrases ("$5 Trillion tax cut" coming from Obama to which Romney replies "I will cut taxes but I will not cut taxes if they raise the deficit") like two arguing bitches on BAD GIRLS CLUB?
What the fuck is happening when each president is raising and spending close to $1B in funds for an election, essentially tying wealth to politics in growing numbers? At the turn of the millenium former Senator and democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley brought up the fact that "democracy and capitalism are separate parts of the American dream, and that keeping that dream alive depends on keeping one from corrupting the other." Then he lost to al Gore thanks to the man's deep pockets who then lost to W. thanks to his deeper pockets. As Republican president and Mt. Rushmore fixture Teddy Roosevelt said, "There is absolutely nothing to be said for government by a plutocracy, for government by men very powerful in certain lines and gifted with a 'money touch', but with ideals which in their essence are merely those of so many glorified pawnbrokers."
It's disgusting that they have to both resort to trying to smear the other person because Americans don't want to take the time to see why they should like and vote for one man as much as they want to see why they should dislike and not vote for another.
It's disgusting that the Republican party has become a party of stuffy flip-floppers because they've decided to take in all the whackjobs and, much like the bible usually espoused by said whackjobs, couldn't possibly hope to rectify all the conflicting ethos they've brought together.
It's disgusting that the Democratic party vilifies Republican money men while turning around to stroke technocrats and media millionaires and that the Democratic party is just as ineffectual and frozen in overanalytical fear and political correctness as the Republican party is bold and fearless.
And finally, it's disgusting that our own parties have instilled in us such a hatred of the opposing party that we lack any ability to ever cross lines. That I can't discuss politics with my Republican friends because they say I'm betraying America and, perhaps they feel they can't discuss with me because I might think them stodgy or something? I don't know but, in the end, the thing that really pisses me off is that politics is just another reality show, the parties have gone from being fluid evolving entities as envisioned by the founding fathers to hardened frozen opposing teams just a decade or two from Iraqi sectarian enemies, and while we all piss on each other and listen to Romney making bold claims that can't have much basis in actual logical fact and listen to Obama asking for more time after dropping the ball first time around, the rest of the world is slowly burning, the seas are rising, Americans are getting fat and weak, America's getting addicted and lazy, the very wealth concentration and primogeniture our founding fathers rebelled against has never been stronger in America, the very corporate government corruption they had the Tea Party over (because it wasn't about the government's taxes but about the government raising the taxes at the demand of corporate interests in England, corporate interests which also forced Britain to not allow America to buy tea from competing nations) is slowly beginning to define our current governmental environment in both parties, the closest thing to citizens getting out and genuinely trying to reform the system (Occupy...) was derailed by the fact that they were too non-committal and perhaps uneducated to identify a real concrete problem and put together a concrete plan, and it took goddamn 6 months, 5 doctors, and multiple x-rays and MRI's thanks to our obfuscating health care system for the bastards to identify my simple shoulder sprain and dislocation and fix it so I could continue trying to distract myself from the hideousness of it all by climbing mountains and surfing and playing in alumni lacrosse games.
So there's the rub. Next week it's back to ground-breaking analysis of these two presidential bastards. But for this week, I gotta say something's really gotta change so that, as civil War hero James B. Weaver said "the wealth of the country should diffuse itself among the people according to natural and beneficent laws. They [the founders of our nation] did not contemplate the creation of these corporations that are as real entities as are individuals." Should this march towards plutocracy, general ignorance, low-grade entertainment-as-drug (and, hell, pills as drug) and the disappearance of American manufacturing and middle class continue, our nation will have to start accepting its backup role - global cool generator and tourist hotspot. AKA Italy II.
So for now, start getting involved. Learn about the issues. Hopefully this series has some educational value but you really need to read anything and everything, see it from all sides, be the well-informed person you claim to be instead of merely spouting party rhetoric without actually trying to see the facts.
Vote in this election and when you see all the other issues on the ballot, don't be a brainwashed asshole and just vote along party lines but actually be educated on those as well. You're better than being just another sheep. So is America.
Isn't it?
- Ryan
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