I've been away

a very very long time. I've mostly been posting to my other blog and not posting about politics much at all. Frankly, it's too damn depressing.

This election cycle has lasted a decade, hasn't it? It's interminable. And it's hard to have any hope, even with the big hope candidate, Barak Obama. Is anything really going to change? We had such high hopes when we elected a Democratic congress. After almost two years, there's not really much to show for it. They've had a few minor victories, but the most depressing, demoralizing, heartbreaking thing is that on the really serious issues, the ones that stem from violation of the Constitution; on those we've had nothing. I mean, nothing. I could still have hope if the Dems had fought tooth and nail and lost... then there's hope for the future, if we can get enough Dems in power. But they've bent over and puckered up for every important vote, and given Bush just what he wants. There's been no accountability, no change in policy, no transparency. No oversight. And that is horrific. If the Dems can't stand up and do what is right now, how can we believe things will be any different if they're elected?

And now we've allowed the media to select our nominees. Anyone with a backbone or a voice has been ignored, marginalized, and forced out of the race. Goodbye, Dennis. Goodbye, John. We're left with Republican light. The media focuses on Hillary's tears and Obama's charisma and John McCain's age, and Ron Paul's groupies. Bill Clinton's antics. Talk on the issues, when it does occur, is mostly limited to what the opposing candidate said inaccurately about the policy.

Despite multiple studies from independent groups illustrating the extent to which we have been lied to, manipulated, used, abused, and violated, that barely makes a dent in the wall to wall 24 hour news coverage. Sure, it gets reported, for a day or two, then forgotten. Forgotten partly because anyone in a position to do anything about it refuses to. What's the point in reporting it if there aren't any consequences? Especially when there's Brittany Spears lurking in the background to grab headlines, or another pregnant white woman missing.

It's a closed cycle. The Dems don't fear being voted out of office because the Reps have screwed up so insurmountably badly that they figure they're a shoo-in. We have no choice other than Dem or Rep because third party candidates are marginalized and portrayed as crackpots. We are told over and over they have no chance of winning and so are defeated before they start. They get no funding; who wants to back a losing candidate? So we're left with uber rich politicos who can raise funding near the national debt.

Does anyone besides me find that obscene? I mean, people kvetch about the cost of the war (in dollars of course, not lives; lives are expendable). A trillion dollars that could have been spent on schools and infrastructure and poverty! The problem is, that trillion dollars isn't real. Its imaginary. It's debt in loans to China and who else knows where that we someday will have to pay back. So it's not like well, we have this money, we can spend it on war, or on education. It's fictitious. But the money given to political candidates? That's real money. Cold hard cash. Millions and millions a month. A MONTH. Given to pay for print ads, and TV ads and robocalling and push polling. Can you imagine what could be done with all that money? What really pisses me off about it is that these same people who give huge donations to political parties and candidates will recoil in horror at paying a fraction of that amount in more taxes to give health care to children.

The founding fathers were amazingly foresighted, and built some wonderful checks and balances into our government. The only things they couldn't protect us against were systemic corruption of our public servants and apathy of the people. They've become a deadly combination, and I fear for the survival of our Republic if something doesn't change soon.