Esoteric Bowl

So often during these past few weeks I’ve resisted the urge to get on my soapbox and rail against Mr Bush and those of his administration. Despite the lies, deceit, ineptitude, and corporate-friendly policies, there comes a time when the outrage moves to acceptance and a desire to move on to new ideas.

To be sure, this acceptance is not condoning the decisions and misinformation of this administration, but rather acknowledging what Mr Bush is all about, and understanding that nothing I write or say is going to change him, his policies, or your opinion. The way I see it, you are either really angry and disgusted with Mr Bush and his administration, or you’re enamored with Mr Bush and there is nothing he can do to upset you outside of nominating Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.

There are countless blogs on the web dedicated to either attacking or defending Mr Bush and his policies. There are also political chat-rooms where individuals take turns calling each other names and attacking each other. Talk radio and cable television news-shows are often much worse. Even on the once civil C-SPAN call-in show, partisans now hog the airwaves. In short, so many have become mirror images of the politicians in Washington, regurgitating the talking points and fighting over one political battle to the next, yet very few are actually listening and even fewer are willing to compromise in developing alternative ideas.

Far too often in recent years what is best for the country has taken a backseat to what is best for a political party to get reelected. The best ideas for all concerned are too often ignored or pushed aside for policies that serve only the privileged, the corporate lobbyists and/or the special interest groups. One need only look at the plethora of problems along with the largest debt in the nation’s history to understand that we the people are not being represented.

The country is in need of new ideas. In many ways, the problems and challenges we now face were brought about by ideas, albeit wrong ideas, but ideas just the same. And if we are to get out of the morass we are in, it must be on the strength of our ideas. Granted, Mr Bush will be in office for three more years, and he hasn’t been open to many new ideas. However, a year from now there will be elections, and those elections will be crucial. Rather than wait until the elections for the politicians or the media to tell us what issues are important and what ideas are best for the nation, we must decide that for ourselves now.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 1st, 2005 at 5:58 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.