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I used to be fascinated with the political process. I really thought it was something to behold. But the further down the line I get, I honestly can’t understand why someone wants to serve the un-servable. Yup, there it is, I’ve said it. We’re all a bunch of whiny kids in need of a snot rag. We all have the attention span of a gnat and we can’t keep a train of thought beyond the six seconds it takes us to read a headline. We get the majority of our news from packages prepared by marketing agencies and we now select our information with a bias. It’s true we have both kinds of news -- our and theirs, which is more commonly referred to as Fox and MSNBC. We’re all running in a million different directions while updating our Facebook status and texting, leaving one very important question ... what are you steering the car with?
When President Obama took office the biggest issue was healthcare. "Nobody should lose their home because they get sick and nobody should get sick because they lose their homes," and, "No one should go broke because they get sick." These were statements that we’re thrown around while the economy was collapsing. But when it finally did collapse, the focus switched to the economy, as it should have. But, let me offer this -- people were still losing their homes, people were still getting sick, people were still uninsured. But this new shiny thing went rolling by and we forgot
I’m not proclaiming that I’m any different, mind you. Sometimes things pop up and I’m not sure why they take so long to knock back down, but this I’ll blame on the political process. There’s so much wrangling going back and forth with every step they take spent being concerned about the next election cycle. It’s frustrating -- very, very frustrating. But I’d gather equally as frustrating as a constituency that needs Adderall to remember what they said two days ago.
And please don’t take this column as some testament against those that suffer from ADHD or are ADD. I’m merely using the terms as a way to make my case. Obviously we can’t medicate everyone and some of us don’t need medicating. We just need to find an issue, resolve it and move on.
With all the partisan football that’s being played however, it’s hard as a citizen to keep up with things. In order to get a bill about clean air pushed through you might have to support someone else’s agenda on raising the tax rate for the poor, or cutting support to public school systems. It’s just how these things work and we sit idly by and allow it to happen. But we allow it to happen because we don’t read beyond the third paragraph; we don’t listen to more than a 10-second sound clip so when the clean air bill gets passed in New Jersey we don’t understand why the high school choir program got cut there, too.
Well, frankly I’m getting a little tired of the whole process, it wears on me. We continually elect the unelectable who serve the un-servable and the only thing we have in common is we want it all and we want it now. What happened to us? When did we become that society that took what our grandparents taught and flushed it? Again I’m not claiming innocence here. I like some immediate gratification. But the bigger picture says we should wait, and good things come to those who wait, right? Right? Hello! What the hell is up with that?
Fish is the morning talent on Classic Hits 92.7 FM. He also offers up his opinion online at www.whatda hell.net. E-mail him at fish@wk vt.com.
