Monday, October 29, 2007

Indivisible? Indeed.

The Pledge of Allegiance tells us that the United States is "One Nation, Indivisible." Yeah, right. One only has to look at the hot topics in the US political landscape that that statement couldn't be further from the truth.

The political system that is in place depends on the populace being divided. The issues that keep the population battling one another, the black-and-white issues ranging from gun control to abortion to the death sentence to gay marriage to prayer in schools are well-selected because they keep people talking in these boolean terms; good versus evil, right versus wrong, Republican versus Democrat. The focus on these issues drag us away from the real issues facing our country. In part, how are we as a society trying to make ourselves better? Do we care about jobs going overseas? Is the war in Iraq a good thing (polls say the population doesn't support it, but the politicians largely seem to think we need to "stay the course")? How about the obesity "epidemic" that's facing us right now? Certainly the growing girth of our future generation is something that could stand some consideration from our leaders.

Yes, engineered are the messages. The politicians are focused on one thing, they want to be re-elected. The way they get re-elected is to have a substantial marketing budget, and that budget comes from campaign contributions, consisting largely of corporate contributions. Therefore it only seems logical that the politicians on the whole would wish to please their corporate masters and deflect any public attention to what they're actually doing in their respective seats of government.

It's sickening to me. Thus, this blog. Welcome.

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