Tempers in the crowd ran high Monday during a massive rally at the nation's capital aimed at provoking tempers in the crowd to run high. "There is a palpable sense of anger within the American voting public today," media correspondent Janet Hargrove said of the event, which played on such base human emotions as ignorance, fear, and xenophobia to give the impression of a palpable sense of anger within the American voting public today. "It's almost as if thousands of people came to this rally with the intention of being angered, and then were." When asked later about their rage, people at the rally were unable to pinpoint its cause, but expressed a vague desire to "take back America."
Heh, heh. Somehow, The Onion does a better job of reporting this stuff than the "lamestream media," don't you think? Politicians and pundits encourage the anger because it benefits them personally. And we enjoy getting angry because it deflects blame from ourselves.
Oh, sure, we could be angry because we'd been dumb enough to support politicians who cut taxes on the wealthy and created the largest deficit in history. We could be angry because we supported invading an innocent country - when the UN was still investigating those nonexistent WMDs - and put the cost on the nation's credit card. We could be angry because we supported right-wing anti-regulation ideologues and bubble-creating economic policies that caused the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. We could be angry because we eagerly embraced easy-mortgage policies throughout the bubble years.
But since we live in a democracy, these things were our fault (collectively, of course), and we'd much rather find someone else to blame. Politicians pushed tax cuts and waged wars without paying for them, because those things were politically popular. Oh, sure, they convinced all too many of us that we'd be "greeted as liberators" in Iraq, and that the war would "pay for itself." And it was so much fun watching the bombs explode in Baghdad, wasn't it? You really felt like a "patriot" then, I'll bet.
They convinced us to support tax cuts overwhelmingly aimed at the wealthiest of Americans, because we'd get a small part of that, too. After all, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter, right? So maybe we should be angry at ourselves for being dumb enough to buy such ridiculous claims, huh?
But that's just not much fun, is it? It's much more enjoyable to blame someone else. "We" are patriotic Americans who've been victimized by "them." No. Sorry, that's not how it works, not in a democracy. If you voted for politicians who supported these policies, this is your fault. If you let them appoint Supreme Court Justices who think that corporations are just people, too, this is your fault. If you passively watched the legal bribery of our politicians by corporations and the wealthy, without complaining, this is your fault. If you didn't vote at all - and in every single election - this is your fault. (Hey, we all make mistakes. It's just up to us to learn from them. But,... will we learn from them?)
Make no mistake, if you always voted, but you're getting discouraged now and aren't certain to vote in November, what comes next will be your fault. Sorry, but in a democracy, there's no excuse for dodging your responsibilities. I don't care how busy you are. I don't care if it seems hopeless. I don't care if you live in a one-party state, like I do, and your side always loses. I don't care about any of that. Giving up is the worst thing we could do. Apathy is always wrong, no matter what excuses you make for yourself.
This is your nation. This is your world. It's your future we're talking about. People have given their lives for the right to vote. In fact, people all over the world are still giving their lives for that right. No one is too busy to vote, not if they make it a priority. Maybe you feel too ignorant to vote? Actually, that's no excuse, either. If you don't know enough, educate yourself! Leave some of the ballot blank, if you don't know enough about the people or the issues. Heck, leave it all blank if you absolutely must. Just vote!
And maybe you're a Tea Party fanatic, a right-wing Republican who disagrees with me about everything (there are a lot of you here in Nebraska). Maybe you plan to vote for the same people who got us into this mess in the first place. (From what I hear, most Nebraskans are.) I think you're wrong. I think you're the reason we're in this mess - all of these messes, in fact. But I'd still rather see you doing your civic duty and voting. Just vote, dammit!
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