For a long time I have avoided posts with any political commentary.
Writing a blog about politics just wasn't what I wanted to spend my time doing.
I actually became very disillusioned with politicians in my job as director of federal sales back in 2002-2004.
It really shook my core beliefs when the representative who was also the head of the committee for government reform started sending me invitations for $1,500 breakfast meetings and even more expensive evening meals.
Paying for access to an elected politician was and is repugnant to me. I guess I was just blissfully unaware of how access and money had become interwoven with life inside the beltway.
I finally came to the conclusion that not just one party was to blame, but it was our political system.
While the system is a problem, there are groups who are upholding their roles in ways that often add to the finest if sometimes misguided traditions of America.
I have tremendous respect for our soldiers. We see them all the time when we are on the coast where our new home is within earshot of their mortar ranges.
They are so young, it breaks my heart to know that there are being put in positions which are so dangerous and which unfortunately can do little to alter the inevitable outcome of this unfortunate and completely unnecessary war.
I still read all the editorials from the national and local papers. I am often moved by them, but I am a realist. Few people read the papers today.
Many don't care about the facts and are happy with Fox news sound bites.
I am often surprised at how outspoken the Jacksonville, NC paper is on the topic of the war. There is no question, that the paper supports the soldiers, since Jacksonville is the home of the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune. There are, however, plenty of questions about the war and its conduct.
On a regular basis we see notices of Marines from the area who have been killed. As a friend of mine noted recently, it is with frightening regularity that we all see stories of five or six or more soldiers killed.
Yesterday I came across an article in the Washington Post, "I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty." It brought home to me the realization that our system of government is in far more trouble than most people understand.
It is mostly because politicians don't care about solutions to the real problems we face. They care about money and being elected. Everything else is secondary.
The highest goal they have is the providing the appearance of some action. Whether or not it is a desirable action to solve a real problem is irrelevant as long as it meets the first two goals of helping them be elected and/or bringing in more money.
Even with 72% of Americans saying the war is being mishandled, and 61% saying we should never gone into Iraq little has changed.
We elect our representatives to make decisions for us, so they don't necessarily have to jump to every poll, but these numbers aren't new and they are reflective of the recent election.
The author of the Post article, Andrew J. Bacevich, had this to say.
Not for a second did I expect my own efforts to make a difference... I genuinely believed that if the people spoke, our leaders in Washington would listen and respond.
This, I can now see, was an illusion.
The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed. The November 2006 midterm elections signified an unambiguous repudiation of the policies that landed us in our present predicament. But half a year later, the war continues, with no end in sight. Indeed, by sending more troops to Iraq (and by extending the tours of those, like my son, who were already there), Bush has signaled his complete disregard for what was once quaintly referred to as "the will of the people."
To be fair, responsibility for the war's continuation now rests no less with the Democrats who control Congress than with the president and his party.
I have no solution to our problem of a government that can authorize an unnecessary war, not hold those accountable that did it, and refuse to get us on a path to get out of what has clearly become a civil war and a training ground for terrorists.
On top of that it has cost the US much of the goodwill that had been built up over the years and billions of dollars that could have solved real problems.
I am even more worried about there being a party out there where 54% of the members still approve of the war. Of course their waning influence can be seen in the disappearing impact their opinions have on national polls.
The fact is that they are well on the way to being sentenced to the wilderness for the foreseeable future.
Still we have seen little indication that the alternative is any better. Are our politicians so out of touch with the reality of the world that they don't understand what is happening?
Like the waves in the picture I included with the post, the answer is rushing towards us. The politicians are not in or of our world. They have healthcare, their sons and daughters rarely go to war, and their future employment or retirement is secured by the world of lobbyists and big money.
With that realization that our world is different, a government of the people, for the people, and by the people is in fundamental danger if not already gone.
As this scary article, "Average salaries lower than past generation's," starts to hit home with the continued daily deaths in Iraq, just maybe things will get to the point that we the people will wake up and force change.
That's my political commentary for the year. I am ready for alternative to stand up. I will jump on the boat, but it is not my role to use this blog as a regular podium for political change.
I am going back to writing reviews on Chinese restaurants, occasionally rattling Apple's gilded cage, worrying about my tomatoes, mowing my yard, wondering how warm the surf is, and whether the fish are biting.
I will also be selling a little real estate if people ever figure out the secret of the beaches of the Crystal Coast.
Long live the Pirate Republic of Carteret. That's the best that I can do on this Memorial Day besides hang out the flag and pray for us all.
What he said, too.
When was the last time the presidency, or the Congress, did not have the stench of death about them? I am considering a letter to Bill Clinton, on an entirely different matter from the war; but, it will be with some trepidation. [What's trepidation?] He had no qualms about personally ordering bombings of Libya and godsknowwhereelse. It's so hard, in these days to keep track of it all. Was he the one that bombed the pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan? Some of the bombings were on the eves, respectively, of his, and of Monica's, Grand Jury testimonies. How does a citizen talk to that kind of power?
What a sad spectacle is this Democratic opposition to W. Seems more for the news than to stop bloodshed. On the GOP side, Chuck Hagel talks a good game, but ... .
It's been a few years since I listened to an NPR story about a California town outside Camp Pendlleton ,was it? Same mix of support for the kids they knew so well from the coffee shops and diners; but, sense of the wrongness of it all was beginning to be felt. SOme of that 78% must be in towns like that.
Posted by: Jon v. Briesen | May 28, 2007 at 01:20 PM