I have been thinking about this for some time now, and I can kind of see both sides. I hate the knot tightening in my chest every four years as I watch aspiring leaders of this country spout seemingly insane talk about putting poor children to work doing menial labor as young as age nine because otherwise they will never learn to have a work ethic (because of their obviously drug-addled parents), or that they do not worry about poor people because of the government safety net, and then I watch the same guys just get even more popular. Newt Gingrich is MEAN. Mitt Romney is nuts. And Obama is, well…ineffectual. Our system is broken if these are our only choices.
But like it or not, we are a nation of first world problems. We are not Egypt. We are not Moscow. We are not violently oppressed. There are many things wrong with this country: Our healthcare system allows people to die if they do not have the (often incredibly large sums of) money required for uninsured medical treatment. We have a flawed “two party” political system where we are forced to choose between a rich dick and an even richer asshole, neither of which embody a fitting representation of the American populace. Our judiciary allows corporations-as-people the right to funnel unlimited sums of cash into political campaigns and fails to see how this compromises the integrity of our already precarious party system. The one percent is allowed to bend rules and regulations, using the power of money, to keep themselves on the richer side of the fence.
But we have freedom. We have the freedom to peaceably assemble. We have the freedom to write our legislators. We have the freedom to info bomb. We have the freedom to Occupy. We have the freedom to MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD.
Money talks in this country. And power corrupts. But do we require a violent overthrowing of our social and political system in order to enact the kind of change we NEED to see?
I don’t think so. But I am not sure. Because those aforementioned dicks and assholes are advancing politically. The republican party is ping-ponging between the two richest and most insane of the candidates. Is this just, in effect, rich people voting for whomever they believe will keep them richest? Or is this a byproduct of ignorance voting for whomever has the most television ads?
I am not an anarchist. I believe that people require governance, especially in the modern world. But the middle class is disappearing and this country is dividing into two sides: rich and not rich. I like to think that Marx’s proletariat is forming. Can we change this country through our voices?
