Bleach

A fragment.

Posted by lyd at February 14, 2004 03:03 AM • TrackBack

I wrote this in response to something elsewhere, and wanted to save it for possible later expansion into something more complete. I figured I might as well park it here. Enjoy or not according to your whim.

...

It is too late for us to fix Clinton's presidency, and all the others before it that were guilty of more or less of the same behavior. I do not single out this administration as unique in their deception, it is just the one that is here, now. My hope, or wish, is that we can turn accountability and transparency into the most significant issues by which candidates are judged.

Neither party is immune to this. Taxes, environmental issues, campaign finance and the influence it has on legislation of all sorts, foreign policy... the list goes on, but these are a few of the many things about which both parties routinely bullshit the public and each other. In order for this to change, the message needs to be sent that we care about these things, that we will not be distracted by juicy but inconsequential scandals, that we demand policy, not politics.

That message needs to be sent to the media, by seeking out and supporting the sources that address these concerns and by ignoring those that don't. It needs to be sent to the politicians, by placing and keeping in office those that tend toward these ideals and removing those that don't. It needs to be sent to everyone around us, by talking seriously about important issues and pointing out the great mistake in believing that we are sufficiently informed by politicians' talking-points the media's short-attention-span versions of the facts.

Do you think this can happen? I don't know, myself. I alternate between hope and despair. I am certain that if it does not happen, if the American people do not intelligently and aggressively assert themselves to correct the state of our political system, things will not stop getting worse. We have a very long way to fall.