Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Politics? or mindless entertainment...



Well, in an effort to return to a bit more of an intelligent slant to this blog I thought I'd discuss the recent speech Obama made to congress regarding is health care reform plans.
Oddly enough the first thing I thought while watching this speech is - why on earth is Obama actually talking about this... it reminded me of a parent sitting a child down and trying to explain them why it is not a good idea to put forks in electrical sockets.
I've been vaguely aware of the ongoing 'debate' regarding health... well not the real debate more the funny people yelling about 'death panels' and protesting the destruction of American Freedom (Made in China).

The fact that Obama actually had to make a speech to congress regarding ridiculous claims is what I find the most incredulous... though watching the live feed of the speech changed my opinion.

I think I understand why Bush was able to get re-elected (aside from uncharismatic opponents) he had a real ability to connect to the LCD's or Lowest Common Denominators, as was once pointed out by Mr. Stewart of the Daily Show - Bush doesn't speak like an idiot, he talks as if he is speaking to an idiot.

In Obama's speech he took a similar approach though instead of talking to an idiot he was talking to an out of control child, trying to explain decisions while warning what will and will not be tolerated.

Of course the most interesting parts of the speech were the timely cutaways showing crowd reactions from republicans and democrats... a fun drinking game is to try and guess by facial expression which represtative belongs to which party.

It seemed that the gathering of leaders of the United States of America had been reduced the same level of politics as a Schoolyard during recess, with Obama being the supervising teacher trying to maintain order. It would be hilarious if it wasn't a sad summation of the absurd divisivness and ingorance that plague modern politics, and the only people to blame are the voters who rely on mass media and irrelevant speculation to 'guess' who to vote for. The idea of an intelligent and informed electorate is probably the biggest weakness of democracy since niether ever seem to hold true, I'm not saying a dictatorship is any better but one has to wonder if the democracy of ours really represents the will of the people and if so... is the will of a majority that has no interest in keeping track of events in the Country or spending time learning how to make effective decsions worth listening to?

Meh, it's all a moot point anyway everyone knows that corporations and personal interest are the real deciders of policy in government, or maybe I'm just being too cynical.