Politics? Nah, I prefer theater

     I’ve been making a concerted effort in the last few months to leave everything political alone.  Why?  The simple and short answer is that I have become so frustrated and cynical at the whole process.  It’s gotten to the point where I can hear about a particular issue or fight in our nation’s capital and pretty much predict what the end result will be without trying very hard.  I’ve honestly given up on anyone in either of the American political parties doing the ‘right thing’.  If it really fit, I think I’d call myself a political agnostic (I think that is in the same category as Calvin and Hobbes ‘math atheist’).

     Take the most recent debt ceiling drama.  I knew when the issue was first brought forward into the ‘public consciousness’ they would drag the process out until the ‘last minute’ all the while going through the motions of trying to come to an agreement and putting down the attempts of the other side (it’s at that point when both sides put up the ‘unreasonable’ and ‘ideologically pure’ suggestions, knowing they’d get shot down by the other side).  Then, when everyone watching is getting their blood pressure and nerves up, they come out with a ‘compromise’.  Of course, it falls short of what everyone wants.  Those who we turn to for leadership tell us ‘it’s the best compromise we could come up with in the limited time we had’ and that’s supposed to make everyone relax and move on to the next ‘crisis’.  Again, using the most recent event, the next act is apparently testing how screwing up our own economy will affect the rest of the world, along with an extended version of the blame game (anyone want to actually lead instead of just wanting the power that we give to leaders?) 

     As an aside, does anyone think the ‘final result’ is something all involved put together behind the scenes while the ‘drama’ unfolded?  Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.  In my view, politics (at least on the national level) has become almost as scripted as the best Shakespearian drama.  Apparently some people took the ‘all the world’s a stage’ line to its’ logical extreme.  It’s either that or they are trying a variation of the quote ‘you will never lose money underestimating the taste of the people’, theirs says ‘you won’t lose your elected position by underestimating the intelligence of the people’.