"John Husvar" wrote in message
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In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:
"John Husvar" wrote in message
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In article ,
"Ed Huntress" wrote:
"John Husvar" wrote in message
...
Now, why don't all of you grow up and realize most politician and
_both_
parties are damnable liars whose only real interest is power?
They may mean to rule well, but they mean to rule.
That's all they want. It's what they do.
Nonsense.
Show me.
Go out in the world and take a look for yourself, John. That kind of
throw-away cynicism is not worth arguing with.
Well then, don't argue with it, but don't call it throw-away. It's the
result of years of experience with Ohio politics, home of some of the
nastiest politics anywhere in Flyover Country. Chicago could take
lessons.
There may be reasons, possibly even good reasons, why politicians
abandon nearly everything they talked about during election campaigns,
but few if any ever explain why they do after elected.
How often have you ever heard a politician admit that he would only be
one vote on any issue and probably won't be able to change anything in
any meaningful way in one term; that he might be able to make a start,
but constituents should expect to be disappointed for a long time if
they expect significant change in how politics is done? For that matter,
how many voters really understand that?
You've just defined politics in a representative democracy, John. Part of it
is aspiration. Part of it is knowing we're voting for someone who shares our
frustrations and desires. Most of us know that political speech is about
what we want, where we want to go. But most of us, too, recognize that those
goals conflict with much of the power structure of our government (I'm
speaking of other people with political power and institutions, not
government itself), and that we can't expect to win many fights. A
politician who says he can't really do much is a politician who's given up
before he got started.
I never expected a lot from Obama because I have a sense of what he's up
against. I expected even less from McCain. So far, I think I voted the right
way. And I'm not at all cynical about it. Frustrated, but not cynical.
IMO, we blame politicians for everything, most of which is our own doing --
or more accurately, our *lack* of doing. Mostly we just bitch. We all love
to have scapegoats to help us deny responsibility, and government in general
overwhelms us all. We feel helpless and we expect the politicians to fix
everything for us. Only they can't, because we aren't prepared to do
anything ourselves.
I have yet to meet an honest one in either party, or at least one that
stayed honest more than six months into a term.
You must live in a bad place. I've known a couple, and they were serious
people. You need a strong ego and a strong desire for that work, but that
doesn't mean their only interest is power.
I do live in a bad place. You've known a couple; me too. They're
vanishingly rare. You did notice I wrote "most," eh?
My own opinion is that most of them have little leadership ability but they
love to play the game. It isn't just about power -- it's about the game
itself. They want to be where it's happening and they go along to get along.
And the ones who act the part well, and who are in the right place at the
right time, get elected. That's different from playing out a strategy to
gain personal power. I don't think that many of them are good strategists,
although almost all are capable tacticians.
But quite a few of them are idealists. Bill Bradley, former Senator from New
Jersey, is one of those. They tend to be effectual in only very limited
realms. I don't know what happens to their idealized visions; probably they
just get beaten out of them.
The thing that bugs me these days is the cheap-shot politics practiced by
some of the more reprehensible members. That doesn't indict all of them.
Well the shots may be cheap, but the effects aren't.
We're at a particularly low point, but it isn't the first time. Politics was
*really* ugly in the 19th century. We just haven't seen it this ugly in our
lifetimes. I think it's time to be realistic about what we have but I don't
think it's appropriate to blame the politicians themselves for the whole
mess. FWIW, most of it is just something I mentioned a couple of days ago,
that we have so many entrenched interests involved in politics now that
making anything move is like moving the Rock of Gibraltar.
That's why I give so much credit to Obama for getting health care reform
started. It hasn't accomplished very much yet, but it was the right thing to
do -- if you ever worked in health care, particularly with the insurance
industry, you know it's the ONLY thing to do -- and it cost him. He did it
on principle, and with a real understanding of how the economics of it work,
and of how little most people understand about it. He's no LBJ when it comes
to moving Congress, which, in a way, makes it even more impressive. He just
slugged his way through it.
We need more of those.
--
Ed Huntress