Television isn't my preferred source of news, so I listened to NPR on my thirty five minute commute to work, and again on my way home. I read articles online from mainstream news, newspapers, magazines, and private blogs. I watched YouTube videos of candidate speeches, read the rants of my Facebook friends about this or that "hot issue", listened attentively to group conversations at work, and really did my best to get an idea of what was going on. I wanted the genuine unbiased big picture.
After months of paying attention, I realized that I knew less than when I started. I had no idea what any of the candidates actually stood for, what they planned to do, or to whom they owed their allegiances. I'd witnessed countless testimonials from both sides professing the ineptitude of the other side, to be sure, and the subsequent analyzing and over-analyzing of every word by this or that professional analyst. Still I had no idea what was going on.
I realized that there are a number of words tossed around of which I didn't have a solid understanding. Caucus. Constituency. Bipartisanship. I looked those and many others up on dictionary.com, Wikipedia, and wherever else, and still don't really know what they mean. I didn't know that G.O.P. meant "Grand Ol' Party", or why. I didn't know that "Grand Ol' Party" meant "Republicans". I didn't know what it even meant to be a Republican, or a Democrat. I still don't know.
It doesn't make sense to me that there are two "sides of the isle". How can anyone be entirely on one side or the other? I remember from history textbooks that Thomas Jefferson and his "Jeffersonian Republicans" wanted a small, less invasive government, and that "Southern Democrats" wanted more legislation and this and that, but that was hundreds of years ago. I can't believe we're still squabbling over the same old stuff. The country exists in a state of perpetual change; foreign policies, trade agreements, allies and enemies and conflicts, regime changes, drug wars, immigration-driven demographic fluctuations, etc. etc... Is it still really so easy to align myself to one side of the isle or another, when neither side can take a firm stance on anything without splitting their votes?
I'm not one to get too riled up at a political rally. Nothing motivates me less than a stump speech. In all the confusion, smear campaigning, campaign promises, heart-string tugging, patriotism and nationalism infusions, mud slinging, and frenzied vote-fishing in general, I came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter who I voted for; I didn't know what I was getting either way.
I wanted to vote to make a difference, because that's what I've always been taught. If I don't vote, I don't have a voice. If I don't vote, I can't complain about the outcome.
I didn't vote. I didn't think it would matter. If I was leaning one way or another at the time it was towards Obama, because I thought his verbal eloquence would be useful in foreign policy negotiations and that maybe he could help the rest of the world see us in a more flattering light. That's what was in my head as election time approached, but when I really stopped to think about what I thought I knew and what it meant, it became painfully obvious that despite my best efforts to the contrary I was as uninformed and clueless as I could possibly be.
The president can talk about jobs, about the economy, about how Americans work hard to make our country great, and so on and so forth but he's not really the one pulling the strings. The Federal Reserve Bank has a fist-full of strings though, with calculated manipulation of the amount of currency in circulation. Interest rates. Inflation. Nobody votes about that. Governors, Senators, Congress, the House of Representatives... all are constantly manipulated by sponsors, intelligence agencies, religious institutions, corporate lobbyists, and foreign influences.
Maybe a couple bills will get passed, new laws, taxes, reform for this or that program. Some people will hate it, some won't. It will appear as if something is getting done in the foreground while in the background the momentum of the machine will not be altered in the slightest.
Any information that trickles down to me has been crafted, filtered, massaged, tempered, padded... it's not real. The only thing I know for certain is that what I'm being told is not the truth. I am being swayed, goaded, prodded, tempted... never informed.
I don't believe that my government is my best recourse for affecting change. Our elected suits (I hesitate to call them representatives) are not the diverse medley of honest folk that I'd like for them to be; Americans from all walks of life who bring to the table the salt and savvy garnered from lives spent toiling in the mills and factories, tilling fields, marching into war, maintaining the national infrastructures, building the roads, or protecting the streets. Our lawmakers went to prestigious and expensive law and business schools which the majority of us could never hope to attend. How much do they know about the bowels of this great ship that they're sailing? How much do they know about what will, or won't improve the lives of us, the huddled masses, the "ordinary Americans"? How much can they say about what it even means to be an ordinary American?
How much do I know about any of those things? Little.
I can vote locally in my state and city elections for this or that candidate in the hopes that they can talk to the suits in Washington, and maybe sway opinions in favor of some small facet of life that matters to me. But I don't believe that matters much either. Even with the best of intentions, the voices of our chosen are tainted before they are ever heard. I don't even know what I would have them say if it were up to me.
My vote is my voice, and my voice is the squeak of a mouse amid the deafening cacophony of other squeaking mice, each of us vying for a piece of the cheese. My power is in my wallet. It is small, but it is at my disposal every day rather than once every four years. It's up to me how I choose to wield it.
The best way I can think of to make a difference is to empower my fellow mice. I can support fledgling entrepreneurs and local businesses and avoid, to the best of my ability, sacrificing what little power I have to the bottomless coffers of billionaire corporations.
I'm an ordinary American. All I want is for my country to not collapse. I don't know much about the government, or the economy, or anything really, but I have played Jenga. If you take too much away from the bottom and keep piling it on the top, the damn thing will eventually fall down.
