Politics

Joseph Goebbels, swineherd

I am tired of politics. Back when I was in high school I had a civics teacher who exhorted us to learn about the issues facing our community, state, nation, world, so that come election time we could make informed decisions. Well, that's great, except once you start looking into an issue you find it is more complicated than it originally appeared, so you dig a little deeper hoping to get to the truth of the matter. But you never do, because there is no bottom to these things. It's kind of like archaeology. The more you dig, the more you uncover and the more you find that your initial impression was wrong.

That was 50 years ago when the world was a simpler place. Actually it wasn't, it's just that since then we have added umpteen layers of spin doctoring. Issues are now so obscured with purple bullshit that there is no getting to the bottom of anything anymore.

Only about one-third of the population thinks about much of anything. Most people have simply acquired some form of programming / indoctrination / social conditioning and just go, go, go, and for most people that works just fine. Besides, when you are busy living your life, who has time to think about or research the issues of the day? So what we have is media pundits leading the population around by the nose. If you want to have any effect on an issue, don't bother with research or facts, all your effort needs to be spent producing the most effective propaganda.

I don't like to admit it, but I suspect I also get led around by the nose. Give me a story with a few facts, told by a person speaking in a reasonable tone, and I am inclined to believe them. This is what caused me to choose the wrong candidate for President in every election, wrong in that they lost. We'll have to wait for the judgement of history as to whether the one's that were elected were actually good Presidents.

So if things are not going the way you want, it just means your minister of propaganda isn't doing as good a job as the opposition.