Kamuela Vance explores apathy in the world of current politics.
It’s almost election time again, and there’s really no one I really care to vote for. Seems that all the Presidential candidates have skeletons in their closets and/or ties to big business and big money. What it really comes down to is what puppet you want to elect, the puppet on the left or the puppet on the right. Who’s lies are you more willing to accept?
The current state of world affairs are in turmoil. We’ve got global warming, floods, fires, earthquakes, famine, and last but not least, terrorist attacks. What color threat level are we up to now? Aqua, Magenta, or something like that.
The real question is who’s going to run the country in this ongoing worldly crisis. Who has the experience, qualifications, and capabilities of running the most powerful nation in a proficient manner? In my opinion, none of the candidates do. I just don’t feel as if I can trust any of them. Here’s a phrase that has gained popularity and gets used each day, “flip flop,” and it no longer means sandal-like footwear.
All the candidates have “flip flopped” at one time or another. I don’t want to point any fingers or mention any names, but all these career politicians have made a lifelong commitment to hold their positions in office by telling us what we want to hear, or by being vague to satisfy the masses. If you don’t believe me, go back a year and look at the statements made by each candidate. They change their positions based on audience, or use current world events to sway popular opinion in their favor.
Politics have become nothing more than entertainment and competition for the masses, a way to divide and conquer us egotistical fools. Our leaders are nothing more than showmen, brothers of an elite fraternity, kind of like WWE wrestlers. When the cameras are rolling they argue and talk shit to each other, riling up the crowd and playing with our emotions. Later that night they all get together, have a few drinks and talk about how they’ve hoodwinked us once again.
Hell, I’m to the point where I don’t give a damn anymore ’cause what I think or say has no effect on anything. I can’t put my faith in any of the candidates, let alone trust them. By God, I wish Teddy Roosevelt was still around because that’s who I’d cast my vote for. Sometimes I wish I could be like all the other sheeple, happily ignorant and naive about everything. My goddamn conscience won’t let me and it’s here where I find my dilemma. It’s both a blessing and a curse.
I wish I could just pick a candidate to fill that void inside of me and live vicariously through them, while I sit back, get fat, and watch reality television. Now that’s a contradiction in terms, “reality television.” Who’s reality? The television network’s reality? The one they create for us? No one I know behaves naturally when they have a camera looking at them. If only I could sit back and let the T.V. hypnotize, desensitize, and lobotomize me, while young American soldiers get shot at.
Safe at home I’d be watching porn and jerking off, once I shot my load I’d change the channel and be concerned with who got voted off Survivor, or which unoriginal copycat is advancing on American Idol. Which brings me to this. I’ve got a great idea for a reality show, it’s called Appeasing the Gods. What we do is take all the career politicians and hold them responsible for their actions. Who ever “flip flops” would be shown their prior recorded statements, to prove to them that they are nothing more than liars and manipulators of the Machiavellian sort. Then we’d take them to Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii and toss them in, making an offering to the Hawaiian god Lono, or whatever god, prophet, cult leader, etc. that you subscribe to.
O.K. that might be a little bit harsh, so how about this. Whenever we catch a politician in a lie, we call them on it. For each lie they tell, they need to bring home 100 troops from Iraq. I figured we should have all the troops home by the end of the year by using this system.
So it goes my brothers and sisters, this old world keeps on turning and we keep on yearning. And in the words of the great prophet Reverend Bill Hicks, “It’s Just a Ride.”
“The world is like a ride in an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it you think it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it’s very brightly colored and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time and they begin to question: ‘Is this real, or is this just a ride?’ And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, ‘Hey, don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride, and we kill those people.’ It’s just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.” – BILL HICKS