Last Call!

So I watched the “State of the Union” speech yesterday. Somebody fill me in on something – when was having our national representatives act like a bunch of prepubescent children chosen as a good way to convey the current mindset of our country? I mean seriously … why can’t these idiots at least act like full grown adults for the time it takes to have a speech read to them? And I’m not just talking about the purposely vague cat-calls coming from the Republicans; I’m saddened by the entire process. It’s just such obviously overdone pomp and circumstance that the actual purpose – to hear what our top-ranking executive officer believes the current state of our country is – gets lost in the muck. So much so that, at the end of it all, we’ve learned nothing that we weren’t already very well aware of – we’ve done a very poor job at choosing people to run our country…

I mean, what are we? Retarded? A point is made by our president immediately followed by applause. It doesn’t matter what the point is, applause is always expected. Now apparently what matters here is the intensity of the applause and who chooses to stand or not. Of course the standing choice seems simple enough depending on which side of the house you’re sitting in. If you’re nearest neighbors stand, you probably should as well; if they stay seated, you’d best do the same … you might be able to get away with a “golf clap” (that’ll show you’re a man that thinks for himself…) but I think standing might get you tarred and feathered at y’all’s next clan meeting (oh wait! I mean party convention). Have we seriously chosen to use tactics from the Gong Show as a way to convey the current health of the country to its citizens – not to mention to the rest of the world…? Are we really stuck at that elementary grade mentality? It sure would appear so…

And afterward, oh my god, afterward… Doesn’t matter which channel you chose to view the madness, there’s inevitably a plethora of people (pundits, newsmen, “experts” … cretins…) just waiting to explain to you what you just watched. What the hell?! And it’s hilarious! What they talk about is primarily the reactions – the much expected and completely preordained reactions – as opposed to the actual speech. Sure, they’ll mention a part of the speech; only as a lead-in to what is far more important – the reaction from the audience. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t need to have somebody explain to me what I had just finished watching. Thanks, but I was there… And I love how the representatives for the various parties (ehh, who we kidding? – the two parties…) are so quick to instruct their registered followers exactly how they are to feel about everything. The worst part about this, unfortunately, is that the lemming-like morons that have decided to forfeit all their personal decision-making skills to whichever party was able to seduce them enough do just this – they fall in line willingly.

Listen … I know we all needed to be properly taught the rights and wrongs of this world when we were children. I personally believe that this task has fallen in perceived import to many of those currently charged with it … but I digress… By the time we are full-grown adults, however, shouldn’t we be able to think for ourselves? Or is the problem that many of us are incapable of processing information on our own and deciding how we personally feel about it? Is it because everyone’s afraid that they might actually think differently about something than their trusted peers and that this difference of view might get them ostracized from society? Has our society turned into a 24-hour game show where everyone’s waiting for somebody else to decide what they are supposed to do next? I think the government would be happy with that.

Oh well, fuck it. What do I care…? I’m just really wondering why nobody else seems to be as upset about being so blatantly talked down to by a bunch of people with their own not so hidden agendas. Why isn’t anybody else as pissed about being treated like a child???

bis später,

Coriolis