A lot of people bloggers are angry - enraged even. Steam is coming out of their ears, balls of fire are belching out of their mouths, and they're farting bolts of lightning. Or so they would have us believe, if we are to judge by the unceasing, monotonously hateful torrent of screeds against President Obama and the tax package he agreed to in consultation with Congress. But see, a funny thing is happening around the tax cut package - not a damn thing. Most people are fine with it, and all the simmering emotions expressed over it have largely been the theatrical antics of people with no constructive or even substantive outlet. I simply do not believe their pretenses - their behavior is not that of desperate people whose lives have been shattered by an unconscionable "betrayal." What I see are actors and drama queens milking a disappointment far beyond the threshold of credibility.
There is plenty of legitimate resentment surrounding an extorted deal that gives rich people money they don't need at the expense of the public good, but if there is genuine outrage, I haven't seen it beyond the perfunctory hyperbole of self-important bloviators. Nobody who waxes tragic about America becoming an "oligarchy" is remotely behaving as if they believe their own bullshit - they do not act like desperate voices in the encroaching darkness, as they portray themselves to be. Rather, they act like what they are: Irritated spectators.
Political leaders can see the difference plain as day, and they don't give a shit what spectators think or say. You're booing one second and cheering the next, dancing to the puppet strings of showmanship according to predictable stimuli. You hate them one second, love them the next, and ignore them when they dangle something shiny in front of your face as a distraction. If someone you hated five seconds ago trashes someone you hate now, they become your new hero. It's Jerry Springer politics, and it is the game of bread and circuses - an opiate to pacify those who not only have no ideas, but have no interest in generating any.
Everyone who is prominent will ultimately become a target, but always with zero to show for it at the end of the circus: Noise, noise, and more noise; petty character attacks, solipsistic conspiracy theories, and personal diminution of leaders regardless of actual merit as individuals - a spectacle that is always gratifying to the public id and never nourishing to the public conscience. So, I simply do not believe it, and neither do people in Washington - their careers depend on knowing the difference between what must be listened to and what can be ignored. And so far, with respect to criticism of the tax package, it's nearly all a sea of "Please ignore me, I am an impotent, mindless spectator whose emotions track like a soap opera character."
If you want to blame the President for the 2010 election results, I say take it to Springer. Take it to your therapist. Take it to your Psychic Friend. Take it to someone who cares whom you blame for the problems that confront us, because it's obvious you're not interested in taking any responsibility or doing anything creative or difficult to change things. You wanted someone to blame for everything, and now you've got him - just like the teabaggers have got him. You are fulfilled. Your purpose in life is complete. You can rest easy now that you know the source of your misery for all time. Or...
Make me believe you give a shit. Not because what I believe should matter to anyone but me, but because if you can convince me that you're serious, then perhaps you can convince Washington. "But," you're surely whining to yourself as you read this, "it should be their job to convince me that they give a shit!" Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Democracy is not built on what people should do - every system ever founded on such premises has collapsed into chaos within a generation, if not sooner. Ours rests on a balance of power that will always favor the interests of the diligent over the negligent, the serious over the shallow, and the responsible (in the amoral sense) over the fickle. Which side of that trinity have you been resting on?
Perhaps we are on the path to oligarchy - perhaps large segments of our society are already under its control. If so, we liberals must be the grossest of cowards or most inconsequential of buffoons, because I see no evidence that we are behaving like a republic under siege anywhere in America. All these arrogant, bombastic articles saying "I refuse" this and "I will not sit by while" that, but it's all bullshit: Their authors will do nothing. Not a damn thing. They will rant and rave, blame any target that presents itself to their eager hair-trigger blogging, formulate conspiracy theories ranging from the plausible to the cartoonish, and then move on to their next word-salad topic when the current one loses its emotional potency.
I am poor, at least in the common sense of the word. But I more or less get what I need, and am far from desperate. So while it troubles me to see rich people once again getting their way at the expense of the common welfare, it taxes my patience listening to self-important commentators pretend to be desperate through their keyboards. Don't tell me you're desperate - tell CNN after chaining yourself to the Capitol rotunda and going on a hunger strike, or something equally obtrusive without being destructive or violent. I'll believe the person who does that is seriously fed up and "not going to take it anymore."
Your other option is to be measured and constructive, offering alternative perspectives that inform leaders and organize action. But if you want to be a drunk sports fan bitching about lousy plays or bum calls by the ref, our society spends more than enough money on stadiums and high-definition game broadcasts to give you that opportunity - there's no need to spill over your trifling idiocy into domains that have real consequences. Either STFU and go be the hero you obviously think yourself to be (and take whatever consequences follow); participate in intelligent and constructive discussion while being realistic about your influence; or go be an angry idiot spectator at a baseball game who shrieks instructions and simpleminded slogans from the upper deck. It's your choice, and yours alone.