Money
So, democrats and republicans both go after money, and we all sit here, nice and self righteous, we solved that one, they suck and we're great.
It's not so simple, children.
First, how about because they just all suck so bad, we get rid of them. No more electing our 'leaders'. How would that be?
Oh, you don't like that idea - you buy into the 'it's the worst system except all the others' cynical witticism. You just want to complain and be smug.
Well, fine, but you don't realize what you're doing. You don't realize all the harms, you don't realize the power you have, you don't realize the price.
The first thing you are missing is the global perspective of your role. You are the cash cow that feeds the pigs in charge. They give you a nice little place to wander around, let you think it's yours, you are protected from the worst things they can protect you from, and you give your milk daily or else, unaware of who profits and how those profits are used, unaware of what's really happening to the neghbors over the hills around you.
As an American who can afford the toys of interest to this forum, you are an elite in the world; you are pandered to by the political system to make you complacent by making you feel the government serves you, all the while having almost no role but to produce in the economy so that the trillions of dollars a year processed in our economy and our government can be directed for the purposes of those who actually have some power.
But you are far, far, far better off than those who are not here, and whose only purpose is to serve the actually powerful or get the hell out of the way.
You really don't want to be a Chechnyan, or an Iraqi, or a Bolivian in the way of Bechtel, or a Mexican, or an Afghani in the world's largest opium supply market, or a Chinese person who on average is hoping desperately to get out of the rural poverty into one of those low-paid oppresive factory positions, or an African who can only hope to live off the land in desperate poverty or to help extract minerals for western nations. No, you are the elite.
And you are an idiot, if you are like 99% of the population. I don't mean your abilities - I mean that you, as a smart but incredibly misinformed person, behaves idiotically because you have bad information, so functionally you are an idiot, in action and opinion, despite having all kinds of good qualities. You debate issues in terms of who is good and who is evil, in terms of how to stop the bad guys, the things that leave you nattering about nothing.
The real reasons for why policies occur are not on your agenda for discussion. You are supplied with the proper set of choices, right left middle, you pick.
The cash cows choose, eat this grass or that, or maybe walk across the fenced pasture, heck maybe take a nap. Completely free.
Meanwhile, policies which serve interests great and small, but generally misrepresented and selfish, are pursued with the milk you hand over.
Because you are part of such a well-cultivated herd, you give the most milk, and the owners of the profits from it can dominate whatever they like.
It's good to be a milk owner. It's not that bad to be a cash cow - look at those poor starving wild animals - but it's not really your field.
Of course, there is a form of freedom. You could run off a cliff and ruin the owner's day. The cows could unite and demand better conditions for their milk, but they're just not really able to do that. You can learn all kinds of truths - and become a bit lonely, finding that not that many are going to want to make the same investment, and they're way too invested in another way of looking at things to do more than tune you out as 'radical'.
In our political system, in theory, we could have real representative democracy. Sometimes, we do; on some issues, we do; it's a combination. There's no explicit conspiracy to have an evil government - there are simply interests, which many realize are not always best honestly advertised, and there are world views that vary wildly based on your situation which lead you to rationalize.
Maybe a congressman is rationalizing a vote which will give a donor a great tax refund and cutting children's nutrition to pay for it. You may think that's black and white wrong, and that YOU don't rationalize - but that's because you are in a different situation. How much attention and concern did YOU personally pay to the fact that YOUR government had sanctions which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi children? How personally concerned and worried were you about that compared to your own children dying slowly of diseased water? Not at all, if you are like most and yet you have responsibility, unfilled responsibility, because the politicans YOU elected used YOUR tax dollars to force those policies for not the reasons they told you to make you accept it easily when you were not bothering to find the real reasons, but for the sort of reasons the cow owners have, turning on Saddam after having supported him when he served their interest, citing his war crimes long after they had decreased but having supported him when they were going on the worst. You rationalize your lack of being a responsible citizen for those hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and many other things. The congressman knows that he's going to get 50 times the aid for children by getting re-elected compared to his evil opponent, so his action is ok, and you can't handle the truth so of course he doesn't tell you. Not a bad rationalization.
Meantime, are we fixing the problem? Are we getting rid of the money that dominated our political system because most people will vote for either the party they're oriented to almost no matter what, or whoever has the best funded campaign, causing 94% of the winners to be the candidates who spent the most, making our system not about rationality and opinions and morality but about money, power for a price in all but the formal rules?
There are good people all over the place, making the best of a mess, and you know, so much of it works out pretty well. Things aren't that bad.
But they could be a lot better if the citizens who have the power of the vote gott off their *** and got informed and donated to the candidates who will really represent the public interest and got active, instead of posting about witticisms on message boards that both parties take money so who cares.
The parties are not the same. They're far different in qualitative and quantitative measures, and you would know how if you put the research in.
But you are encouraging, you are causing the corruption with your lack of involvement. The guy who gives them a big contribution makes the election work in a more corrupt way, and absent you countering that, by banning the contribution or contributing against him, you are an enabler of corruption. You think you have the right to an honest government without lifting a finger, just like the cash cows thing the grass supplied in the morning is convenient.
What nonsense. Read some books and get informed and make things better.
It's happened - almost all elderly people in this nation from its founding to the 1930's were in utterly miserable poverty. The nation chose to do something about that, and passed social security and elder poverty is now a rarity in our society. There are a whole lot of unnecessary problems we could but do not solve because the people do not get off their rear ends and lazily chew the propaganda cud fed daily.
Want to learn more? Probably not. You can explain to the cows all day, and have you seen any cow revolutions lately? No. Cud and naps, known and easy, shoo you rabble rouser.
Want some pointers? If I see two positive responses to this post asking for them, I'll respond, perhaps listing a handful of books to start on.
