Convention Season 2012...

I've so far managed to diligently avoid posting anything about politics in this space, but I just have to get this one thing off my chest, and then I'm done.

Last election, I watched every minute of both conventions, obsessively, and was riveted for two full weeks.

This election, I haven't tuned in at all, don't plan to, and you couldn't pay me to watch a full hour of either one.

I still believe that the Right is clearly the worse of the two sides (at least, in terms of their rhetoric/platform), and so I will continue to vote Lib/Dem every two years.  But neither side is actually democratic, neither side is actually concerned about doing what is right for this country or its people, and both sides are populated exclusively by liars, thieves, and egotistical asshats who are clearly interested only in maintaining and increasing their own power.  And I can no longer delude myself into believing that I have any hope whatsoever of affecting that situation in the slightest.

This country is run by corporations, and the wealthy.  They own us.  They own you.  And as long as we continue to have a capitalist global economy, they always will.  That's just a fact of the 21st century.

There will never be another New Deal.

And since I can't do anything about that short of armed revolution (which, let's face it, the situation isn't anywhere near bad enough to warrant - we're hardly Syria or some shit), I'm just going to do my best to ignore it, and try to make the most of the life they allow me to live.  They give me access to plenty of shiny toys and baubles to distract me and keep me docile, and hey, that's not really so bad a way to live, when you think about it.  I'd rather be a pet than a stray any day.  (Sure a stray is more "free," but who has the better quality of life?  Which one, at the end of it all, is hanging on with the hope of just one more day, and which one is glad to finally be done with all of this?)

Sure, I could picket, and protest, and campaign, and donate, and put bumper stickers and magnets all over my car and signs on my lawn; I could spend 90% of my waking hours taking in political media (which is basically just The News at this point; it's almost impossible to find old-style, major-events-of-the-day, non-political news in this country anymore) and watching the conventions and debating all the ignorant blowhards out there... but to what end?  I've done all of that.  Spent years of my life doing it.  It didn't change anything.

All I got from it was an ulcer, and a raging case of misanthropy.

Since I can't do anything to actually make a difference, and since all it does for me is make me miserable, I've had to just let it go, and go on with my life.  I've built a good life for myself, and I'm enjoying it, and I don't want to ruin it by constantly agonizing over shit that I have no control over.  They're going to destroy the world, or they're not.  Either way, all I can do is make the most of what I have.

So, for now at least, I'm strictly concerning myself with local politics, where I can actually make a difference, about things that actually affect my life in a direct way.

And that's all I have to say on the subject.