Thursday, February 08, 2007

A Whiff of Futility

It's been more than two years since I last posted to this blog. Following the re-election of President Bush, I really didn't see any particular purpose to keeping up with this blog. Debate the merits of a Kerry presidency all you will; I think the case for electing him over Bush overrode Kerry's faults as a candidate. And, in the end, I think that the past two years have borne out this idea. Being the lesser of two evils is not what a candidate wants to be, but when the evil you are lesser than is such an overwhelming one, perhaps that tag of lesser is well worth having.

Then came the elections of 2006. Congress was retaken on a wave of anti-war sentiment. So come January 2007, the piper would be paid for the mistake of the election of 2004.

Oh was I wrong. The President could care less that the country disagrees with him. His paternalistic "I know better than all of you" demeanor makes the bile rise in my throat. And then, on the heels of that, the Senate can't even get it together to discuss the war, much less take action to bring it to conclusion, regardless of the President's stance.

So I ask this question: why should I bother any more? We demonstrate that Bush is incompetent and he is re-elected. We demonstrate to Bush that he is wrong, and he couldn't care less. We attempt to utilize our electoral win to force some change and it stalls out. What exactly is the point of trying? When we lose, we lose, but when we win, we still lose. I feel like a passenger on a train whose brakes have failed. I'm along for a ride, but any actions on my part are simply done to make me feel like I am doing something. The actions themselves are a theater piece that has nothing to do with how my country moves forward.