Jun 21 2009
In honor of the comman man
Remember those tea parties from earlier this year? (That’s how fast-paced our society is that I have to ask you to “remember” an event from a few months ago, but I digress.)
You had many conservative factions applauding the public’s right to assemble and protest their grievances. Then you had many left-wing commentators, the Daily Show in particular, mocking them and their perceived wealth and rectionary stance to Obama’s current administration.
As for me? I’m left with mixed feelings about this incident. And yes, this is a few months too late, but keep in mind I’m working through my backlog of topics right now. But, on one hand, I did vote for Obama and ultimately agree with his wideing of the goverment’s power to help us all.
Yet I can’t help with sympathize with the masses’ concerns. My Marxist leanings cause me to understand the average Joe (and Jane….not tryin’ to get all chauvinistic up in here), ironically enough. Perhaps they are picking up a scapegoat, someone who is trying to help them, oddly enough.
This whole dilemna is enough to send anyone’s head into a tailspin. As Jon Stewart so astutely noted, “The Democrats have become the man, and now the Republicans are the hippies.” How do you rebel when liberal causes are the norm? Support small businesses and unchecked profit, I guess.
What I am here to do is state I ultimately get these people’s frustrations. The economy is in the toilet and times are getting tough. People get scared and lash out. It’s what humans do. It’s not always pretty and it’s not always right, but as primal and savage beasts, it’s our “fight or flight” mode. If you go back through history, for all of our intellectual pounding of the chest, we’re a pretty reactionar species.
The common man has been forgotten and trampled on in these modern times. In lieu of romanticist odes commerating a humble steel mill worker’s exploits, we now have tabloids tracking celebirties every single self-destructive habits.
Gone are the days of George Washington and Honest Abe; now we have George Bush and Bill Clinton in their place. The honest policy makers who looked out for our good and fought for what was right in this country have been pushed aside for snide and slick con artists who are only out to make a name for themselves and establish power.
What of the countryside, the rural areas with their quiet atmosphere, calm homes, and sense of family community? Now we have alienating urban dwellings, with dilapidated buildings and cracked streets. We don’t walk next door to a neighbor’s house to tell him something. Now we just either call him on the phone or send him an e-mail (or worse yet, Twitter it….ugh.)
So even though I think they’re going after the wrong target, I ultimately can empathize with the common man’s frustrations. I have to ask, though, why are you going after a seemingly benvolent president who seems to have our best interest at heart? Where’s all that frustration reserved for the corporations that pulled the wool over our eyes and made off with our savings in the first place? How’s about pointing the finger at irresponsible greed-mongers and media outlets that give us the full scoop on all the corruption going on? Above all, where’s the general mood of outrage for a system that’s just totally faulty at the core?
And for all the liberals complaining about their golden sheep Obama being attacked, remember you did the same ting with Dubya.
