Aaaaaand... We're Back!

Yes, I'm back. And we'll return to our regular dating/relationships/male-female dynamic subject matter tomorrow, but since I've already been off-topic for a few days, I'm going to take this opportunity to say something even further off-topic.

I'm not a political blogger, and this is not a political blog. I don't ever want it to be. I like the dating stuff, I'm better at writing about it, and it's a hell of a lot more entertaining. If you've known me in the real world for any significant amount of time, however, you know that I'm very interested in the current state of the world. The power dynamics fascinate me, and I feel it's our duty as responsible, intelligent citizens to stay well-informed. We, the people, are the most significant piece in the American system of checks and balances, and if we don't know what's going on, we can't responsibly execute that role.

My belief structure is hard to classify politically. I'm pretty liberal in some areas, relatively conservative in others, and right down the middle on the rest of it. I'm proudly independent, because I prefer to weigh each individual decision on its own merits over blindly siding with one group or another. And honestly? Right now, I'm not particularly happy with anybody.

What I am is scared. Terrified, even. And I have been for a few years now. I believe we're in the midst of one of the darkest periods American history will ever see. When you compare what America stands for with what it's doing at the moment, the two have never been farther apart. And when you compare recent events in America with past historical examples of similar occurrences elsewhere, the outlook is bleak. I'm not going to go into detail here, because someone else has said it much better than I ever could, but there's a link to that at the end of this post.

So where are the people? Well, for the most part (and I hope most of my readers are more educated than this), they're busy voting for Sanjaya or getting the latest scoop on Britney/Anna Nichole/Paris/whoever the latest bimbo of the week is. They're not paying attention, and that's dangerous. The less we keep an eye on our leadership, the more they can get away with (and honestly, our system is structured in a way that attracts the power-hungry while discouraging those with altruistic motives). It's misdirection. I mean, the connection between Fox News and the party line is pretty blatant, but they're not the only ones distracting us. The Gonzalez hearing yesterday got one day of real news time, to be kicked off the headlines today by Rosie's departure from The View. Anna Nichole's death was a three week affair, but how much have you heard about the disinformation surrounding Pat Tillman's? As tragic (and close-to-home personally) as the Virginia Tech incident was, how were those 33 young american deaths more significant than the 3,335 (and counting) we've lost in Iraq, which have become nothing more than a simple infographic sidenote in the papers?

We are not doing our jobs. And if Americans as a whole fail to properly oversee the system and hold people accountable when necessary, bad things will happen. You know, when someone tells you to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," that's exactly where you should be looking.

Naomi Wolf describes my fears in a well researched, thought-out, and thought provoking editorial here.



On a lighter note...

American Blogstand is shaping up to be the must-see drunken blogger show of the century, in addition to being I-66's going away party as host. Be there. I might even sing for ya.

And yes, tomorrow, we'll be back to the fun stuff.