catapult magazine

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discussion

is it just me?

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wscott
Nov 07 2002
12:17 pm

I wonder if anybody else has a hard time getting turned on about politics.

There are two reasons that I have a hard time getting intense about political races and the such:
1. I just can’t imagine myself being a politician…i don’t know that I have ever seen one that seems genuine.
2. Voting usually ends up to be choosing between the “lesser of two evils.”

I know that voting is important, and I am not in favor of separating from society or goverment issues. But can somebody explain to me why I should be passionate about it?

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grant
Nov 07 2002
01:35 pm

Though Illinois politics can be very exciting, the victory speeches of victorious politicians are just as boring and predictable as anywhere else. There was nothing else on tv to watch Tuesday night, except for victory and concession speeches. It was a television-watching nightmare (you know the recurrent dream you have about changing the channel but getting the same scary image over and over again!).

It really does seem like politicians have boiled everything down to a science. Campaigns seem like math equations where you plug in a couple million dollars here, a few inoffensive words there, some patriotic mumbo jumbo and you get “x” amount of votes. I know politics isn’t supposed to be entertaining, but I’d like to think that there is more diversity in this wonderful democracy of ours. Or maybe boringness is what politics is all about: stability, reliability, a smooth transition between leaders and a consistency between the parties. If that’s the case, then politics doesn’t belong on tv.

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wscott
Nov 07 2002
01:50 pm

i’m inclined to think that you are right in saying,

“…maybe boringness is what politics is all about: stability, reliability, a smooth transition between leaders and a consistency between the parties.”

maybe that’s why i shouldn’t try to manufacture excited feelings about it. I should become informed about issues and try to vote according to where they point our goverment and society at large.

What do you mean by “consistency between the parties” i wonder…

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Ryan
Nov 07 2002
02:12 pm

Here is a hypothesis that is open to debate: Politics seem boring because the rhetoric of politicians and their actions and the issues they pursue no longer reflect the interests of they people who elect them, and therefore we no longer take a vested interest in the elections or in what they, the politicians, are saying. And comments, disagreements or improvments?

Personally I feel that we are kind of reaching a crisis point with the politics in this country. Our voices, as the constituents and electorate, have become increasingly drowned out by the wailing of big money and lobby groups across the spectrum of politics, from the top on down. And I think that is one reason why we should be more concerned with what politicians are saying, and making sure that we do try to get our voices heard so that what we hear them saying starts to become more relevant to what we, as the electorate, are concerned with.

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Norbert
Nov 07 2002
05:44 pm

I like your thought there Ryan. It reminds me of a PBS special “The Merchants of Cool” about the advertising world not necessarily catering their products to our demands, but by creating our demands by touting their version of cool.
Are politicians creating the issues for us to agree with them, or are they listening to what the American people feel are the issues? Do American people really know what issues there are? I’ve expressed my cynacism of Bush’s bulldogging of the Iraq issue. I guess I just see too many similarities here as well. Am I being too skeptical?

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BBC
Nov 16 2002
10:05 am

Amen on “The Merchants of Cool” What an eye opening video, huh?

I actually wanted to say something more general. I find i get interested in politics most when I actually get involved. It is a pretty lousy spectator sport, but it isn’t too bad when you have some time invested and something at stake (kinda like the stock market? I don’t know, I’ve never played that game.) In the last election, in my district, we had a corrupt democrate running against a neophyte republican who didn’t have a chance, and then this democratic guy who couldn’t get the backing of the Chicago machine and so ran as an independent. I was backing the independent because I had gotten good recommendations from some people that I trusted. Ended up he won and I was pretty excited.

One of the problems Norb points out (sort of) is that if polititions can easily seek corporate support, what do they care aobut getting my support. We need to get back to a system where the individual vote actually matters. I say, ban all corporate contributions. They don’t help anything anyway.

I think if I lived to be four and a half million years old, though, I could never get excited about voting for judges.