2012, Baby!
(Moving beyond political rhetoric to a, pardon the phrase, “reality we can believe in”)
by Alex Hammer
The world of politics is dead. Long live politics.
The 2010 election represented a tipping point in American politics. No, not a second wave of a Republican revolution, but he emergence of “we the people” as a potent political force in modern times.
And I’m not only talking about the Tea Party either.
While you have both good and bad in any field, people well know that too many politicians are self-serving if not corrupt. Not necessarily personally corrupt, per se, but corrupted by a political system in which big money and big money interests predominate and rule.
Tell me something I don’t already know you may be saying.
People are playing by the financial rules, enriching corporations (including those “too big to fail”) while still struggling to make ends meet.
I don’t see how “pat downs” as one goes to travel represent anything more than at best a distraction from the more immediate concerns of most Americans.
If your child was hungry, would you give him (or her) only a rock so that he could navigate the wild to secure his own prey?
How many political movements have been co-opted? Is the media pushing Sarah Palin in an attempt to bring the Tea Party into the fold? Can a multi-billionaire Mayor put a nation of people first before special interests? Can a President who speaks of hope move above rhetoric to, pardon the phrase, a “reality we can believe in”?
2010 represented a tipping point in that ordinary Americans, even if we didn’t know all the solutions, better understood both the problems and how they are perpetuated as a status quo. We understand that real change comes from a heart not beholden to its political well being to anyone else.
Human nature doesn’t change, but people do catch on.
Famously, it has been said, that there is a time for everything under the sun.
2012 is fast approaching.
Let’s bring this on.
Alex Hammer was a 2010 Independent candidate for Governor of Maine.