Post; It's the Disney Effect

The Other Guy · April 14th, 2008

Here's something a friend of mine wrote that I belive sums it up quite well.

Quote:

Obama’s words offensive, but no less true

The last thing Americans want to hear is a message with negative connotations that shatter their perceived bubble of comfort, especially when that message happens to be true. That is the way I see the latest reaction to Illinois Senator and Presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s comments on small towns left ‘bitter’ by a failing economy and a system that they put their trust into, only to have that system betray them and take every last penny they’ve earned.

It’s a common happening. When the Republicans were campaigning in Michigan, a state bereft of good paying jobs thanks to outsourcing and stronger competition from foreign car manufacturers, John McCain did something people often say they want politicians to do, but even more often punish for doing; he told the truth. He stated that those manufacturing jobs weren’t likely to come back and something else must be done to revitalize Detroit and cities like it. Mitt Romney pounced on that comment and it may have lead to McCain’s loss in the Michigan primary. Mr. Romney offered the utopian alternative where a little elbow grease would reverse a decade of poor business decisions and damage done by NAFTA, otherwise known as a lie, and people bought into it.

The latest buzz about Obama’s comments are no different. Could he have worded it differently? Oh, absolutely! He left himself wide open for his opponents and others critical of him to pounce, and he has no one to blame but himself. However, all it takes is a little logical thought to determine what he meant. In lean times, when nothing is sacred and jobs are leaving along with the young people who are able to leave in search of better opportunity, neighbors are left homeless by foreclosures, and retirees’ savings are destroyed or stolen by corrupt CEO’s, the small town American returns to the only things that no matter what have been bedrock and unmoving. Those things are their faith in their religion and their means of protecting themselves and their homes. And rightly so do they turn to what stabilizes them, for that may be all that they have left.

With the way things have been going the past couple decades, people are bitter and they are angry. There is a real reason that people do not trust the Government, and that is precisely the point Barack Obama was trying to make. Perhaps that isn’t the reason people ‘cling’ to their religion, to their guns, and to blaming the obvious failings of the Government such as our broken borders, but such mistrust and feelings of betrayal do renew the grip small town Americans have on the things they know are solid and reminds them of a time when the country was more stable and prosperous.

But it is at times like this, also, that people are most vulnerable to being tricked by their desire to want to be told what they want to hear, not what they need to hear. When the economy is suffering, people want to hear politicians tell them that though times are tough, they are working to fix it, and this that and the other thing is what they’re going to do fix it, and we’ll all live happily ever after, regardless of whether or not anything is truly being done. Well, I’m glad I’m not running for a high office, because I’m going to say something that folks don’t want to hear; only make-believe fairy tales end with ‘happily ever after’. John McCain told folks how it was in Michigan, and he paid the price of losing the primary. Barack Obama called it how he saw it without a sugar coating, that people are angry because of the way things are, and now he’s ensnared in a firestorm being fueled by his opponents and critics.

What is America’s obsession with presenting this Catch-22 to our politicians? We demand them to tell the truth. When they do, we call them ‘elitist and out of touch’. When they sugar coat things to make us smile then get caught in their lies, they pay the price with losing elections that results in forever branding politicians of all walks as perpetual liars and cheats. Well my fellow Americans, I have another truth for you that makes me glad I’m not running for a high office; You reap what you sew.

When Americans buy into ten second sound bites, they are inviting bad policy and politicians to wreak havoc on the political system. If Americans truly want better government, then it’s time the majority of us put down the Huffington Post and turn off Hannity’s America. Stop listening to the talking heads who have an agenda of their own. You want a better America, America? Get off your rump, do your own independent research, and realize that sometimes, somebody is going to tell you something you don’t want to hear.