Giving up politics!

If I had been a candidate for the Republican nomination, I would start off by thanking my supporters, or in my case, my followers, and end with a rousing speech predicting eventual victory for my views.  I might even suggest that my followers latch on to another candidate who espouses my views.  Instead I've decided to stop writing about politics (and reading about politics) as I'm totally discouraged by our political system and without hope that anything will change.  Our country moves further to the right each year so that a centrist, like Barack Obama, is viewed as a radical left-wing socialist for even daring to suggest that as a country we provide decent health care to all citizens or provide equal educational opportunities to all children no matter what their parents income.  And ironically, the supposed anti-war candidate in the last Democratic primary now wages war around the world with the same intensity as his Republican predecessor.  He's kept very few of the promises he made to those on the left, and when we complain we're told to shut up--this is the way it has to be if he's to stay in office.  He's preferable to what the other side has to offer.  I disagree.

I was somewhat encouraged this morning, but only for a moment, reading that Francois Hollande had won the election in France and that Europe was beginning to realize that austerity measures that punish the poor but continue to give a boost to the rich are not working, whether in France, Greece, Ireland, Spain, and so on.  Alas, it took only a few minutes to realize that his election won't make any real difference in the lives of those at the bottom.  The grind will continue, the rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, global warming will continue, and frankly most of us are fucked.

The selfish gene is in ascendency in our country and elsewhere, where a majority care only about themselves and those who are like them.  Following politics daily is a depressing activity if one really cares about what happens to all of us, not just to me or mine.  Why torture myself I decided, so I'm giving up.  Instead, I'll join my fellow Americans and follow the fortunes of Lindsay Lohan or the Kardashians. May they reign forever, or at least until the planet collapses from the weight of carbon emissions.  Thanks for listening.