no we can't

We start the day with a bit of pessimism. Though I really do think we can, if all we've got is a pretty song and some heart warming speeches then no we can't.

You've seen the video, Obama speechifying while attractive people agree and tell us, "Yes we can." Si se puede? Perhaps, but not until we stop letting the media control who we have real access to, not until the likes of Richardson, Dodd, Gravel and Kucinich are treated as equally viable candidates from the very beginning.

Why are we reduced to two options, Clinton and Obama? Are they really the top two in what was, until recently, a fairly crowded field? They aren't and weren't my top choice. I'd love to see the old white men step aside in favor of fresher faces, but more than that I want a president who means what he says, and I want for her to tell me what she will do that will make our country better. I might smack the next person that even utters the word change without telling me what they will change and how they will change it.

I am dreading going to vote. I'll turn the little knob and press the little button, but we have so many options in our local election. We have a huge bunch of rascals in our county and city, and we have that many more people offering us vague change and bringing the power back to the people. We have options that might as well be mirror images of each other. We have people meeting oustide of the sun light to make deals with each other, to give each other the job they were just term limited out of, to make sure their little corner of the kingdom stays in family hands.

And the worst of it all is that politics are fucking boring, booooooooring. Maybe they shouldn't be or don't have to be. Maybe it's just that, locally, there are too many names and faces, and I want to make an informed decision, for my vote to represent what I believe our system of governance should be, but on some level it's like deciding whether your pie should have a full top crust or a lattice and pretending that it makes any damn difference.

So, I will vote. I will do my civic duty. I will vote based on party in some instances. Perhaps I'll vote for the sole woman in some instances. This is Knoxville, so if any of the candidates are gay they ain't tellin', and shallow as that might be, that would get my vote in the same way some Baptists will pull the lever for Huckabee, "'cuz he's one of us."

And then I'll come back home, relieved that it's over for a few more months, chagrined that little will likely change. What I really want to do, at least locally, is sew the bunch of them up in a huge sack and smack them back and forth between the TVA towers for a couple of minutes. It would either knock some sense in or knock some of the stupid out.