I've noticed recently that many members of the Republican party are playing politics with the environmental and economic disaster due to this catastrophic oil spill off the Gulf. These antics are their way of retaliating for their president's (Bush) accusal of being responsible for natural or man-made disasters that may or may not have been directly under his control, and for his seemingly apathetic responses towards said events (i.e., Katrina; War on Terror). Some are even going so far as to label this current oil disaster "Obama's Katrina."
Of course, many Republican supporters or sympathizers are quick to point the finger at past rhetoric of the Democratic party and members of the media who continually picked apart President Bush's personal and political perspectives and policies (admittedly, some comments may be warranted and some may not). Both parties, instead of working together (with the exception of about, maybe, say, all of five people), continually look for opportunities to point out flaws (even to the point of complete exaggeration, and, honestly, what I would personally consider a lie) of their opponents in an effort to appeal to the emotions of their party's base supporters and to gain re-election.
This information is not new to many of us. We're all well aware of how each party uses messages of hope, change, bipartisanship, lower taxes, universal healthcare, you name it, in order to appeal and appease our emotion in an effort to translate that emotion into the action of voting for that particular candidate... even though we know we've been disappointed time and again, we keep hoping that this one is different. That this one candidate knows how I feel in my middle-class life; this candidate not only knows and understands my struggles, he/she has been there and can feel my suffering. He/she really has the guts to make a real difference in our community and really will work on the behalf of his/her constituents.
But once the hype, the excitement of democracy at work in electing our chosen, our favorite, candidate into office dies down, once the confetti has been swept up, the champagne consumed, and time of inauguration celebrations have passed; and once the true intent and inter-workings of non-transparent government affairs come to alight... we recognize the deceit. We retaliate against our leaders. We point fingers looking for someone, some party, some media outlet, some group of individuals to blame. We roll our eyes in disgust over groups of individuals who stand up against our government in whom many of us faithfully believe will carry us through; will work tirelessly on our behalf; and who will not rest nor let anyone get in their way of helping those in need.
Then begins the process of perpetuating the cycle of blame. Like a bunch of juveniles trading barbs in a schoolyard brawl, our politicians taunt each other with false accusations; accusations that are grossly misjudged, deliberately misinterpreted; and carefully omitted facts from public debate. Information then seeps into various media outlets. This information then gets passed along from individual to individual leaving trails of bitterness and anger in its wake. Do we question this information? Do we judge its source? No. Instead we look for outlets, ways to vent our frustrations towards others instead of thinking introspectively about what we've read, what we've seen, and what it all means.
We judge an entire party or group as deviants, unproductive, trifling based upon the obvious ridiculous accusations of a handful of dissenters. We then become unwilling to listen to any legitimate, reasonable discourse that other members may have to offer. Do we have the audacity to sit back and blame our political leaders when we're guilty of doing the very same with one another?
An excerpt from Naomi Wolf's Give Me Liberty states that each of us as Americans are responsible for our freedoms, not those who we elect to office:
"...when we quietly go about our business as our rights are plundered, when we yield to passivity and switch on the Wii and hand over our power to a leadership class that has no interest in our voice, we are not acting like true Americans. Indeed, at those moments we are essentially giving up our citizenship." (p. 6)
Wolf also sates that America is a state of mind, "a set of attitudes and actions, not a nationality or a posture of reflexive loyalty... [it's] people who have crossed a personal Rubicon of a specific kind of and can longer be satisfied with anything less than absolute liberty." (p. 5)
We, the people, must be more responsible in questioning the actions and motives of our political leaders whether or not they were our candidate of choice. To do anything less, isn't and shouldn't be the American way.
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