Hiding From The News

In 2003 I became very interested in politics with the invasion of Afghanistan (to which I was opposed) having been underway for two years, with the results I had expected (initial military success followed by protracted guerrilla war that is essentially unwinnable), and the impending invasion of Iraq. I was part of the largest human demonstration in all of history which spoke out against the illegal and immoral prospect of the invasion of Iraq. It turned out that the Iraq invasion was more successful than the invasion of Afghanistan, but only if you don't count the hundreds of thousands killed, the collapse of US military standing and the consequent out of control spending that has contributed greatly to the current worldwide financial crisis. Imagine how large the stimulus package would have been without the cost of these two wars. We would probably be back to normal by now.

However, in 2004 there was a US presidential election, and the man that had been the most disliked president before 9/11/01, and then the most popular president in history because terrorists were successful, and then started two unnecessary wars was re-elected over a decent man, John Kerry. I was so disgusted by the idiocy of the US electorate that I decided to simply not watch or read the news anymore. I concentrated on sport and my personal interests. I became detached.

Three years later there came the prospect of finally removing George Bush Jr.. I became interested in who would replace him, confident that it would be a Democrat, but scared that it would not be a Democrat. My hopes were initially for John Edwards who had correctly decided that the greatest issue in the US was the increasing disparity of wealth. Once he was gone I thought either Hilary Clinton or Barak Obama would be fine, and I leant towards Obama with his message of hope, reason and reasonableness, and his policies of investment. Obama won, but only as the economy had collapsed through the greed of Americans both rich and poor (people often forget when assigning blame that mortgages are agreements between TWO parties) and the costs of the two wars. Since then I think Obama has done a remarkable but thankless job, unable to do what he wants in the face of unending opposition, while keeping the world out of depression, and be castigated from the right and left. Remarkably, in polls, Obama is still ahead of every Republican presidential candidate but Mitt Romney, with whom he is essentially tied.

The Right hates the Left for taking away their country as societal norms inexorably move to the Left, as they have done for centuries. The Left has a new-found hatred of the Right as a result of the disastrous Bush years. Both sides hate intensely, beyond any concept of reason, and without any regard for compromise or pragmatism. The middle, who actually decide elections, simply hate their government. Obama is disapproved of by the majority of Americans but remains the most popular politician in the US. The US hates the US Congress, with 16% of Americans approving of the job they have done. For an idea of how universal this hatred is, a greater number of Americans believe that the sun revolves around the earth than approve of their Congress.

The thing is for me that the answers are so simple. With social security simply change the date at which you get social security to a percentage of life expectancy. Social Security was designed to help those who could not work because of age, in a time when most lived less than ten years after retirement. People used to live 1/7th of their life on Social Security while now it is about 1/3rd of their lives. Clearly this is unsustainable and my solution simply adjust for the greater lengths of lives. Socialized health care is much cheaper and has better results. Schools and social services pay for themselves many times over through the entire lives of people, while also increasing health, happiness and economic success. These are areas where investment is only worthy, but necessary. Military spending in the US is ridiculous and should be cut by two thirds, as the US is in zero danger of being invaded. Your average plumber in Europe knows these things. Europe has now surpassed the US in the things that matter, health, knowledge and happiness.

I am again too disgusted with the news to pay attention until it becomes impossible to ignore in the last few months before the next election. I mean, Michelle Bachman is a serious candidate for President, and she is literally batshit crazy.