Deaf Politicians, Apathetic America, Termites and Opinion Pie

My brain hurts.

Like the longest, toughest class I've ever had - Joan Q. is cramming and crunching and caffeinating herself silly, deciding what order in which to post articles regarding issues she cares about. I'm a solutions girl - I like to fix things. I can get behind passionate people who want to make a big difference in the quality of life for many, from local to global levels. I want to be part of the winning team that gets to say "We did it!" and affect positive change; whether that means offering a cough drop, providing a job for one person who doesn't have one, or effectively ending world hunger. I'm looking for those passionate, powerful personalities in the news and on the sidelines to get information from, ally with and make some things happen. It's difficult to pick any one person to shine a Poplitics light on at the moment.

Our country and our politics are a mess. I hardly know where to start. I might be just slightly less confused than I was last week.

Americans are self-involved.

We don't even know what we want most, we only know that we want more of it. We want our government to tell us the truth and save us from - from what? From poverty and pestilence; from terrorists and termites. We also want government to stay the hell out of our living rooms, bedrooms and proctologists' offices. We have strong opinions about everything from foreign policy to brands of mayonnaise, and we express those opinions, red-faced and blue-faced and tablepounding with righteous indignation and oh-HELL-no-you-did-not-just-go-there conviction.

So what? 

Who's listening, besides the aforementioned termites and any nearby unfortunates wishing they'd left their earbuds in?

Aside from local activists who are personally reaching out to their nearby constituents and tasting the bake on that regionally opinionated pie, I've found it impossible to tell so far whether the hopefuls in this Presidential election are listening to anyone but their own handlers.

Sympathetic Solution, Viable Communication or Soothing Stunt?

I invite you to visit the White House web site subsection, We The People.  I am encouraged that there is such a space for Joan, John, Joe, Jerry, etc. to visit, explore, voice and then listen. As I look through the numerous petitions, I don't envy the staffers whose job it is to process and respond to them all. I notice many of them are redundant; even more drip cynicism. Some of them are ridiculous. The site's barely been open a month and already the beginning responses to petitions are starting to arrive, met largely with mocking, scathing and disappointment, whether the response is a strong stance or an explanation as to why there is no strong answer.

The way I see it, Obama's White House has so far been the most wired, communicative, information-disseminating office in history. We The People is the closest any administration has come to giving the regular American public the chance to speak directly to the Oval Office, meet some petition numbers criteria and expect that at some point, there will be a response to the specific issue raised...and while the We The People Blog writers seem surprised that there are as many as 31,000 new signatures a day, it seems to me that this is far from enough. I see very few references to meaningful petitions in the news or on social networks; I would have thought this idea would have spread like wildfire. Are we all so apathetic? To me, this looks like another opportunity to add my voice to others on that winning team I mentioned earlier.

I pray thee, now what?

When I read the cynical critiques of the We The People innovation or other official requests for feedback or ideas, telling me it's a waste of my time to initiate or sign any petition because it will only get a fluff namby-pamby response, I wonder what the cynics would have me do instead. What does the White House, or any politician, or any activist group have to do to batter through the haughty arrogance of people who think they have nothing left to learn and consequently, nothing to contribute until the day their personal hero is elected? What better idea are they waiting for, and from whom?