Political activism has exploded more than evolved lately. Aside from the fact the desire’s been there the logistics were always a problem. Before the speed of telephonic communication you had to travel to speak with your representative in government. You needed appointments because the (you name the office holder) always had a full schedule and was therefore always strapped for time. After the advent of telephones it was always a matter of handing off the responsibility for the contact. The reasons remained the same but the contact was always some low-level minion who lost the latest bet and was forced to man the switchboards.
The birth and now developing adolescence of the Internet has led to the development of a newly organized group of formerly impotent political provocateurs. There are a variety of issues to be dealt with daily. To the newly involved they’re important, carrying a value defining their identity in a realm they’d been rejected from for too long. Now the Nouveau Citoyen Soldat (the New Citizen Soldier) is trained, ready and able to deliver his participation on any selected field of battle.
Voters interpret politicians’ actions not as public service but as the individuals being crooked in their business: government. Political process is viewed as serpentine in its conduct when the goals seem simple to attain. Politicians offer sinuous, devious arguments clouding already murky issues. They claim to clarify the issues by developing a “dedicated opacity of verbiage” to keep their constituents off balance. The Citizen Soldier sees everything a politician does as propelled by an unseen, outside force known as a special interest group. They understand these interests drive, sponsor, finance and occasionally draft the legislation tightening the yoke the citizen feels around his neck.
Voters perceive that government acts from a specific stance of hypocrisy. Government participants command: “don’t do as I do, do as I say”. It suggests a class differential and privilege based on checkbook balances and inflated beliefs in social status.
The newest soldier hones his belief system to be as rigid as he believes his opponents’; the establishment flacks he dislikes. His perceptions become the black and white, yes/no, integrity bound strictures of intense participation he sees his enemy participating in. This new player on the political playing field doesn’t care for the political party dogma force-fed to their young. The all-encompassing, foundational doctrines they follow in lock-step indicate the problem to be solved.
The political party related group speak defines and denotes the group thinkers incapable of accomplishing their campaign promises. The group thinkers expect those promises to be forgotten and forgiven in the expectation their glorious representation is more important to you than their pliant, malleable integrity. These wannabees no longer run on the individually conceived issues built from the basis of seeing, experiencing and denying the necessity that any particular injustice need not be endured. They cop-out and run for office based on generalized ideologies codified, systematized and organized to assure they, as a candidate can fit into a comfortable niche so as to assure the continuation of business as usual.
They were elected to change the culture of “business as usual” in favor of new ideas brought together by new understandings and awareness of new solutions brought about from new efforts. The cure for the ills of government isn’t found in sacrificing ideals and walking away from ethics and morals. There is no entitlement to govern; only the moral responsibility to participate while guided by the unerring certainty of a well used and defined moral compass.
Without that moral compass how can anybody pilot any ship of state? Without that moral compass, how can anybody be true to a lost self? And finally, how can anybody lost in the labyrinth of their personally mutant ego structure; absented from membership in the society they want dominion over properly direct, guide, nourish or grow a nation?
Unfortunately these people live in the same intellectual compound giving birth to and funding the ideological directionality and sacrifice of personal integrity or worse, the construct of a self-centered elasticity of principles.
They’re politicians and they wonder why they’re centered in the newest soldier’s bull’s eye.
Thanks for listening
