The Pastime I used to Love

           Since 1992, I have been intrigued with politics from campaigns to governing to elections and voting.  However each year my intrigue has dwindled to disguise and quite frankly it has to a point of complete disdain for a process that I once endured.  As a little boy, I couldn’t wait to actually vote but I refused to allow my age to stop me from participating in the political process.  In fact I was encouraged by my parents to get involved in my community.  I was encouraged to speak out any injustice that I saw at the age of 7 and even more than that, I was brought along to community, neighborhood watch, political and all types of organizational meetings by my parents.

           It was those moments that defined my political interest.  In was during that grooming phase of my life that I saw what right and wrong was and how passionate people were about not just people voting for a particular candidate but for issues that affected the majority of us.  Now granted I grew up in a impoverished neighborhood on the eastside of Detroit but it was in that neighborhood that we stood up for community issues.  It was that community that fought against city government, state government and even against those in the community who tried to sell it off, write it off and give it away.

           Now as I watch politics in 2012, I’m ashamed to call it the pastime I love anymore.  I hear most politicians and their talking heads today talk about the middle class and how they want to help, however they ignore the fact that it’s not just the middle class that needs help, it’s the poor.  Most Americans are living in poverty today so who is going to fight for them.  I hear most politicians talk about getting Americans back to work but most of them don’t understand that Americans don’t just want jobs, they want careers and the jobs that are available aren’t good paying one’s so how will they fix the problem.

           I hear politicians talk about the importance of making higher education more affordable but not one person has suggest raising the Pell Grant maximum to $10,000 or more as the cost of living is steadily going up thus the cost of tuition, room & board, books and more things in higher education are steadily increasing.  How can higher education become more affordable and attainable when parents and students are being forced to take out more student loans due to the fact Pell Grants and other federal grants don’t cover the full cost of an education at a university or college?  Some might say more people need to seek scholarships but even getting a scholarship isn’t that simple and most scholarships are attached to certain majors, stipulations of GPA standards, etc. so even more added pressure are added to students seeking a higher education.

           Don’t let me even get started on issues of healthcare, equality, minimum wage, immigration reform, and a host of other issues.  My point is simply, politics has changed not for the better but for the worst.  Even the two party majority political system has lost its way as each side steadily blames each other for the problems our nation faces but when their guy is in office, they make it seem as if all is rosy or that it’s the previous party in control fault.  The fact is that Democrats and Republicans are to blame for America’s mess, like it or not, they both had added to our  nation’s deficit, have ignored fixing illegal immigration and have even ignored curving the cost of healthcare at the expense of just passing a healthcare bill to say we finally did it.

           You don’t have to believe it or like what I’m saying but if you look at the tone of every political ad running today on television: they are not ads of hope, prosperity or positivity.  Quite simply they are ads of despair, fear mongering, and negativity that cast their opponent or the other party as evil and full of dislike for a certain group of people or issue.  Is this the way politics has always been?  Whatever happened to ads that displayed where candidates stood on the issue?  Whatever happened to ads that discussed a candidates plan for the future?  Whatever happened to candidates standing up for the people and being held accountable for their word?

           The pastime I love has become a sporting event where even the media are picking sides, which leaves people like myself who are unbought, unbiased and unwilling to give in to one side or the other feeling betrayed.  The media used to be one of the most unbiased things to go but even the news they give out is tailored to make things seem one way when it actually isn’t.  Therefore the news reporters on television and even the investigative journalists are even taught to chose sides and stick with it, all in order to ramp up ratings.  This used to never be.

           Now as I sit hundreds of thousands a miles overseas, I realize now more than ever that the pastime of I used to love has politics has definitely left me behind but I’m not willing to go away without a fight.  I’m not willing to conform to the norm just because the masses say so.  I’m not willing to stand by and allow candidates, politicians and political parties to ignore the real issues plaguing the people.  I’m not willing to allow the news media to betray the sacred trust to give the news to the people unbiased and full of the truth.  Therefore I encourage all of you to not give to what the majority is doing because the majority is not always right and the masses don’t always know what is right.

           If the pastime I love is to come back, it will have to do it by the people demanding more from the political process than the two bit sound bites we are getting that a small majority want the masses to hear in order to manipulate us into thinking one way instead of the other way.  Enough is enough, it’s time to change the culture for the better.