Hello World!

Understand this. You are being used, manipulated, influenced and deceived. Whether it is Fox News, CNN, the New York Times, your Congressman, your Senator, and yes, your President. No one is telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You have to piece it together for yourself. And you know what? They are all counting on you not having the time, inclination or energy to do the task. In fact, it is their cornerstone.

Understand this. You have a job or a career, maybe you are a student. Whatever your life is, it is yours. It has roadblocks, challenges and it needs attention. Your attention. So if you see or hear a story on the "news" about a faltering economy, health care reform, a war in Africa, interest rates falling, inflation rising, prices falling, murder in the city, a missing child, pirates, H1N1, ozone depletion, drug cartels, immigration, tax cuts or any number of stories that make the cut for broadcast, what do you do? Whatever it is, it is least likely to be to act. Not because you don't care. But you haven't the time or energy or resources to do anything that appears substantial to you about any of it. So, day after day you listen and watch, feeling helpless.

What seems to be least understood by the American electorate is that this is a representative democracy. We vote people into office to make decisions for us. That is the truth. Say it to yourself out loud if you must. When you cast a vote it is to give someone the power to make decisions for you. What is becoming apparent to many is that the choices we have made have been very poor. And we have been making poor choices for decades.

The anger and resentment you see in the town hall meetings is not about health care. The shouting and ranting is not about socialized medicine. People have begun to realize that they have made horribly poor choices. They want to rectify their mistakes in one fell swoop and it just does not work that way. It has taken election after election after election of blind, unthinking voting to get where we are and it will not be reversed because Joe Average starts to see through his veil of ignorance.

Think about this past election. Who did you vote for? Why? Neither candidate was worthy of the position. The President had no prior experience and beyond an ability to speak in public showed no quality that could be said made him a good choice. His opponent was disavowed by his own party within five minutes of the election being decided. Despite the glaringly obvious flaws in the Republican and Democratic candidates, 96 percent of the vote went to one or the other. There was no protest to the choices given.

Beyond being a country divided, America is a country distracted. Unable to see the forest for the trees has had no greater meaning than it does when applied to the American voter.