I used to love politics. I still listen to things about it, and I am intrigued by the process.. But gone are the times when I dedicated waking thoughts to the subject.. and long gone are the days when I held beliefs of certain political persuasions.. Since I came of age, as other males do in my early 30s, I figured something out: We still debate the same issues that we always did.. I am amazed, when cruising through the annals of history, how the political pit bulls and talking heads could of our life and times could be inserted in any given moment in history and sound like they made sense of that period of time. Abortion is nothing new.. health care and what the government should do about it has been around for decades..
Each election comes and goes. And we are told it is the ‘most important’ in history. Every time..
Today a new Congress was sworn in.. for weeks–no months!–the media speculated about John Boehner’s chances as retaining his speakership.. we were told the arch conservatives would revolt and sweep in a tea party dark horse.. Even Congressman Paul Ryan grew a beard for the event.
In the end, we got a tearful Boehner holding his extra large gavel next to Nancy Pelosi..
These figures are relics of the past–the corruption of the 20th century and the old ideologies that don’t make sense in our time..
The nation, and the world, is embarking down a new course. We are, living through a new revolution. The Industrial Revolution came and dirtied our rivers and gave us jobs we never had prior.. It also gave us a living wage, and thanks to people like Teddy and Frankie Roosevelt, we ended up with minimum wages and a 40 hours workweek..
In our modern era, those social norms are being stretched.. We are surrounded by technology. It beeps and clicks and hisses, and each time a new function is included with a line of code another person loses a job. Every career path we are telling children to choose in high school today may be obsolete within only 10 years.
In 2014, one of the biggest fights on the streets of America was about a higher wage for fast food workers.. Remember all of those shifts people walked off of? Recall the yelling and screaming, and SEIU organizing employees across the nation to call for a higher wage for fast food employees? Within only a few years, there will be no minimum wage. Instead it will be restaurants run by computers and operated, perhaps, by only a handful of people. Heck, maybe even the manager with a brown tie and spots on his shirt near his stomach will recoil away and leave a position filled by a machine.. answering our desires and immediately correcting the human problems that occur if a computer gets something wrong.
This is the now. There is no more future..
To hear the debates in Congress, the tired old foolish whims of old men, is beyond frustrating. The lackluster performance isn’t a verdict on the system–the amazing part of our founding fathers is that devised something that could withstand war and rage and the tests of time. But what needs changed are the minds and attitudes of the ruling class.
There is a great unveiling occurring across the internet world.
This week, I was reminded of the 1990s again.. Bill Clinton was able to get away with quite a bit and leave office with a nation loving his presidency.. The Seinfeld era, a decade about nothing, was a success for Clinton.. His sexual tribulations didn’t matter but instead led to a more erect President in front of the American people.. Things may change now though in this century.. Clinton finds himself embroiled in a strange and lurid scandal involving a pedophile named Jeffrey Epstein.. And now thanks to the internet (and the British press) we are finding out quite a bit more than we ever though possible about Bubba. And his 20+ phone numbers. We also know that the houseman for Epstein cleaned his sex toys and was constantly afraid he would disappear. Matt Drudge was the lone wolf in the 1990s who cleared the way for the internet when he blazed a headline and siren on his page about Bill Clinton having sex with an intern in the White House. If it was sex, of course.. But these days, the DAILY BEAST is the one who is claiming other media sources dropped the ball on the Epstein scandal.. Vicky Ward wrote a piece titled “I tried to warn you about sleazy Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in 2002.” Among her interesting words,
Upon hearing of my assignment, Epstein had invited me to an off-the-record tea at his Upper East Side house (during which I distinctly remember he rudely ate all the finger food himself) and then had his assistant call to tell me he’d thought I was pretty.
Even more
Separately, Hoffenberg’s daughter has gotten in touch—and it’s gotten me thinking. There are some injustices that maybe only time can right. And perhaps now is the time. Things happened then that simply shouldn’t have, and if I don’t talk about them, then probably no one will.
Ward’s piece for VANITY FAIR on Epstein was scrubbed of any references to women claiming abuse. That was 2002. Eons ago in Internet language.
The future is now. The scandals of yesterday have a renewed place in the Internet of today, and a new generation is constantly judging the old one. Children not of age in the 1990s may wonder why Bill Clinton got away with it.. children not of age in the 1980s recently became shocked at the fall of Bill Cosby from the national applause sign..
Everything that’s old is new.
Except our Congress..
There the same debates still occur as they did in the late 1980s.. Many people still be in a mindset that there’s a Cold War.. that we are far away from others .. instead we’ve never been closer. With our modern technology, we have never known more about everything and everywhere in the world.
We are educated. We are understanding. And we are not young and dumb..
Some may be able to stop a few websites. But not a billion. Not a trillion.
There’s information beyond our wildest dreams. And quite frankly, LOTS of it is true. Even the ‘tin foil’ types have facts to back up their often lengthy diatribes about our modern world and news of the day..
The economy is changing drastically.. pop culture is evolving every 12 hours.. the weather is more fierce and the demographics of America are rapidly evolving.
But John Boehner is the speaker of the House. And Nancy Pelosi kissed him.
