Unsubscribe. That word sums up my position on a lot of things these days.
My latest unsubscribe request happened this morning after I read yet another email from the Obama campaign asking me: “Are you ready for the next big challenge of this campaign? On Saturday, June 28th, more than a thousand supporters like you are hosting Unite for Change house meetings all across the country. Ordinary people will be opening their homes and inviting friends and neighbors to come together and talk about our common cause of change….”
Sigh. No, I am not ready for this “challenge,” and no I am not going to open my home up to strangers just because they are voting against McCain like I am, and no I don’t want to talk about “common cause” when the only thing I have in common with my neighbors is high gas and grocery prices.
I then followed the unsuscribe-from-newsletter link at the bottom of the email in tiny print to their web site. There was a box there asking me to explain why I was unsubscribing. Of course it wasn’t large enough to accommodate my REAL answer, so I opted for brevity:
You are hammering me with emails asking me to go out of my way to help Obama get elected.. when I am working overtime to make ends meet for my family to meet the challenge of this INSANE inflation problem and I am 30% upside down on my house?! Talking about these issues do not make me feel better, they make me angrier. I will vote for Obama, but please LEAVE ME ALONE unless you want to send me some of that campaign money to pay for the catering and help Mr. Obama get elected http://www.joesacramento.com
I believe in Obama. I want him to get elected. But some of the rhetoric is borderline condescending: “I am asking you to believe, not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington.. I am asking you to believe in yours..”
Ok I have been alive forty years and never once–even in the best of times– felt like I had the ability to bring about change “in Washington,” let alone my own neighborhood. Call me a pessimist, but in my experience the government in this country (even down to the city level), operates independently of the people. Like a Denny’s restaurant, our government may as well have a sign on the door that reads “No shirt, no shoes, no heterosexual orientation, NO SERVICE.”
The Obama campaign wants us to believe he is going to change that. I would LOVE IT if he did, and I am going to give him my vote this November, but PLEASE, stop asking ME to get him elected unless you’re planning on sending me some money to help!
Well, it’s probably a good thing that government — including city government - works independently of “the people.” In my experience, “the people” are, at best, lazy dolts and, at worse, blood-thirsty sociopaths. Human intelligence doesn’t seem to function at the level of the mob. Take a random sampling of your co-workers and your in-laws then toss in a few reality show contestants for spice, and, voila, “the people.” According to recent polls, 15% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. You really want “the people” running the government?
Secondly, I think it is important to distinguish politics from government. Government is about managing things. Politics is about rallying people around ideals.
I mean: I agree with you. Our country is a rotting empire, and Obama isn’t going to fundamentally change that fact. He is just significantly less likely to start WWIII when compared to McCain. But to convince a plurality of white people, who still kind of think of black people as the Other, to vote for him, he’s got to dump about six million tons of “inspiring” bullshit on all our heads. Nothing less will do.
“In my experience, ‘the people’ are, at best, lazy dolts and, at worse, blood-thirsty sociopaths..”
Yikes. Did you just get out of Folsom Prison? My experience is different; Kevin Federline and Scott Peterson are not representative of the world I live in. This country is brimming with brilliant, enlightened minds but the bell-curve-bump doesn’t know it because they get their news from TMZ.com.. and Nancy Grace.
“he’s got to dump about six million tons of “inspiring” bullshit on all our heads. Nothing less will do.”
That’s fine. But that’s his job, not mine.