In recent weeks, U.S. President Barack Obama's fading aura of invulnerability has been as much a story as health care reform itself. People had begun to doubt his lauded communications skills, his affable charm and ability to galvanize public opinion.
What you can't ever deny though is this: the dude can give a speech.
Watching him work his on-camera magic, one portion of the night caught my attention in particular -- and it wasn't the part where he shouted out our Universal Health Care.
Check this, from towards the end of his speech last night:
...when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter -- at that point we don't merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.
Obviously, this was directed at his partisan critics, but has anyone recently so aptly described the state of Canadian politics?
Here at home, we have been so mired in mediocrity that politics has completely lost relevance in daily life. Nobody cares about Ottawa anymore because Ottawa doesn't care about them. It is a self-enclosed universe, further alienating its members from casual society day-by-fucking-day.
Is it any wonder Canadians are deciding not to vote in record numbers? What are they voting for? Following our government is like watching those episodes of Morty Seinfeld running for president of the Boca Raton condominium board. All we need is a scandal over tip calculators.
The current levels of disenfranchisement among intelligent citizens in this country is not only a shame, but a cancer eating away at the potential for growth, innovation, creativity and leadership Canada has to offer the world.
From the looks of it, there will be another election this fall. I'm not pleased, but I'm not averse to this.
All I hope is that somebody, somewhere, runs on a vision of what Canada should be -- and why she or he is the person to make that vision come true. Isn't that what politics is about? Selling us on happiness?
I beg each of us to seek ways to affect change towards this direction. Get involved, volunteer, hell -- run for a seat. Anything to inject new blood and fresh ideas into this sham we call our government.
Canada's a great place, but right now it's like an office where management is all incompetent and nobody knows how they got their jobs. Lets take this bitch over.
