Jesse Ventura and the Muddled Minds of Americans

Ventura doesn't present himself as a messiah. When faced with a question he doesn't know, he simply states "I don't know." How many politicians do that? I don't think Americans are seeking perfection from their representatives -- just plain-spoken honesty. He doesn't claim to have all the answers, and openly admits that some things are only going to change slowly because of a variety of reasons. We are entrenched with the idea that government will take a load off our backs -- and many people are collapsing because of this load despite the wrangling that goes on in Washington D.C. In fact many of us are now aware that this wrangling is slowing our progress as a nation of individuals.

If I could pose one question to Ventura it would be this: What will it take for Americans to actually wake up? Or given that many Americans do in fact know about the cronyism, deceit and corruption of our present government, why don't we do anything? I'm not talking about a full-scale revolution, but why don't we vote for people who are (at the least) less corruptible? Are we so pacified by the entertainment media (and I include the news media along with this) that we are just content to live as we do? That's actually a much bigger question than it seems on the surface.

No matter your income bracket -- although of course it means more to the lower echelon -- are we so inured to the political process that we've just turned our backs to high crimes and misdemeanors that have become ordinary orchestrations among our representatives? Have we become a nation of pacifists or where apathy is so entrenched that nothing can arouse us?

From about the time we enter elementary school, we are supposed to start thinking about our retirement income. From about our high school years we're supposed to be thinking about buying a plot where we can be buried -- and maybe our entire family that we haven't even thought about having. From about our college years (if we get that far), we're supposed to be thinking about the educational funds we haven't yet conceived.

Meanwhile, we're supposed to turn our backs on a barrage of commercial temptations, e.g., homes we can't afford, cars we can't afford, clothing, electronics, vacations, etc., etc. For me, it's all very strange. It's okay to spend billions on aircraft that don't fly as expected and are outdated as they come out of factories, but administrators whom we elected look for ways to cut essential social spending and infrastructure.

I don't know about you, but I'm not looking for a government official who pretends to have all the answers. I'd find this very suspicious indeed. The greatest minds on our planet do not seek political office, and why would they? So, what we get instead are ambitious egomaniacs who are willing to play whatever game seemingly just to give themselves notoriety or a sense of self-worthiness. Even if the salaries and benefits of our elected official were not egregious, you'd still have tree stumps like Donald Trump wishing to be president... just to prove his own sense of superiority.

So, nothing really changes, does it? We get sick of the democrats and elect republicans, and they do no better, so revert back to the democrats, and so it goes over and over. But, the fault is within ourselves. These criminals, slackers and idiots who get elected to office are a mere reflection of our own banality. If something other than this were the case we would already have drastically reduced if not eliminated the waste, greed, buy-ability of those we've chosen to place in high office over us.

We are our own worst enemy. The question is what makes it so? History would have us believe that there was once a spark among us, a fire that actually burned. What put that out? Why do we go on and on with the status quo? Most people will agree that some kind of change is absolutely necessary, but we don't seem to know how to turn things around. To do so in a sudden way seems impossible, but are we even on the right track for bringing about changes that most of us share? I can't see it.