While attending George Mason University, I had a professor once speak that the greatest attention to politics is through a broken lens. For the many values we rely on are simply a game of chess.
A game of winners and losers alike.
The political animal of democracy perished many years before the righteousness of a democratic system. Anyone who has read 'Timon of Athens' understands that humanity found itself entrenched in a dynamic system where trust is bleak, and to keep your friends close but your enemies even closer. With the growth of personal wealth, leading to the subjugation of a marketable clash, I often wonder if Montesquieu would be pleased. What makes us inherently greedy, loathing of others, and having the fondness to allow a system to fail before admitting we were wrong?
I am not writing to blame a color of a representation of values, because that is simply ignorance. I am writing to those whom feel their system is no longer a reliance for the people, of the people, and most importantly by the people. As a political scientist, I have seen the weaknesses in our system, and it does lie with a sleeping dog -- the citizens. Growing resources, such as Twitter, Tumblur, Facebook, Google +, Youtube, Reddit and many more, have let us gather the opportunities to engage governance firsthand, however, we have failed to answer that call.
We are the sole respondents to our destiny. A destiny that surely furnishes the future of not only our country but also our existence.
I grew up watching the values of a country which were built upon the superior mindset of great competition means great reward. A country imprinted with a stout plurality of hard work and devotion. A country that failed to yield to any suggestion of failure or ill-reciprocity -- but those days are essentially over.
In a generation which has seemingly seen the birth of a new era in how the world translates and transforms itself, by way of a provoking pseudo-institution of celebrity, sports, and both domestic and international affairs, we have become diluted in a consistency of self-propagated awareness. We only care about what directly affects us. Yet, the things that do, we feel we have no control over, and to breach a system that has brought us here, is to allow the admittance of defeat. I do not call for the reconstruction of the republic in which we live, as it is the vision upon which our most sacred document contends upon. I am calling for the awareness in which sexually deviated, corrupt, and imponderable figures continue to seek re-election, from the trivial nonsense of people unforgivably failing to do doing their civic duty. Politics can be messy, but when the mess becomes too big to clean up, and we all find ourselves the custodians -- how much grief will be stricken then?
We are on the brink of a period where capitalism has been transformed into the matrix of the post-tense instead of the pretense. The privatization of the military-industrial complex, as predicted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his 1961 farewell address, has become a demanding reality. Eisenhower printed the label of which this country would become, "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
However, Eisenhower's prudence deceived him. What happens when we take the foundation of such complexities and not only turn them into reality, but almost every aspect of our working, functional system. When does the wheel of monopolized gain stop turning? The sleeping dog must now wake up.