Changing World

I don't understand some things. I don't understand how "globalization" turns out to have meant doing business with China, China and more China. I don't understand that in the war against man-made global warming, we buy products like fluorescent light bulbs from a country that has polluted 70 percent of their surface water, 90 percent of their underground water, and are going to fire missiles into clouds and ban one million cars in order to reduce air pollution for the Olympics. Setting aside the problems of polluting our own landfills with the mercury from these bulbs once we finally throw them away, aren't we simply shifting the burden of our own pollution to another country? By giving them all of our trade aren't we just paying them to pollute for us?

I don't understand why we demand three dollar made in China garbage cans from Wal-Mart when I would be happy to buy a made in the USA one for twice that, especially given how often I'm actually in the market for garbage cans. Or toasters, televisions, bar stools, and seemingly everything else.

I don't understand why some of our leading presidential candidates support increasing the numbers of H1B workers that are allowed to come here and work tech jobs when so many trained people I know would take them. Oh, yeah, the guest workers work more cheaply and better yet, they can't go anywhere for three years once you hire them. If there is such a shortage of domestic workers, why are major law firms holding seminars showing employers what they need to do in order to satisfy the requirements of hiring H1B workers without tripping over domestic ones? There's a video posted on YouTube of one of these things.

I don't understand why people keep saying the best way to change things is to vote. Okay, I vote, but I feel bad about it because we only have two viable parties with nearly interchangeable candidates, none of whom I feel are worth a damn. So voting gets me what? A say in which crapweasel gets the office? I'm not sure it's a national shame that we have such low voter turnouts as it is a national delusion that a higher turnout would solve anything. It's just not the problem.

I don't understand the woman I saw on TV who said she was a Clinton supporter and had been excited to see her speak in person. Sadly, she said, her candidate didn't say as much about what she'd do on real issues as she'd have liked. Are you still a supporter? Oh, yes, she says. Because most people make up their mind who they're going to vote for without listening to the details. Maybe those are too painful.

I don't understand why immigration reform is such a hot topic. Is it because health care and social security reform are so politicized they're frozen in place? Someone needed to find a new button to push?

I don't understand why congress holds hearings on issues like the Martha Stewart insider trading thing. Like they haven't done anything like that themselves, like it doesn't happen thousands of time every day to ordinary people who, whether they're busted or not, don't become the subject of a congressional hunting party. This is why you guys get paid?

I don't understand how when it comes to politics people can think they're so right about things. What do any of us know about what's going on unless we see it on TV or read it in the paper? Aren't we interpreting what they're reporting and how they're reporting it instead of what's really going on? Isn't that a little bit like whispering a secret to someone who whispers it to someone else and so on until a few steps down the chain the story's materially changed?

I don't understand how so many of us are so quick to judge our leaders, whether we voted for them or not, and not willing to acknowledge the fallibilities of our own positions. What if the New York Times or the Washington Post got it wrong? What if Cindy Sheehan is really nuts or George Bush has really helped make the country safer? What if America's image isn't quite so damaged as they tell us on TV?

I don't understand why I have to feel so unattached, so divorced from my country, drowned out by all the rhetoric and half formed opinions of my friends and co-workers, when none of us really knows exactly what the hell is going on. I don't understand why it's our obligation to vote for people we like only because they haven't been elected yet. I don't understand why it then becomes a national pastime to viciously tear down our own government in whatever public forum comes to hand. Thank you, Dixie Chicks, but I didn't need to know that. You, too, Babs and Tim and Christopher.

I don't understand why I can't be proud of my country, warts and all, and stand behind the flag and the ideals it represents and express that without having to argue with the opinions from last Sunday's news shows.

I may, however, be at the cusp of understanding why so many of us don't actually vote. It may be the silent voice, the tacit disapproval, the most appropriate gesture some of us feel we can make; we'd like to throw the bums out, but who do we throw in?