The US political season is upon us again. Non-US residents are bracing themselves for a year and a half of non-stop political bickering and posturing clogging most of the bandwidth of the Internet, much of it (on the part of both the politicians and the people dissing them or supporting them) consisting of complaining. Americans these days seem to view their own politics as a kind of James Bond-like 007 License To Complain. So I'm going to take advantage of my American status (expat though it may be) and complain about that. :-)
Watching American politics play themselves out (at least on the Internet, which is my primary portal into them), is for me a lot like watching "Spartacus: Blood And Sand." It's a gladiatorial sport. Perrycus strides out onto the political sands to do battle with Obamacus, and the crowd gets hard (or wet) with anticipation, because blood is in the air. And from the crowd's point of view, the bloodier the combat the better. They've got their stadium snacks and wine and they just want the combat to begin so that they can cheer for their favorites and boo the bad guys. When it comes to "bread and circuses," these days you can't do much better IMO than American politics, and the discussions of them on the Internet. If you're going to inflict another year and a half of this on the rest of us on Fairfield Life, can you PLEASE do us a favor this season and occasionally throw in something that is positive, and not a complaint? For those who don't know the difference, complaining is bitching about what or who you think are the "causes" of what you're bitching about and/or trying to blame them for it. Positive is suggesting some way to fix it.
