I wish I could vote for "none of the above"

Couple of years ago I watched the fantastic thespians at Ashland enacting Shakespeare's Coriolanus.  I had no idea of the story and, therefore, found the play that much more engaging.  Coriolanus is an arrogant Patrician, and does not heed to the advice that he has to pretend that he can relate to the plebes--which is how the other patricians behave.  As I was watching the play, all I could think of was our own arrogant politicians (editor: aren't politicians by definition arrogant?) who pretend that they are one of the "middle class" common folk.  And we are supposed to play along as well.  I would rather that politicians revealed their inner Coriolanus and went around boasting why they are the elite while the rest of us are suckers.

Last August, George Packer's depressing essay was yet another layer of revelation regarding how our elected officials work to promote themselves and ensure their re-elections--and not to advance the country's agenda.  If that didn't depress us enough, the same magazine, the New Yorker, now has a fine essay on how any meaningful action on an energy policy died in the Senate.

No diagnosis of the failure of Obama to tackle climate change would be complete without taking into account public opinion. In January, the Pew Research Center asked Americans to rank the importance of twenty-one issues. Climate change came in last. After winning the fight over health care, another issue for which polling showed lukewarm support, Obama moved on to the safer issue of financial regulatory reform.
In September, I asked Al Gore why he thought climate legislation had failed. He cited several reasons, including Republican partisanship, which had prevented moderates from becoming part of the coalition in favor of the bill. The Great Recession made the effort even more difficult, he added. “The forces wedded to the old patterns still have enough influence that they were able to use the fear of the economic downturn as a way of slowing the progress toward this big transition that we have to make.”
A third explanation pinpointed how Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman approached the issue. “The influence of special interests is now at an extremely unhealthy level,” Gore said. “And it’s to the point where it’s virtually impossible for participants in the current political system to enact any significant change without first seeking and gaining permission from the largest commercial interests who are most affected by the proposed change.”
Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman were not alone in their belief that transforming the economy required coöperation, rather than confrontation, with industry. American Presidents who have attempted large-scale economic transformation have always had their efforts tempered—and sometimes neutered—by powerful economic interests. Obama knew that, too, and his Administration had led the effort to find workable compromises in the case of the bank bailouts, health-care legislation, and Wall Street reform. But on climate change Obama grew timid and gave up, leaving the dysfunctional Senate to figure out the issue on its own.

I know what the solution is: stop reading the likes of the New Yorker!  if I didn't read them, I would not know how awful every one of these politicians are, right?  I truly wish for that blissful ignorance.

Oh well ...

The good news?  Coriolanus is soon coming to a movie theater near you.  Has some heavy-hitting actors: Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave, Gerard Butler (ok, not a great actor!!!) ...