Tuesday, October 05, 2004

It Is Cold Here In Cleveland

Normally, I don't do this sort of thing on here...but I guess that I need to vent.

It is a cold morning here in Cleveland, the morning of the Vice Presidential debate. Should I care? Of course I should. Am I really better off than I was four years ago? Sure, I've got a better job (sort of) but I am also a temporary at a company that turns out has a hiring freeze for its support staff, so even after almost two years (two years without any sort of vacation or extended break except for holiday weekends) of good work and service to the company...I am not going to get hired.

I just finished paying off my gas bill from last winter (even though I live in a tiny efficiency apartment with only my two cats) and the heat is coming on in the building tomorrow. Or at least I hope it is coming back on tomorrow. It really wasn't fun stepping out into the cold after showering this morning.

Am I better off than I was four years ago? No, I would have to say that I am not. Is Kerry going to do any better than Bush? I can't really say. Its gotten pretty sad when the deciding factor for choosing a president has become, "Well, he can't do worse." I would hope that he can't do worse. As much as I love living in Cleveland, it sucks that there aren't any jobs here and the whole city is going down the toilet because there isn't any money to stop it.

I saw some Republicans being interviewed on TV this morning about the debate, and one woman said that hopefully the City would keep up with the cleaning that they did for the debate. Everyone knows that regardless of economic conditions, a tidy city is a thriving city. Of course, I live on the other side of town from the debate so there weren't any road crews to pick up trash, or street sweepers cleaning the debris out of the streets in my neighborhood. Not even a sweep to get the hookers or the homeless people or the drug dealers out of the public eye. My neighborhood isn't holding the debate, so it doesn't really matter in the public perception of things.

To the candidates and the media, my neighborhood doesn't exist. John Kerry or George Bush don't hold rallies in my neighborhood, hell even Dennis Kucinich doesn't do that. When does the hope start in that area?

It is so much easier to just put a spit shine on the isolated part of the city where the media is right now, even as I type these words. I am sure that Chris Matthews and the people from CNN appreciate the effort that our mayor and our city is put forward on their behalf. I doubt if the Vice Presidential candidates even look out of the windows of their chartered planes and their limos in order to see what is going on in the world, what is really going on in the world.

Well, I am tired this morning, but it is more than just being physically tired. My soul feels weary this morning, because deep down inside I feel like it doesn't really matter. It doesn't matter who gets voted into the White House, because there is just too much of a vested interest in the status quo for too many. When are we going to get some real change? Thomas Jefferson had said that if we became fed up with the American government that we should just tear it all down, move things a little further West and build up something new and better.

That would be great, building a new and better government. It is also a pipe dream. Maybe that would have worked a few hundred years ago, but not any more. These things take on a weight and a strength of their own, and unfortunately there just aren't enough people who have the willingness, and the strength of their own, to fight the BIG fight...the fight that they are willing to fight even if they know that they might not win it.

Ok, I guess I should stop ranting now and go back to fuming...