"You know the Germans make good stuff."

I'm currently in Heidelberg, Germany studying on an exchange program through my university, hoping to improve on my German while I'm over here, meet some new friends, travel around, etc.  However, I couldn't help but think about the political turmoil that's happening back home, as well as the recurring thoughts of conservatives in America calling Europe a "socialist shithole" where you have to wait in long lines, and a place where you're not truly happy, because after all, the Muslims are running over Europe apparently, and economic freedom?  They're socialists!  They can't be happy, of course not!

Me in Heidelberg.  Most beautiful place I've ever visited.

However, while they continue to delude members of their own camp with this tiring rhetoric, I would guarantee that 90% of the people that spout this bullshit have never even been to Europe, and I would be willing to gauge that half of them haven't even visited another country outside of the military.  While right-wing politics continues to engage voters with this constant spiel of the downfall of Europe, I thought it would be best to try and dissolve some of these retarded beliefs.

Take for instance, the "socialist health care."  My friend who is studying over here with me recently got pink-eye (and no, no farting on the pillow) and needed bacterial drops.  Less than 10 Euros and maybe a 20 minute wait, voila!  He has his eye-drops, and he's not infecting anything else (well, at least not with his eyes).

Since 2007, Germany's budgets have been hitting SURPLUSES, not DEFICITS.  While the United States and conservatives like to criticize them for being "socialist," why is it then we cannot seem to keep even a balanced budget?

It just pisses me off that we're so blinded by political affiliation that we cannot even be honest with ourselves.  I'm not asking anyone to like a certain political belief or become something they're not, but the intellectual dishonesty and blind attacks on the things you're afraid of have to come to an end.  American politics have always been in the shitter, but it's become dangerously close to madness.  We're too polarized.  Too many conservatives and liberals voicing their opinions, but ignoring the facts.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Let me know in the comment section guys!

"Hope is a good thing..."

I'm writing this blog as an argument to myself.  I also hope it has some value to others who are going through tough times...

If you look around you in your everyday lives, all you see is violence, death, greed, and oppression.  Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Genocide in Darfur, the constant threat of nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran, and peoples constant desire to make money by any means necessary.  It can get a bit depressing at times, and I think to myself, where has humanity gone?  Better yet, has it ever existed?

The argument I have with myself (and no, I don't answer back ) is that would the Earth be better off without us?  We have literally raped the world of its resources, and most scientists predict our ecosystem cannot sustain humanity or any other wildlife with the current course we're taking.

It's hope though, I believe, that has the power to change things.  No matter how bad today may seem, it's hope that keeps dreamers dreaming, and makes the weak feel strong.  Always remember that no matter how rough and bumpy is now, we have hope to remind us that road will eventually be smooth.

I end this with a quote from my favorite movie of mine, some of you might know it...

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies..."

What has gone wrong with our politics?

The more and more I turn on the TV or head over to www.MSNBC.com (which is about the most independent U.S. news source I can find) to look at national news or whatever is going on currently in our country and the world, the more and more I seem to find a newfound burning hatred for the current "election" year our country is under the burden of.

It’s not the fact that I "hate our government" or have an apathy for what it was designed for; it’s a loathing of what is has become.  Instead of a bringing together of issues and determing a candidate that would be best about handling the situation, it has turned into a stratification of insults and constant bickering over not what each political candidate can do right, but what is wrong with all the others.

Whether is be the Evangelical and Conservative Republicans stirring up misguided and inaccurate stories on Obama being a Muslim, or Liberal Obama supporters attacking McCain’s service record in Vietnam, or Clinton supporters doing it to both sides and getting attacked simply because Americans are afraid "she’ll take our guns away" (which is again, unfounded and has no rational base), these people are not concerened with fixing the problems that this country has; they are simply interested in setting their agendas and acquiring a power base from which to launch them from, i.e, the American presidency.

I know some of you may say "well Congress holds the President in check!"  Really?  Since when?  The last military conflict we’ve participated in that had actual Congressional approval was WORLD WAR II!  The executive branch and it’s cabinet are able to do exactly what they want as long as they provide a template and time table into which they’ll attempt to make these decisions, along with good reasoning of course.  But why is Congress still allowing our current president to run a blank check on a war in which he or any member in his administration has laid out an exact plan of how we’re supposed to succeed in this conflict?

We haven’t really had a president since FDR I think that has sincerely cared about the country itself instead of what agenda he currently had (you could possibly make a case for Clinton, but I would disagree).  Whether is be Truman on Korea, Eisenhower and the Domino Theory, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon on Vietnam, and even Reagan with the newfound 80s Communist scare.

It just makes me sick.  I’m not voting in this year’s election, or anytime soon for that matter.  You can call me unpatriotic or say "but every vote counts," but to what?  Electing an official (which I don’t even elect in the first place, but the Electoral College) that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Americans themselves but only of what subsidiary or corporation that they have to satisfy because they have ties to them?  Screw that.

Anybody have thoughts similar to mine?  Different?  I’m just amazed how the political climate has changed completely in the past 100 years in the United States.