n.
Lack of interest or concern, especially regarding matters of general importance or appeal; indifference.
Lack of emotion or feeling; impassiveness.
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I do not generally write political blogs or political real life articles. I do speak freely about my politics (Libertarian) and will stand on a soap box in public if I hear of something hugely stupid occurring due to the apathy of the American public. I have seen so many articles in the news lately showcasing American apathy that I felt I must devote a blog to the cause.
Let’s take a look at a few randomly selected current events to demonstrate how the apathy of the American public does, in fact, affect the American public (“It won’t happen to me” or “How can I possibly change anything anyway?” being the two most frequently uttered excuses for apathy).
1) People drinking in a bar, in a hotel the first to be arrested under a new Texas “enforcement” policy under the guise of “preventing public drunkenness”. In. A. Bar. In. A. Hotel. i.e. Not. Driving. Anywhere.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11965237/from/RS.1/
According to the internet research on this issue I did, these arrests have been happening with more and more frequency in bars accross Texas. The only reason this particular one made the news was that it happened in a hotel bar, where the OUI “reasoning” was not applicable, and out of towners were included in the arrest, causing the news wires to pick up the story.
What makes this an example of apathy?
Simple. A drinking establishment of any kind being targeted for doing the very thing it exists for – serving drinks – is a ridiculously totalitarian application of a vague law. Technically you are “drunk in public” in a bar, but you are not in fact exhibiting one of the key risk factors for a “drunk in public” charge, namely, endangering others. An engaged public (as opposed to an apathetic one) would be challenging these arrests from the first one, on principle if nothing else. If you can’t drink in a bar with your friends, where exactly are you supposed to do it? In your home, alone? That is a quick route to alcoholism. In someone else’s home, where there are no staff trained to spot excessive drinking, and no bartender to encourage cab use and designated drivers? That’s a quick route to drunk driving. A much better application of the law would be a system of reward and punishment based on endangerment. Reward bars who enforce designated driver rules and cab use with tax breaks or other incentives. However; I haven’t read of one suggestion made by the public in Texas on how this law is being enforced. That is apathy, and if it continues it will affect Texans socially and economically.
2) Presidential Signing Statements
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot_act_requirement/
The Patriot Act is itself a glaring example of apathy at work on a grand scale, eroding the rights of the American public while everyone pretends nothing irreversible is happening to the country. But it is also huge enough for its own blog entry, so we’ll move on to a related point, Presidential Signing Statements.
Has anyone really taken note of these little gems the President is sticking on the end of each Congressional law he doesn’t like or that he feels hampers the authority he thinks he should have? It’s a fine line between taking the stand required for a Presidential Veto and outright violation of the law. A massive Presidential CYA maneuver. The only place I’ve heard people declaring their thoughts on this outrage is private, out of the way internet groups and quiet little blogs (yes, like this one). We should be censuring the president’s behavior, but instead we ignore it, as if he is someone else’s four year old undisciplined brat and won’t be able to do any real harm to the country.
3) FBI Intimidation of American Citizens Questioning the Patriot Act
This one stands alone and needs no further comment from me. If you aren’t pissed off by this then you are in an apathetic quagmire no one can save you from.
http://www.speakspeak.org/speak-blog/2006/03/24/the-job-of-the-fbi/
For example, if the president of Common Cause attends a meeting of the League of Women Voters and criticizes the Patriot Act, that shouldn’t be investigated by the FBI:
On March 14, [Common Cause President Chellie] Pingree participated on a panel on open government sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Berrien and Cass Counties, Michigan that received news coverage in the local newspaper on March 17.
A week after the panel, an FBI agent contacted the local League president, Susan Gilbert, to raise questions about Pingree’s published remarks at the panel. In her brief comments addressing the law, Pingree raised some privacy and secrecy concerns about the USA PATRIOT Act, and praised Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) for their leadership on Freedom of Information issue.
According to Gilbert, FBI agent Al Dibrito said that Pingree’s comments on the USA PATRIOT Act were “way off base,” and that the League should have invited someone from the federal government to be on the panel and to respond. DiBrito then told Gilbert that she would be contacted by someone from the assistant U.S. attorney’s office in Grand Rapids to give her the real story on the Patriot Act.
…”Citizens can be intimidated when an FBI agent calls and questions their activities,” said Pingree.
The FBI is so powerful that Congress has continued the PATRIOT Act which lets FBI agents violate our civil liberties.
A meeting of citizens on the PATRIOT Act doesn’t need to include an apologist for this awful law; the FBI has enough power on its own to get its message to Congress.
Nor is it the proper role of the FBI to tell the League of Women Voters whom they should invite to speak at a meeting.
Many thanks to the folks at Speak Speak (http://www.speakspeak.org) for the above quote. You can go to their web site for more insight on the issue of FBI intimidation.
4) Lobbyists Can and do Influence the IRS
Recently an ExxonMobile funded agency convinced the IRS, supposedly an agency free from that kind of politics, to audit Greenpeace. I’ll bet you a virtual dollar your local news didn’t cover that little gem. Read more at the Democracy Now! web site:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/24/150203
I find financial matters as boring as the next person, but this one got even my attention. I’m no political scientist or economist, but even with all of its problems I’d always assumed the IRS was, for all intents and purposes, operating exectly as intended – politically apart from any one political party or agenda. Granted, I have always also assumed that they want much more of your hard earned dollar than they should have, but that has nothing to do with political affiliation and more to do with the current deficit and atrocious government spending (two other topics that could be there own blog, if I were more knowledgable on financial matters). Guess I was wrong.
5) Thanks to No Child Left Behind, your children are being left behind – no longer receiving a good, well-rounded education.
This is one of the many flawed programs pushed by the current administration. This one is particularly dangerous because it effectively eliminates any subject matter or teaching style that encourages problem solving and knowing how to think for ones self. We are teaching a generation of kids who will be unable to do anything from make change without the aid of a computer or calculator to figure out what is really going on in the world around them, but perhaps that is the future the current President really wants. Unquestioning sheep are much easier to lead astray, after all.
Are you angry yet? You should be. If you can’t muster up anger, at least start paying attention. Talk. Read. Vote. Blog. You may be one voice, but if one person listens to your one voice, you’ve done your part.
Want to read more about these issues, and the other issues we didn’t cover here?
Try BuzzFlash, TrueMajority, SpeakSpeak, Democracy Now!, Alternet, The Angry Liberal, Democratic Underground, and so many more (BuzzFlash has a nice list of site links on its pages).
/rantoff
The plus sides of working so much.