Who's clapping now?

So I watched part of the state of the union the other day...mainly because there was nothing on! I started to wonder why would I not be interested in the most important scheduled address the president does?
as I watched it, I started to realize not only had I heard all of the information either leaked or issued in a previous speech (just a couple days ago about the escalation ) or I was really interested in how people stood up and others didn’t…constantly just being silly. It just seems like our politicians are just so juvenile with all of this applause and posing for the camera. I think we should remove applause from the speech so we don’t get these asinine statistics like “how many standing ovations” or “total applause time.”

It all takes us back to the solver of all problems…yes, the “Brady Bunch”. Who could forget the infamous episode “Vote for Brady” where in the end Mike and Carol in all of there wisdom state that we are a family and we should not split even over the party of Boy or Girl. Sadly, there is no political Mike or Carol. We are stuck with “pundits” who shout from the top of their lungs party lines!

What ever happened to dialogue in our society? Our country would never have been founded if this was the age in which the constitution had been written. They managed to come to such great compromises spanning such divisive issues from the role of the federal government to (sadly) slavery. But the purpose far outweighed the politics.

Some blame the parties; some blame the system, while still others blame the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. In an excellent semi-prophetic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman suggests it is the role TV plays in our government. I think he has a great point. While he was really seeing the beginning (the book was published in 1986), it amazing what transformed our society from debates prior to the radio to what we have today.