Stop Making Money Off My Vote Already
There's a lot of chatter this morning about the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Now, we're used to corruption in this state's politics. Rod can't help but have dollar signs in his eyes - that's how Illinois politics works. (Either you're corrupt and unethical like Rod and Ryan, or you're a completely moronic bigot like James Meeks or Monique Davis.) But Rod's arrest this morning reveals that there's yet another asshole desperate to make a quick buck off the way America voted last month.
What bothers me is the fact that no one seems offended by any of the innumerable other attempts to make money off Barack Obama's president-elect status. Every chump out there is already serving not only to cheapen Obama's presidency before he takes office, but to prolong America's reputation as a nation of blithering idiots. (If we made sense and acted responsibly, I suppose we couldn't call ourselves Americans, could we?) Too many of our fellow Americans are wasting their precious dollars on useless novelty items that commemorate a presidency that has yet to happen. Obama plates, Obama t-shirts and buttons, Obama lipgloss, wine, mousepad, pocket-knife keychains, teddy bears, action figures and bobble heads -- all this and HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING YET! This is worse than gloating, people. It's stupid and pathetic.
The people behind this crass commercialization, and the idiots buying their wares, make me (still) embarrassed to be American and (particularly) sick to be a resident of Illinois. They should all be locked up with Blago. And then I should really think about moving elsewhere.
What bothers me is the fact that no one seems offended by any of the innumerable other attempts to make money off Barack Obama's president-elect status. Every chump out there is already serving not only to cheapen Obama's presidency before he takes office, but to prolong America's reputation as a nation of blithering idiots. (If we made sense and acted responsibly, I suppose we couldn't call ourselves Americans, could we?) Too many of our fellow Americans are wasting their precious dollars on useless novelty items that commemorate a presidency that has yet to happen. Obama plates, Obama t-shirts and buttons, Obama lipgloss, wine, mousepad, pocket-knife keychains, teddy bears, action figures and bobble heads -- all this and HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING YET! This is worse than gloating, people. It's stupid and pathetic.
The people behind this crass commercialization, and the idiots buying their wares, make me (still) embarrassed to be American and (particularly) sick to be a resident of Illinois. They should all be locked up with Blago. And then I should really think about moving elsewhere.
