Transparency Promised...Transparency Received???

What's up everybody? I know that one of you three are going to say, wow two blogs in a day. You can calm down, because I'm not that prolific of a writer yet, but look out for my book to be released in about a year about nothing important. We'll see how that sells. I figure that if I can sell two on my own, then I'm big time and I might just have a future. But until then, I'll stick to what I do best...pretending to be a trombone player on tv...not even sure I'm good at that. Anyways, just wanted to talk about transparency. Spelled tee, are, eh, in, ess, pee, eh, are, ea, in see, why...transparency. The dictionary on my computer, which claims to be the Oxford American Dictionary, defines transparency as the condition of being transparent. Thanks dictionary for being so clear in your definition by defining the word with another condition of the word I'm trying to define. So the dictionary defines transparent as:

1. allowing light to pass through so that objects behind can be distinctly seen
2. easy to perceive or detect
3. having thoughts, feelings, or motives that are easily perceived
4. (of an organization or its activities) open to public scrutiny

Now of these four I believe the fourth one deals with what I'm looking to talk about today.

So how many people remember the 2008 presidential elections where the American People elected the first African American President. Now I know there's gonna be a couple of people asking for birth certificates and everything, but let's just get past some things ok. Anyways, remember when candidate Obama promised transparency. And here we are 1.5 years into his presidency and we haven't seen a change in the process that the president goes through as far as making and implementing policy. Well I really didn't expect that to change because of, as I wrote in my last blog, there's just some stuff we don't need to know. And it would actually make us less safe if we knew them.

But I can tell you that there has been transparency. Please don't think that I'm trying to make excuses for Obama's shortcomings, I'm not. I realized politics was a job a long time ago. What better job to have than one that you can only do for a maximum of 8 years, get paid $200,000 a year, get a free house for that time, and continue to get paid your salary after your done. That's the job I want. "Alright Kenny, we're going to pay you $75,000 a year, you can only teach music for 8 years, and after that you can't do it any more. But don't worry, we'll still pay you for not teaching until you die." I think I'd be all over that, after I made sure they weren't going to kill me at the end of eight years...sounds a little too "Logan's Run"-ish to me. Back to transparency. One thing that has become EXTREMELY transparent is the process that our democracy takes to ensure that we remain the "Best Nation in the World". It's like they take an issue, let's say Best California Bay Area City, and half of them will say San Francisco. Since that one half said San Francisco, the other side has to say something completely opposite like San Jose. And the reality is more likely that it's somewhere in the middle like Mountain View, Palo Alto, or Los Altos. The reason for this is that the best result is usually somewhere in the middle. These cities would be better because they have equal access to both environments. San Francisco is 20-30 minutes away, which is coincidently how long it takes for a buzz to turn into completely drunk after slamming that drink between last call and closing, and close enough to all the high paying jobs in San Jose without any of the side effects of overpopulation and crime.

This is the same situation our political system is in. Our political parties hold on to an antiquated ideal system that served us well when our country was, no pun intended, black and white. We have a more complex society which begs for a more sophisticated governing style, system of ideals, and view of ourselves as a nation of states, not as a conglomerate of nations...which was the original plan for the United States of America. Which is why we have this huge divide over state and federal rights. That's because the United States of America was not intended to be one country with fifty states. It was supposed to be fifty countries with rules to manage how all the countries would interact with each other. But we need to understand how our country has changed from the original designs of our forefathers and evolved into this thing that no one could have even thought of back 200 years ago, before we can fix our government and make it more effective for our future.

So has President Barack Obama given us the transparency he promised us? Probably not, I would say definitely not. But he has given us transparency. Whether he, or any other politician for that matter, wanted us to see or not; we have been granted transparency to the facade of the political process. The hypocrisy of finger pointing, when they know good and well they are doing the same thing. The back room deals and the special interests. That old adage about one finger pointing at someone and three pointing back at yourself is really the case politicians. In an age where everyone is about 10 internet searches away from their darkest secrets being exposed, you think they would be a little more worried about not drawing attention to themselves. Just an observation. Sorry if all my black friends think that I'm a sell-out now that I said something bad about Obama. I think he has a rough job, which is why I don't want it. So don't take this the wrong way, I'm just thinking out loud.