Five Political Topics That Start Some Sh*t

Posted May 19, 2009 by admin for Global Grind Staff

My experience as a journalist has shown me that a lot of people think this way. It’s normally the people who have money that don’t want to talk about it. People who don’t really care too much about religion are the ones that don’t want to talk about it. And folks who are staunchly conservative try not to talk about their views in the street for fear of being publicly stoned to death. Obama’s historic race had everyone discussing politics, so much that for the year and a half that he ran his campaign it became as normal a conversation starter as “How’s the weather?” Now that he is in office, the culture he created for using one’s voice is allowing folks to speak their minds on American policy, the economy and such. But don’t think that everything is fair game. Talk about a mood killer. Try uttering the words, “Well I think Israel/Palestine should…” and watch people’s smiles disappear and ears perk up. The war between the two nations has been going long before Israeli was made into an independent Jewish state in 1948. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is like the abusive couple that lives upstairs. Sure, you hear them fighting every night. You wonder why they still live together. Time to time you call the cops, who only get turned away because the couple is determined to work it out themselves. At some point, you become numb to it. Why bother getting involved. Every American president since has tried his hand at helping the feuding populations reach an agreement but to no avail. Talking about it like it’s as simple as 1, 2, 3 will create for you new enemies for life. This topic also has a way of showing you just who people are. Within seconds everyone around you will reveal their nationality, folks you’ve known for years. “I’m Jewish”, “I’m Palestinian”. It’s their way of saying “watch the @#*% you say!” In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 aka <a href='http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-17-welfare-reform-cover_x.htm' target='_blank'>The Welfare Reform Bill</a>. This basically meant people receiving public assistance from then on would have to abide by a new set of federal and state guidelines or face being booted from the system. No one likes the people who take advantage of the system. In fact we all have this image of that moocher, several kids running around while they spend their days sitting on the couch watching their stories as the majority of society works for a living. Yet the problem of speaking about Welfare Reform in public is that your views, either for or against, can come across as racist or elitist. Someone is bound to make the correlation (whether or not it’s a valid point) that the majority of public assistance cases are black and brown single mothers. As you try to defend your p.o.v. chances are you come off as hating black people, single mothers or as supporting laziness and out of wedlock births. 3. Torture Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is about to loose her job for denying knowing anything about waterboarding. She blames the CIA for not informing her but a lot of people are calling her a <a href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124226863721018193.html' target='_blank'>flat out liar</a>. Americans know we are at war; we want victory but have the luxury of not witnessing the brutality that takes place in order to measure our success as the strong arm of internation