Give a F

Their strategy is brilliant.  They know our system well.  Our system is designed to be far more efficient at blocking things than it is at accomplishing things.  Elect enough blockers into office, and those who would change things to stop plutocratic power are thwarted.

Brilliant.  It can only be thwarted if people turn out to vote, especially in a non-presidential election year.  Will the distracted stay distracted?  Will the discouraged stay discouraged?  Will the apathetic stay apathetic?  Will the ignorant stay ignorant?  Stay tuned!

Something to remember about not voting or being ill-informed when voting: In a country of “don’t give a f,” the zealots and the devious win.

In Form

If Americans continue to get “informed” about political candidates from 30 second to 1 minute ads in the month up to the election, they will continue to vote on emotion and distortion, and not from reasoned fact and careful consideration.

The political scientist in me looks at the data and says the odds are against good sense prevailing in the 2014 elections.  That I should not work myself up and cause more stress, expend time and energy when there is none to spare, or risk more friendships and other relationships.

Then I look at my daughter, and know there’s no letting myself off the hook.

Even if failure comes, and malevolence, ignorance, delusion, fear, selfishness, evasion, and escapism prevail yet again, I must be able to look at her and say I REALLY did what I could toward something different.

And know that, when enough individuals are determined like that, change becomes possible.

Emotional Traps For The Unwary

“Remember America’s Heritage” was the name of the group soliciting money from me as a veteran to help fight what they were SUPPOSEDLY enraged about.

It was the kind of emotional crap that we fall for too often.

“Obama is giving billions to illegal aliens while veterans die from lack of care” was their grab phrase. I wonder how many “patriots” opened up their wallets for that claptrap.

As if the VA mess was a creation of one government body, one party, or one man, and as if it wasn’t many administrations—and, to be more accurate—many mal-appropriating Congresses.  And as if it was this administration that solely sets policies. 

And that doesn’t even address the factual misrepresentations.

The clever but sleazy money vipers couch themselves in the words of patriotism, and cloak their organizations in similar verbiage. 

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” Samuel Johnson said, and little has changed since his day.

From The Mouth of a Former Babe

My son: “Dad, you write a lot of complex stuff.  Seems to me a lot of problems are simply because there are a lot of old white people scared of changes.”

Hmm. Will think on that one.