OMG! MeanMesa at an Interfaith TOWNHALL?

Through a strange twist of fate -- probably coupled with a paucity of information concerning MeanMesa attitudes and outlooks -- we have been graciously invited to the Albuquerque equivalent of one of the, now infamous, pre-election, town hall meetings with candidates.  Hosting the affair will be Albuquerque Interfaith, a group of local citizens with the progressive stance of valuing "faith" in all of its possible, positive manifestations.

Predictably, Interfaith certainly includes members with strong religious faith, but also invites those with "other styles" of faith -- faith in democracy, equality, justice and culture.  Its idea is to consolidate all the advantages members of such a disparate collection might bring.  The final product is a refreshing sort of zany, out-of-control, credible local voices with a thoughtful and constructive intention.

Of course, as is almost always the case with such opportunities, the devil is in the details.  For starters, MeanMesa must concentrate on being on our very best behavior -- that means no neo-con baiting or inciting riots.  Even a brief glimpse at MeanMesa history suggests that, by now, we should know better ...

The gathering has been described as a "listening session" where candidates will hear the concerns and issues of voters in an extended discussion before answering in a brief response toward the end of the meeting.  This means that MeanMesa is now faced with the task of "cooking up" a question, and, in this case, not one of our usual "rabid dog" bitching rants.  You know, something constructive.

So, what comment can be made?  What question can be asked?  The theme of the gathering is advertised as "Leadership * Faith * Democracy in Action."

MeanMesa's Comment

MeanMesa's Question begins to find direction

It should be no revelation to MeanMesa visitors that we live in a society where every possible complaint targets the failings and foibles of our bureaucracy.  In fact, listening to some of our fellow citizens, one might conclude that none of them will find social satisfaction and happiness until the entire social culture and organizational structure of the country descends to a state of disorganized anarchy, fractured, polarized and privatized into a "post paper" state.

Anyone who has visited an unfortunate place which found itself in this predicament will, of course, not agree.  Still, there is the rather chilling inertia of such a poorly formalized ambition rambling all around us from tea baggers to neo-cons to hill billies devoid of any concept of the alternatives.

Clearly, MeanMesa's question is silently migrating to the topic of bureaucracy.  Since the candidates who will be present in the meeting at all facing state races, the bureaucracy in question will be all about the New Mexico state government.

A Few, Very Brief Ideas about the history of Bureaucracy

From the very first evidence of civil structure in ancient Sumeria, one of the principle developments which made essentially everything else possible was the organization and imposition of a bureaucracy.  For the full energy of a civilization to be directed toward the structure of a successful state, even the ancient rulers of Mesopotamia realized the necessity of this step.

The idea caught on -- for better or for worse, depending upon the rationality of its application.  The Greek city states and the Roman Empire devised immense collections of control and management for themselves.  During the Dark Ages, the Christian Kings of Europe relied on bureaucracies to collect taxes, build roads and feed their armies effectively enough to create all the troublesome details contemporary high school students find in their history books.

 Basillos II, "The Bulgarian Slayer" 928 - 1025 AD (image source )

 The Medieval Equivalent of New Mexico's State Government

 Asking the Candidates -- State Bureaucracy and Life in New Mexico

The largest, most central elements in our state's bureaucracy can be determined by the amount of public dollars allocated. The quality of  the results of such budget allocations represents the primary basis for voters as they consider the quality of the current government.  Reviewing the value of what all we've bought is actually much more the foundation determining how we will vote than all the "catch phrases" and "talking points" of the billionaires' inflammatory, imported negative campaign ads.

The bureaucracy is a necessity for operating the State of New Mexico.  Being contaminated with the toxic idea that our bureaucracy is a "necessary evil" or an "inescapable catastrophe" is, in MeanMesa's view, quite irrational.  Instead, it should be considered just as a CEO considers the operating budget of his corporation.  Without efficient day-to-day operations, the stock holders will be eating canned corn from Dollar General.

In fact, we can very reasonably take pride in the mechanisms we have created which keep New Mexico functioning as a modern state.  Still, while canvassing, MeanMesa has encountered some very reasonable, common sense questions about this part of living in New Mexico, all representing something of a report card of public opinion about the state government.

The issues of voter concern, consolidated here, seem to be in mainly four areas.  Let's review them.

Schools

Education represents a lion's share of the money that our state government spends.  Yet, in surveys of schools and educational results around the country, New Mexico enjoys a positively dismal record.  From the voters:  "Lots of money, really bad results."  Worse, regardless of all the political rhetoric directed at the topic, improvements seem to remain frustratingly illusive.

The accomplishments of successful administrations seem to be limited to repairing roofs, suppressing vandalism and gang crime and a few few teen pregnancies, but the stupendous cost continues just as predictably as 50% graduation rates.  Voters don't know exactly how to solve this, but they are getting tired of paying massive amounts for basically more of the same outcomes.

Projects

As a poor state, New Mexico has fewer large public projects than most.  Still, we build public buildings, repair roads and bridges and redesign and reconstruct hazards and other eye sores.  Voters, however, don't see the comparative value in the money we spend this way.  To them it seems that public projects are painfully over priced, extravagantly conceived, poorly designed and VERY inefficiently, non-competitively, bid, awarded and constructed.

Their complaint centers on management, and the targets of their criticism run the full gamut from interstate interchanges, new schools, street improvements on out to new administrative features passed in the State Legislature.  The implementation of new state policies attracts a special frustration.

Voters reasonably think that these project expenditures are designed to "fill the pockets" of special interests first, delivering improvements to living conditions in the state as an afterthought.  As common citizens it seems that "We get what's left."

Examples of this extend to stimulus projects financed under the American Recovery Act, for instance, the terrible seal coat surface on newly paved  Silver between Carlisle and Girard in Albuquerque or the strange disappearance of stimulus dollars targeting weatherization for New Mexico rental residences.

Natural Resource Management and the Environment

The image of what exactly is happening with New Mexico's natural resources -- especially the oil and gas production -- is a source of both mystery and frustration to New Mexican voters.  They think that the state should be getting some serious revenue from these operations -- New Mexico is the fifth largest hydrocarbon producer in the country -- but, again, they don't see "What we're getting for the money."

Frankly, neither does MeanMesa.

Further, voters don't think that the state's management of resources is transparent, directed to the benefit of the citizens or particularly effective.

Pure Bureaucracy -- the State's Administration

Hard strapped voters are legitimately outraged by continuing reports of state officials fraudulently "absorbing" public money.  The scope of the scandals can be both large and small.  The fraud at the court house construction was an outrage, but the hundred thousand dollars "missing" at the rural school board seems to be just as unsettling.

New Mexicans are generally regarded as "too busy" to track through all the details in spending bills, but they do hear about state revenue dollars which are being siphoned off by petty crooks.  However, it is within the "legitimate" bills moving through the state house that the largest misappropriations reside.

The issue is simple.  With our state's large budget, how can all these frauds continue to slip by the management?  Voters are unwilling to accept the idea that there is simply too much to do to catch all this as it is happening.

Beyond the scandals, voters see state administrative management essentially in tatters.  Policies which were ostensibly designed to help citizens are as impossible to navigate as Albuquerque's unsynchronized traffic lights at rush hour.  State web sites which have been created to serve citizens are, far too often, miserly little half efforts designed, at least in the eyes of voters, as "plum contracts" for someone's brother-in-law.

Energy assistance.  Medicaid.  The court system.  School district accountability.  The DMV.

This list is a very, very long one. with every element riddled with infuriating remnants of the old "patron" approach to citizen services.

Finally, to the Question

"What plans to you have to bring New Mexico state government (the bureaucracy) up to modern standards found in other states?"

We've all done just about everything we can to continue to ignore the "elephant in the living room,"  but things have continued to get worse.  The missing ingredient is to discard the old "survival -- oh, we'll muddle through it somehow -- model" and move very energetically toward a new "excellence model."

There is no possible, good reason to explain why our state is so locked in the past that our bureaucracy never improves.

For more, visit a MeanMesa posting from January, 2010,  Ten new Years Wishes for New Mexico

Youth for McCain!

A short and passionate tale of elderly street theater.

Senator McCain scheduled a nice, dull town hall meeting here in Albuquerque. Some of the younger ones wanted to travel down to the UNM (University of New Mexico) campus and stand around demonstrating.

All that seemed reasonable enough. After all, it was a magnificent New Mexico autumn day, sunny and mild, and who knows? A friendly crowd offered the portent of pleasant company and new acquaintances.

I got busy on my home-made sign right away. Spreading the cardboard out on the living room floor and unceremoniously dumping all three boxes of various, colored magic markers nearby on the carpet, I began. As a neighborhood organizer for the Obama Campaign, all manner of aggressive and outlandish ideas for my sign's message were rushing through my mind. Still, there was my anticipation of some design problems, not the least of them the fact that half of the markers were, well, frankly, dried up and useless. Naturally, those would be all the good sign colors.

Furtive memories of that now ancient rebellious glory in Chicago at the Convention in 1968 were, by now, coursing through these old bones like an IV of adrenalin. One lesson of those halcyon days was to always use at least a 1" x 2" for a holding board. Another lesson was to never underestimate the persuasive impact of, yes -- you've got it -- street theater!

The right wording and a few of my "most geezerly" old people clothes would be enough for me to launch my one man mission to sign up young people for my "Youth for McCain" movement! Taping an American flag from WalMart (spelled: China) on the handle of my cane, finished the picture!




Of course, it would take both sides of this masterpiece to fully communicate the compelling nature of this invitation to these, till now, misdirected young people. I added a great, paper sunflower from Dollar General to "draw in the young girls."

That Obama rally was clearly on its last legs. Moving bravely into the midst of the crowd, I began.

"Get a haircut!"
"Join the Army!"
"Buy some stock!"
"Get with the McCain ticket, you spoiled back sliders!"

For those intrepid enough to endure these "American Dream" introductions, I immediately followed up with:

"I'll bet you don't even have a mortgage."

It was a great success! The mortgage crack kept eliciting responses such as "I'm only eighteen," but nothing could deter me once I was obviously on a run. To top off any of these dramatic epithets which got this far, I went on:

"Damned spoiled punk kids! Ingrates! Can't you appreciate all the sacrifices and hard work us old geezers have done to make this world what it is?"

"Grampy McCain is better than you deserve! Now. just hold your nose and get out there and vote for him!"

"You'll look good with a uniform and a rifle!"

Naturally, I offered some well seasoned geriatric advice to the young ladies, too. The astounding and inspiring fecundity of the second candidate in the "Youth for McCain" movement could hardly be overlooked. They were all transfixed by me, my well aged wisdom, that is.

"Have some babies, dammit!"

"America's tax paying future is depending on you!"

Oh well, I assume you have a fairly good picture by this point. Everyone had a good time except the Republicans who found themselves trapped in the auditorium.

Obama for President!

Mean and Tasteless Poetry: Welcoming Sara

The milk man said good morning 52

Morning, ma'am,

Your two per cent is less today than gas is by the gallon.
And, your neighbors are excited about the big election.
That cagey fighter pilot's called out missus Palin,
sweet Alaskan butt, to remind him of his last erection.

Victory! Senator McCain's found special, secret polls,
big news showing Obama's crew sliding into disrepair -
under attack by strong, yet compassionate, Christian souls
and a vampy veep who cleans her rifle while she skins her bear.

Oh my! Who could compete? He's just certain her wave will last!
She's quick, delightful, the governor and, quite the mama!
Abortions, gays and those Russians! When the final vote is cast,
her interviews will have elected Barack Obama!

Will you be wanting cream tomorrow?

Inspector General? Here?

Dreaming of an even bigger government

or

spending our tax money for something we actually need? 54

This election has turned the phrase “Changing Washington” into little more than a mechanical chorus. What exactly are these people talking about when they promise something like that? The more scurrilous of the politicians pound the table, threateningly, warning the “big money boys” in D.C. that “change is coming.” Although a majority of Americans feel strongly that a good number of these leeches belong in a cell right next to Abramhoff or DeLay, we may have to accept the idea that “changes” for these lobbyists and influence peddlers will probably not amount to much more than adjusting a few numbers in their seven digit “take.”

As an ardent Obama supporter, I would love to look my readers in the eye and honestly claim the prospect of a perfect difference, a perfect “change.” That would be fool hardy. We have plenty of Democrats in the Congress who haven’t even so much as lied about wanting a Washington with less corruption since they left their high school civics class.

Shooting a rubber band at a single cock roach might be effective and gratifying, but it hardly represents a serious approach to permanently eliminating the pests from your home.

Among the citizens, cynicism runs rampant. Most of them believe that we can never regain control of our country -- spelled tax dollars -- from these pandering, criminal opportunists. “K Street” has managed to castrate “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue” more effectively than the British did in 1812. Its domination of the Congress, both the House and the Senate, has no particular historical precursor. That relatively recent strategic victory for the special interests is more akin to a gay child S and M porn film.

The cynics are definitely right on one count. These high class crooks have abundantly shown that they own any part of the government which can serve them.

Enough ranting. What about a bigger government? That hardly seems like a solution to much of what is vexing us! Egads, shades of Reagan!

Well, that gloomy appraisal might be true. It depends on two questions. First, how, exactly, do we see the correct management of our national descent from a rich superpower to whatever it is we seem destined to become? Second, will we, as citizens, even dare to have the optimism to think we can still create an effective part of our government that will actually function?

What are we talking about here? What new part of government do we need to consider?

Tempting the possibility of my being, righteously, called an elitist, I direct your thoughts to a play by the old French author, Mr. Moliere. The title of the play is “The Inspector General.” It is a period comedy with a fine plot not particularly relevant right here. However, it does have a very relevant context. The basic theme of the play is about an Inspector General, authorized by the King, with the responsibility of inspecting everything all across the country, that is, roads, schools, hospitals, tax collections and essentially anywhere else that the King’s money (The King thought, in those days, that all tax revenues were HIS money. How antiquated compared to our representative form of government!) had any part in financing.

The relevance is clear for the following reason. The horrible looting which is our curse at the present moment has, as its central mechanism, fundamental deceptions with regard to issues such as cost, waste, value and effectivity. We pay monumental amounts of our tax money for things with names which suggest one thing only to get the leftover scraps of something quite completely different, utterly useless to us, after these “K Street” lobbyists have gorged themselves and their host corporations on all the sweetest meat, the freshest fruit and the finest wine in our federal expenditures.

These parasites have mastered every odious technique required to keep us confused about the actual facts concerning these undertakings of theirs. The consequences of this redistribution (a favorite word of their corporate benefactors condemning our resistance to their grotesque and growing wealth...) have grown so large as to represent a threat to national security, that is, a clear and present danger. We have become unable to squeeze enough of our tax resources through the prevailing process in Washington to accomplish things we urgently need (and should, in a more perfect world, be easily able to afford), such as school building repairs, bridges, roads, dams, hospitals and the like.

Interestingly enough, pretty much the exact things that the old French King’s Inspector General was inspecting in his ancient mission!

If our proposed addition to the size of government is to be able to confront and correct this criminal looting, it will first have to elude the inevitable sabotage which routinely perverts any actual democratic proposals from emerging from Congress alive and breathing, that is, functional in a way still consistent with some small remnant of the high ambitions of their origins.

It is no secret that the Republican strangle hold on Congress has, as its greatest ambition, the goal of proving that government will not work. Assisting these knuckle-dragging neo-cons is a convincing crowd of other half-witted reactionaries including, to our great embarrassment, more than a few fully tenured Democratic fixtures in the House and Senate. These “patriots” with such a vicious penchant to redirect honest tax money to their very close friends will clearly do anything (yes, anything...) to get the funds they need to be reelected. Their Congressional jobs are simply too profitable, we are told, to ever expect anything else from them! We regretfully embrace this dismal expectation. These “public servants” have obviously woven positions for themselves with wages so great as to unavoidably create a depressing, self-fulfilling prophecy of outrage and pilfering.

Oh yes, these bottom feeders may drink sparingly of the vast cash river rolling through Washington, just an imperceivable nip here and there when we aren’t watching, but they take enough to undercut our every ambition as taxpayers and citizens.

Can we envision a solution? Yes, we can. (!?!)

Consider the following proposal for a modern day equivalent to that old Inspector General in Moliere’s comedy. No, quite aside from mass lynchings, resurrected guillotines or straightforward wild west style American mob justice, we find these adversaries far too powerful and well entrenched for a head-on approach. Believe me, they enjoy a carefully constructed protective blanket constantly refreshed by their associates in places of great power.

First, the necessity of doing something. As Americans we face a very difficult decade of slowly recovering from the great looting ($10,000,000,000,000) successfully extracted from us by the Bush Government. We can fall blindly into our inevitable role as the weak, bad creditor, pathetically begging our lenders for just a little compassion over and over as we are repeatedly unable to repay, or we can dust off our famous national ability to successfully respond to our precarious position. That latter course will require that we seriously stop wasting money and begin to retire our debt. That is the “happy” story through which we will be able to stand on our own two feet within a mere decade. The “unhappy” version includes stories which either assume a much longer period or plots where we never again stand on those feet of ours.

Naturally, we will have to “make do” with a much cheaper military. Our lenders will, sooner or later, require that of us to free up the money we owe them. Perhaps spending only half of the combined allocation of the rest of the world will be sufficient. We will have to take steps to greatly improve the efficiency of our foreign policy expenditures, eliminating the looters who cling like vampire bats to every act of national altruism. On the other hand, acting reasonably internationally is far more cost effective as an avenue to national security than all those ridiculous and expensive Cold War weapons systems (the X44 Galactic Death Ray? just what we need in Baghdad or Basra...).

The reconstruction of our infrastructure, long a well worn threat to incite our fear during campaigns, will arrive at our door in a far more concrete style, you know, the sort of thing that comes with monthly bills. Big ones. Our government programs will be stripped of our present indulgent excesses either by our new high born ideals or the rather less glorious insistence of those who hold our loans. After all, we can hardly deny that we did, in fact, sign those notes George Bush kept rushing out to the Chinese or the Saudis for more borrowed money.

In the words of that great military genius, Donald Rumsfeld, “Sometimes Democracy can get petty messy.” We have definitely been pretty messy.

Did anyone think we were going to somehow wallow through this debt of ours without some serious belt tightening? It is so immense that we can’t even convince our lenders that we can quietly dump it on our unsuspecting children. Those who have financed this incredible, reckless debt of ours have in mind to start getting their cash back way before that.

What can we add to our government?

An office of schedule and budget. Oh, you say, we already have all sorts of bureaucracies that take care of that job. Really? Have they taken care of it? Does anyone think they can be “fixed” in a way that will cause them to take care of it in the future? Won’t it simply become another expensive layer of the failed system we have now?

Not if we do it right. And, it’s clearly time that we did it right. We elect managers in federal elections, enough of them to represent each district corresponding to the present rate of its consumption of federal money. These people become the staff of the Office of Budget and Schedule. Each successful candidate would win an election in his own region, the place where the most possible voters would be aware of his character. The day after the election, the names of all these winners would be placed in a giant pot. A random drawing would then assign every one of them to someplace else, that is, someplace other than the place where they won their election. Although hardly perfect, such an arrangement would make pre-established cronyism significantly more difficult.

The directors of this new government branch would be recruited from the Justice Department’s career lawyers, the professional, bipartisan staff of the Congressional Committees responsible for “getting our money’s worth,” career procurement staff from the Defense Department, seasoned engineers from the Transportation Department, etc. Every one of these appointees would receive a lifetime wage and benefits package (similar to Supreme Court Justices?) in the hope that many of them would not fall to corrupt motives. Whatever the cost might be, I suspect it would ultimately be an incredibly good investment.

No one could disagree that such a system would not be, theoretically, entirely redundant. Likewise, no one could disagree that such a system would actually be exactly the way to make drastic accountability changes in Washington. Everyone currently in a position to spend our money has trusted advisors. The problem seems to be that, although these money folks trust them, we, as citizens, can’t. We need our own advisors, and we need to place then in positions where no one can get to them for any more of those “special favors.” Let these new federal employees seek after our credibility as taxpayers instead of professing mastery of techniques certain to either confuse us or simply “keep us quietly in the dark.”

Oh my! The government would be paralyzed by the delay of channeling everything through yet another layer of regulation. Well, they, and we, have brought this on ourselves.

Give this new bunch the task of evaluating everything we intend to spend money on. Are the plans complete? Are they simply a place to start, to open the coffers, so subsequent cost overruns, suspicious changes and huge, out-of-scope additive alternatives can “slide through” a little more gracefully later? Does the program accompanying the expenditure actually have a reasonable chance of doing what is intended? Can we reveal exactly who wants it without a Congressional subpoena?

The Office of Budget and Schedule will have no voice whatever with respect to the programs proposed. That is a Congressional task. It will, however, have everything to say about whether or not a program has been accurately represented to the public, whether or not it has been prepared adequately to justify starting the flow of our federal tax dollars into it, whether or not it has been contracted and bid legally, whether or not it has a reasonable chance to succeed and whether or not any alternatives have been explored.

The “Schedule” part of this idea has to do with programs which should, at some point, end, but don’t. Aside from the inevitable excuses for this endless drain on our money, the graft seems to build in intensity the longer these jobs continue. As they extend further and further beyond their original (approved) scope, everything possible is added to them, unexamined, unauthorized and unassociated expenses approved piecemeal, usually offered up as desperate, last gasp chances to somehow salvage a poorly planned program -- or at least create additional excuses or camouflage for its failure.

Usually with only a few hundred million more dollars the sow’s ear at least begins to look like a silk purse. That is, if it doesn’t become top secret. From us.

Enforcing this new inspection regime is simple. Add another required signature to every government payment. It enjoys the full “brutality” of a one size fits all solution. Let these people evaluate everything -- military procurement, transportation expenditures, foreign aid effectiveness, emergency relief programs, every kind of civil works. Allow the evaluations to extend to nonmaterial areas -- educational improvements, crime abatement, climate and energy subsidies, corporate encouragement and assistance, borrowing money, social programs and the rest.

As taxpayers and citizens, these new “eyes” of ours must be empowered to see absolutely everything we are asked to spend our tax money creating. If there were areas where the past record of federal spending justified more of our trust, perhaps they could be excluded. But are there any areas such as those? The parasites have slowly embedded themselves and their interests into every penny we send to the Treasury and every penny which flows out of it.

It is highly unlikely that we would “throw the baby out with the bath water” by simply taking a look at some imaginary expenditure which finds itself somehow exempt from the looters. They are everywhere and in everything. The only arguments we hear are between them as they discuss who will savage our money first!

We really can do this. Register. Vote. Elect Barack Obama. Then,

keep raising hell!

In Praise of FOX News: America’s Entertainment

What could be more satisfying than searching for the good in everything?
It not only cleanses the soul, it is also a great boon to good health. 43


So, here goes.

FOX News has very nice and well maintained cameras and other equipment.

That wasn’t so bad now, was it?

Hypocrisy Hunting in the Urban Wild Lands

Voting in An Imperfect World: "Oh, Daddy which one's the saint?"
How We Avoid All Possible Humiliation While Electing and Supporting Nobody 35


“Hey! Bill!” Johnnie called as he entered the neighborhood diner.

“Johnnie. Didn’t see you this weekend at the bowling alley.” his friend replied good naturedly.

“Yeah. Larry and I went into the city.” Johnnie answered, looking at the menu.

“What for? Did you have a good time?” Bill asked casually.

“Yeah. Yeah we did.” Johnnie answered, now concentrating on the menu.

“So, what d’ya do? Bar hopping? Girl hunting?” Bill asked, eager and curious.

“Well, we did go hunting, just not for girls.” Johnnie answered, pointing to his choice on the menu.

“You mean, uh, boys?” the younger man asked, puzzled.

“No. No. Nothing like that. We went to that hypocrisy hunting club that Larry belongs to. Spent the weekend going through old newspapers, reading speeches and stuff, then looking for hypocrisy in stories about what the politicians did instead of what they said they were gonna’ do.” Johnnie answered patiently.

“Hmm. What was that like? Did you ‘get’ any?” Bill responded, still unsure what he was talking about.

“Yeah. Yeah, we got some. Larry landed a big one from some Congressman in the fifth district. He won the floor prize. The guy had just lied his ass off around election time, then, once that was kinda’ over, it was just like he had a list of the exact opposite. Ole’ Larry got a real nice portable radio, brand new in a box and everything.” Johnnie’s account of the meeting rambled on.

“You mean, that Congressman was a crook?” Bill asked excitedly.

“No, that’s the whole deal, Bill. The hypocrites do stuff that isn’t exactly illegal, so they just go on, hoping that nobody notices. Actually, they usually score lots more money than the dead out crooks who take bribes and do crimes and stuff.”

“I caught a couple of little ones. Well, one of ‘em wasn’t bad. Some City Councilman who turned out to be a real estate shark and a racist. You know, the guy went exactly against what he was pretending to be to get elected.” Johnnie boasted nonchalantly.

“What about the other one?” asked Bill, now obviously interested.

“Oh, it was okay. I guess I got excited all right. That one was my first catch of the night. First catch ever, if you know what I mean. But everybody there said that I should just “throw him back in” and not say nothin’. They all thought that he’d just go on feeding until he was a lot better catch for someone else, you know, later.” Johnnie explained.

“So, if Larry got the second prize, who got the first?” Bill asked.

“These two old ladies shared first prize. They lived together, retired and all, and both of ‘em are absolute dead-eye on the internet. They trotted out their stuff for everyone at the club meeting, and you could have heard a pin drop. Holy cats!” Johnnie answered.

“Who’d they get?” Bill asked.

“Actually more than one guy, but one main catch. Some preacher in one of those mega-churches. The guy had a boy friend on the side besides being married, lots of drugs and stuff, but even more than that. The whole Spiritual Leadership Council for that church was screwin’ their dues payin’ members, investing the money in some company that made religious books, buyin’ the books for way too much, then billin’ the church. Let me tell ya’. This whole stinkin’ bunch wasn’t working for chick peas, either.” Johnnie explained.

“The old ladies, Irma and Beth, snagged this video of the most outrageous ‘Better than Thou’ crap that the whole bunch of ‘em were spewing out in their church. Those two old gals peddled their story to the tv station. The hypocrisy club gets 10% when that happens. It’s great.” he continued. "I guess they were the same ones who got the Senator with the hooker problem and the other guy from the air port bathroom, you know the one who "isn't gay," when the pair of 'em wrote the Defend Marriage Amendment."

"Wow, those guys were, like, Republicans or somethin', right?" Bill answered.

"See, you're gettin" it! You'd like the club meetings." Johnnie answered, encouragingly.

“I always feel, like, extra righteous. You know, 'clean,' after one of those meetings. Hey, we’re goin’ back next weekend. Why don’t you jump in?” Johnnie mentioned as the waitress delivered his lunch

Hypocrisy hunting cannot replace serious thought when considering which candidate to select in an election. It can be a factor, of course, but as a simple measure, it will do very little to express one’s ambitions for the future of the country. Yes, hypocrisy is a subtle form of outright lying. No, it does not mean that a candidate should be “thrown under the bus” based solely on whether or not he has ever been hypocritical.

Yes, it does mean that if that candidate is elected, he should know that we are watching. As far as “blow hard” conspiracy theories, maybe it is time to start having some thoughts of our own instead of simply relying on how much mud we can pitch. If you find yourself thinking that “detecting hypocrisy” is a responsible way to chose a candidate, you have been “hoodwinked.”

We will never have a perfect candidate. We should never elect someone who presents himself as a saint. He’s lying and we’re buying into it. We should probably never elect someone who is absolutely devoid of any hypocrisy. He is managing the media.

We will have to realistically consider what we want in our leadership. Unexamined and relentless fear and greed may be great fodder for a tantrum, but aimless paranoia is not a reasonable arena to decide who we will elect.

We will have to vote as adults.

Quit Complaining about Politics and Be Happy

BLOGdoc 8 Disgusted with Politics

Any discussion of historical forms of societal leadership can either be short and sweet or some kind of endless Western Civ. nightmare, that is, the kind of Western Civ. that seems to go on for nineteen semesters. Around the time we were first establishing this country there was a very intellectual class, some espoused extremely innovative plans, some focused on subtle but enlightened variations of systems already in place. We should assume that some were only in it for the girls and the glory, the lectures and the luncheons. Some thought that continually war was humanity’s highest calling.

If we were completely objective in our analysis of the successes and failures that litter history, we might conclude a alarmingly well distributed list of origins of culture originating from each of the above.

We, notwithstanding all the fine essays contemporary with the start of our Democratic Republic, pretty much drifted into a corner. In order to satisfy everyone in that now famous corner, we married politics. Politics would become the “energy source,” “think tank,” “primary roadblock” and “sacred symbol,” whatever that means, for the fledgling country.

Once having established the Democratic Republic guided by the vagaries of the political selection of leaders, each with his own unique ideas about what was desirable, detestable, un-American or bad for business, we found ourselves, finally, prepared to criticize the process, past governments, present governments and a dozen elusive forms of essence definitions of exactly what our future dreams should be according either to the shaky record of the rules of the founding fathers or unavoidable changes in the same which have become cruelly necessary.

You know. Changes necessary for our survival, honor or prosperity which visit us thanks to unfair foreign mechanizations or other general uncertainties in the world around us. All but the most extreme domestic schemes were awkwardly protected under our policy of freedom. Of the remainder, the few which are prosecuted fell under our policy of treason.

The founders did not select oligarchy, theocracy, monarchy or mob rule. At least they did not agree to an overwhelming system comprised of a homogenous construction of any of these. They hammered out a new system which, they hoped, would incorporate just the right bit of each flavor. It was their hope that all the citizens would be equally disheartened and optimistically satisfied. In the sense of history, that would mean that all the rifles stayed in the closets.

So, here we stand, complaining about both the process and results of politics. Complaining continuously. We are always shocked by how low the tactics have become, how dishonorable and corrupt all the choices are.
We bemoan the fact that the voting population seems to repay campaigns that spend the most to woo them, never mind the message. After all, the stakes have grown higher every year we prosper more than the last year.

Amid the criticism we fall upon specific peccadilloes served up to us as scandals, overlooking others not selected for our scrutiny. We are uniformly horrified at the cost of campaigns, but we are still flattered when we remember how these people must value our vote. We tax all of their campaign creativity until they are left with little else to say other than “911,” “new direction” or, simply, “change.”

It rebounds a little when they finally start attacking each other. The more like a desperate football game it becomes, the more we like it. Or, hate it. Or both.

The founding fathers said very little about the nature of the process they selected for us beyond “be honest or don’t get caught.” It is an ignoble, dastardly pragmatic business. We all pretend that we know the right way to do it. The modernity of politics might surprise the founding fathers and some of those in that old intellectual class, but all of them would accept it as being the very thing they had in mind.

They would accept it as a Dionysian festival where all the accelerator pedals are welded to the floorboards. Probably the only way to disappoint all these dead dreamers would be to stop complaining.