Wednesday, November 2, 2016

"...Cialis, Schmialis....Where's The Drug for Electoral Dysfunction?..."

reflections and rhetoric from this past weekend (Oct 30)'s show....



 ...on what SHOULD be the responsibility of those we elect to serve ( or "lead")...

it’s NOT the job of those we elect, in essence, hire to “represent” and/or “lead” us to find ways to either block other points of view at every opportunity OR to shove the agenda of ONLY their constituents down the throats of all the OTHER constituents of other representatives

ULTIMATELY, and ESSENTIALLY..... their job is to FIND THE COMMON GROUND…how to make things WORK and NOT to simply go around in circles playing screw me no screw you with OUR lives…

COMPROMISE and COMMON GROUND have become dirty words in this nation and THAT RIGHT THERE is why this nation is FAILING where it could, and should, be succeeding…..
SO WHEN IT COMES TO not only VOTING FOR a candidate, but ASSESSING the job that candidate is doing AFTER they have been HIRED< here’s what needs to happen…..


WE THE PEOPLE need to WISE UP, WAKE UP, SUCK IT UP and ACCEPT that if I INSIST ON HAVING IT MY WAY and ONLY MY WAY and YOU INSIST  ON HAVING YOUR WAY and ONLY YOUR WAY, WE ARE BOTH, and ALL, GOING TO GET NOWHERE…EVER….PERIOD

We need to figure out how to row in the same direction, we need to be willing to give to get and we need to INSIST that those we elect CEASE AND DESIST with this crap of ONE ROAD AND ONE ROAD ONLY…STOP FIGHTING with each other over who is going to DRIVE THE BUS…..and FIND BOTH the high road AND….the COMMON GROUND…

Washington DC becomes WASHINGTON W.D.C….”Washington…We Demand Compromise


 ...on the bad news being that there ain't much in the way of good news...

I’ve got some bad news for you. Come Tuesday November 8th. you’re going to be a loser. No matter what happens between now and then, with the exception, God forbid, of the literal elimination of one candidate or the other, the bottom line outcome is going to be the same for you. You’re going to be a loser.

And you’re going to learn, at the very least, one very hard lesson…the hard way.

There is no victory in electing a President of the United States whose Presidency WILL be, almost as certainly as the sun comes up every day that you draw a breath, a bet every dollar you can lay your hands on absolutely inevitable abject failure.

Because there are only two candidates available, in the harsh cold light of reality and practicality, from which to choose.

And only one of those candidates can be elected.

So, either way it goes, it goes one of only two ways.

Your president will either be a polarizing figure who brings out the very worst in millions of Americans, who is distrusted, disliked, disrespected, even passionately hated by more Americans than probably any President has historically been in, at least, modern times if not, the entire span of American history. A President who will be disregarded, disrespected, denigrated, battled, blustered and blocked with every fiber of being that the opposition possesses and whose accomplishments will number somewhere between none and less than none.

OR

Your president will be a polarizing figure who brings out the worst in all the other millions of Americans, who has never held a public office, never read a briefing book, let alone understand one, who feels no hesitance, let alone shame, in denigrating, disrespecting, even physically assaulting racial groups. religions, women, physically handicapped people and who, by any reasonable method of diagnosis, is clinically incapable of showing compassion, empathy, sympathy and lacks even the tiniest shred of  ability, let alone desire, to resist responding to any and every single hint of a criticism or slight of ANY part of his existence with instant, ongoing, juvenile, even childish retribution.

Exciting times….and an exciting choice, don’t you think?



And not to pile on, but here’s some other bad news. There is going to be no wall, there is going to be no instant ISIS elimination. There is no wand or staff of truth or special potion or even magic beans that are going to make America GREAT again. And that’s IF the childish one wins.
If the distrusted one wins, there will be nothing but more bitterness, more rancor, more gridlock, more pettiness, more anger, more hatred…more of EVERY DAMN THING we don’t need ANY more of….and not a single bit of ANY DAMN THING that America really needs.

IN a few minutes, I’m going to share with you something I believe we’ve all been overlooking in this embarrassment of the “American process at work”….something I think worth talking about nine days away from casting our ballots…..if for no other reason, because God knows there’s not much reason left to talk about the two candidates, is there.

Cause like I said, I’ve got some bad news for you. Come November 8th, you’re going to be a loser.
But there is some good news.

Despite the divisiveness that seems to be on the minds and lips of so many Americans in this year of our Lord 2016, turns out that we, you and I, at the very least, actually have something completely and undeniably in common.

On November 8th, I’m going to be a loser, too.






 ...on the bad news being that there ain't much in the way of good news...


There’s a reason we haven’t yet discovered any signs of intelligent life on other planets.

I’ll share that reason with you in a couple of minutes.

Presidential campaigns have a way of bringing out and digging up….

Bringing out the very worst in people

And digging up secrets or at least turning best kept secrets into internationally known information.
Beyond the dry, even blah blah blah, “historic” nature of the 2016 election (either we’ll have the first woman President or the first President who has never been elected to anything before), this cartoon meets Twilight Zone episode of a once great American process has brought into the very bright light one of those best kept secrets I’m talking about……

First, though, some recently unearthed secrets that should, in fact, have come as no surprise to anyone.

Hillary Clinton doesn’t tell the truth about 100% of things 100% of the time.

Donald Trump is a spoiled rich kid grown up to be a spoiled rich old man who has no problem treating people, women, in particular, like shit or sexual objects, as the case may be.

People who love Hillary Clinton will not be swayed or deterred from that devotion no matter what attacks her opponents throw.

People who love Donald Trump will not be swayed or deterred from their devotion no matter what attacks his opponents throw.

And people who hate Hillary or hate

Donald….will……shhhh…careful, some of this might still be a secret…..will hate Hillary or hate Donald until hell, or as we sometimes also call it, politics, freezes over.

And that hatred is such a ferocious force that neither heaven, nor earth, nor truth, justice or, and this one makes me giggle lately, the American way will keep these appointed haters from hating and basing any and every decision of any importance to the rest of us with nothing more than that hatred to back up their reasoning.

It’s really hard to resist labeling people who rely solely on their emotions to make important decisions as, at best, ignorant or, at worst, stupid. And somewhere in all this tsunami of venom and viciousness, it’s still important to try and resist that labeling, so, let me give the concept a little twist, a little spin…a little pivot

Hatred is stupid. There is nothing useful, helpful, productive, beneficial or desirable, let alone simply humanly decent, about hate.

It accomplishes nothing. It can damage beyond repair.

That’s why there are classes in anger management and not anger enhancement.

That’s why we’re told not to go to bed angry.

That’s why even one of the most unlikely of philosophers had this to say about it…”animals don’t hate and we’re supposed to be better than them…”

You wouldn’t expect that kind of insight from Elvis Presley, would  you?

And then there’s what acclaimed writer James Baldwin observed many years ago…”I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”

Pain…and fear….of what’s next or how we’ll pay our bills or how we’ll deal with health issues or how we’ll keep our kids safe……

Pain and fear breed hate. And hate is stupid. Because it makes us do and say crazy, stupid things. An America without hate would never have given a second thought to wanting to make a weak and frightened bully like Donald Trump president…..

An America without hate wouldn’t give a second thought to what email went to who and when because that America would realize that the best thing to do when you don’t know exactly what you’re talking about is to just be quiet and not talk about it at all.

But possessing that insight requires an intelligence that cannot reside in the same heart and brain with hatred.

Because hatred is stupid.

But that’s not going to stop America from relying on hatred to choose their next President.

And if you accept the premise that hatred is stupid, then it’s not so much unfair or unkind as it is unfortunate to make the connection to that previously best kept secret I mentioned a few minutes ago…..

And the connection goes like this…..Hatred is stupid, there are literally millions of people who are filled with hatred in this nation and, so, it turns out, there are a lot of stupid people in America.

Literally, millions.

Whatever else that means, or doesn’t….whatever else that proves, or doesn’t, it does offer up that reason why we haven’t yet discovered any signs of intelligent life on other planets.

It’s a full time gig and then some continuing the search for that intelligent life right here …..



join the conversation
Sunday nights at 7

 






No comments:

Post a Comment