Don't Read This-

You're at a carnival, 10-15 feet from you are 6 metal milk jugs.  You win a stuffed animal larger than an 8-year old if you can knock them all down.  You paid $3 for this opportunity.  Do you like your chances to succeed if you have two balls in your hand, or three?

Trump is right- the election process is rigged, but not in the way he thinks.

Words like oligarchy, propaganda and conspiracy theory will cause plenty of people to dismiss your viewpoint.   If you run at them with expletive-laden, hair on fire talk about a rigged election- I too would dismiss you.  The below is currently being largely ignored on my Facebook page, as I don't work at CNN, the Associated Press, or the Huffington Post.  Hell, it'd be ignored even if I did work there.  So, I am posting it here as well, so it can be ignored in two places instead of one.

Overall topic is this election, but also the election process, polling, media coverage, and legitimacy of getting more options on the ballot that cannot be ignored by polls or the media.

Instant Run-off Voting, John Stuart Mill mention, Representative Government- I'm in!  Only thing he got wrong in this video is that we do not have a democracy, and the U.S. has never had one.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/09/10/how__why_other_countries_have_ended_the_2-party_system.html

The first 20 posts to Facebook dating back to October 2nd 2016:

Posted Oct. 2

Day 1

In an effort to offer more digestible considerations, I will offer my controversial opinions, historically relevant  facts, and educated conclusions every day until the election.  Work with me here- and spoiler alert! On Lost skip to the next paragraph if you are binge-watching the series on Netflix . . . . .  You didn’t know Lost was about a group of passengers from a plane crash on an unidentified island being ushered from purgatory either to heaven or to hell.

Most prevalently alluded to theories of the universe are derived from:

1-Science (biology, natural selection, Darwin), 2-religion (creationism, biblical, god) and 3-intelligent design – we are very familiar with the first two, but what is that third one?:  “the theory holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.”  Put another way- “living organisms are so complex that they must have been created by some kind of higher force.”

Which side are you on?

Day 2

Kitzmiller v. Dover – on December 20, 2005 “A federal judge ruled . . . that it was unconstitutional for a Pennsylvania school district to present intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in high school biology courses because it is a religious viewpoint that advances ‘a particular version of Christianity.”

Day 3

“…the Dover trial and its associated media coverage made me aware that I needed to make my argument in a more prominent way. Many evolutionary biologists had acknowledged that they could not explain the origin of the first life beginnings of voter tendencies. Leading theories failed in large measure because they could not explain where the mysterious information present in the cell came from.  So it seemed there were no good counterarguments to the case I wanted to make. Yet various avoidance strategies continued to work because the argument did not have sufficient public prominence to force a response.  Too few people in the public, the scientific community, and the media even knew about it. And yet it provided—arguably—one of the most important and fundamental reasons for considering intelligent design.”   - Stephen C. Meyer   pg. 6 of the prologue for The Signature in the Cell

Day 4

[  ] brackets represent slight alterations to Stephen C. Meyer’s reason for writing a 500+ page book concerning a third possibility about how the universe was created; I hope he will forgive me for co-opting most of his words to prove a point that has more bearing on your life and life of future generations of Americans:

“…the [presidential election] and its associated media coverage made me aware that I needed to make my argument in a more prominent way. Many [political pundits] had acknowledged that they could not explain the [beginnings of voter tendencies]. Leading theories failed in large measure because they could not explain where the mysterious information present in the [vote] came from.  So it seemed there were no good counterarguments to the case I wanted to make. Yet various avoidance strategies continued to work because the argument did not have sufficient public prominence to force a response.  Too few people in the public, the [political] community, and the media even knew about it. And yet it provided—arguably—one of the most important and fundamental reasons for considering [another political party].”

Day 5

"A discriminating irreverence is the creator and protector of human liberty." - Mark Twain

"If you never write anything save what is already understood, the field of understanding will never be expanded." - Ezra Pound

“There are seven sins in the world: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice and Politics without principle.” - Ghandi

Day 6 (Clinton I)

Hillary Clinton: "Every piece of legislation, just about, that I ever introduced (in the U.S. Senate) had a Republican co-sponsor." 

“But if someone says, as Clinton did, that ‘Just about every piece of legislation I introduced had a Republican co-sponsor,’ we think most listeners would expect better than 30 percent of the legislation introduced by Clinton would include a GOP co-sponsor.”  http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/20/hillary-clinton/spot-check-hillary-clintons-senate-record-immolate/

Saying that about (let’s say 90% = just about every piece of legislation had bi-partisan support) when only 30% actually did- that is a tremendous oversight, an awful assumption, and a terrible lie.  If I owned a rib joint and I advertised that 90% of my rib meat was from a cow or a pig when only 30% of it was, would you eat there if later you found out that vole bladders were serially wood glued to the femurs of shitzus? 

You shouldn’t be able to make claims like that, have them not be true, and continue to receive more support from the voters than the true percentage in any of your claims (30%).  Thankfully, her percentage isn’t much higher than that.  Unfortunately, her election to the highest office in the nation is more probable because . . .

Day 7 (Trump I)

. . . A major party’s nominee for president of the United States should not have the below answer to the question asked.  Since I’m not running for president, my inability to answer the same question should not be so striking.  I’d say that sporting the answer below about the nation’s monetary value is kind of a bigger deal than whether or not a former governor has picked out a favorite current world leader.  Maybe it is just me, but I don’t grade on a curve when deciding who is more worthy of my vote for president; I don’t penalize someone who hasn’t had his own reality television show.  See the link which follows for more vague, ineffectual answers to legitimate questions:

  

http://2016election.procon.org/view.source.election.php?sourceID=13595

Should the US Return to the Gold Standard in Which Coin and Currency Are Backed by Gold?

"[Josh McElveen:] Can you envision a scenario that this country ever goes back to the gold standard?

Donald Trump: Well, in some ways, I like the gold standard. In some ways, I like the gold standard. There's something very nice about the gold standard. And you have to go back at right time when gold does the old crash-o. But, you know, there's something very nice about having something solid. We used to have a very very solid country because it was based on a gold standard. We don't have that anymore. There is something very nice about the concept of that. It would be very very hard to do at this point. And one of the problems is we don't have the gold. Other places have the gold."

Source: Pittsburgh’s Action News 4, "Conversation with the Candidate: Donald Trump," www.wtae.com, Mar. 31, 2015

Should you vote for someone whose answer to that question is indistinguishable from the words your 6^th grader would choose to include in a paper about the same topic?

Day 8 (Johnson I)

So far, I may have misspelled or cumbersomely-worded something or other; hopefully that isn’t enough to make you discount every other thing I’ve gotten right.

It has been a week since I started this daily post approach and most of you have probably already tuned me out.  I can play that game- I tuned out all the noise surrounding a presidential candidate/former governor’s inability to name a favorite foreign leader, or his failure to recognize the name of Aleppo, a Syrian city beset by war.  He thought “Aleppo” was an acronym for something.  Man, is he goofy- ‘I aint votin’ fer him.’  Are those problems equal to a candidate not knowing how to adequately answer a question about the gold standard; a candidate’s playing dumb by using a private email server while conducting international government business- despite 30+ years being given credit for her savviness; a candidate’s failure to turn over tax records after repeatedly being asked for them (if I have time later I’ll get back to that); a candidate stating how often she has introduced and fought for bills in the senate that were distinctly bi-partisan in nature, when it has been proven they were not.  No question mark.

If you have three children- and one steals money from your purse to buy drugs, the second lies by telling you they got an A- on a math test when they got a D+, and the third accidentally drops a few grapes on the floor, do you punish them all equally by sending all of them to their rooms for 2 hours, no cell phones, television, driving privileges, or dessert for a week?

Jimmy Kimmel- hilarious and thank you- because I can take a joke, and because a third party candidate registered enough for you to dismiss him while accidentally legitimizing him.  When will Kimmel’s- “Are you more corrupt than Hillary Clinton” skit dismiss her as a serious candidate, or a sketch- “Are you less self-aware than Donald Trump” be offered up to the 5% of the public who prefer Kimmel to Fallon?:

http://time.com/4522623/jimmy-kimmel-gary-johnson-sketch/ 

Day 9 (Clinton II)

Leaked Democratic National Committee emails

General:  http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/22/politics/dnc-wikileaks-emails/

Specifics:  http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/24/politics/dnc-email-leak-wikileaks/

Debbie Wasserman Schultz, following a chaotic scene at a morning meeting where she was loudly jeered by Bernie Sanders supporters.

“[Debbie] Wasserman Schultz [DNC chairwoman] changed her plans as the fallout deepened from leaked DNC emails that appeared to show the committee favoring presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Sanders during the primary. It became clear Monday that the convention floor could erupt in anger if she gaveled the convention into session or sought to speak.”

"On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere apology to Sen. Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable remarks made over email," the statement said. "These comments do not reflect the values of the DNC or our steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process. The DNC does not -- and will not -- tolerate disrespectful language exhibited toward our candidates. Individual staffers have also rightfully apologized for their comments, and the DNC is taking appropriate action to ensure it never happens again."

If someone breaks into your house, defecates on the floor and steals your 4k television you paid a month’s salary for . . . yeah, a simple apology ought to do it- no investigation necessary.  What has Hilary really done wrong?

Day 10 (Johnson II)

See links below for information on Johnson. This isn’t just about how you are voting for someone who doesn’t have a chance to win, who isn’t the perfect candidate, who is a good option to spend your vote on in support of your conscience, and on the big picture.  And if it were, that would be enough, not just in this election, but in any of them.  Your vote does have a purpose larger than the next four years of making sure the candidate you hate, doesn’t prevail over the candidate you extremely dislike.  Your attention span can’t be that short that determining who most conspicuously aligns with your positions in the majority of the top 50 issues isn’t worth 30 minutes of your time:

60% of the American people, all things being equal, would vote for a third party candidate and the only reason you really won’t, at the end of the day, is because he doesn’t have a chance to win.  Again, that is the most obvious example of a self-fulfilling prophecy I have ever encountered.  We prove it every year by voting for the two major party candidates and not voting purposefully:

https://www.johnsonweld.com/

http://www.ontheissues.org/Gary_Johnson.htm

Did you not vote for your choice for prom king or queen because in highly sanctioned and impressively questioned “in-crowd” debates, people in your senior class weren’t planning on voting for your preferred candidate?  If not, good job not buckling under peer pressure.  If your M.O. has changed since then, that is unfortunate.  If your M.O. is the same as it was back then, that is despicable; thing is, you not only have more to lose now, you lose the right to be disgusted with the very process you don’t have the collective will to change.

Day 11 (Trump II)

At this point, I could probably leave Trump out of this, but he’s still polling at 38% nationally.  There was an episode of the original Twilight Zone where a ship of aliens came to earth to bring people back to their planet “for dinner.”  The people still giving Trump their vote after the last week’s worth of news are like the people who, in zombie-like fashion, keep getting on the alien’s ship, after they are being told they are literally going to be eaten alive.

If you watched, or heard about any of the issue “discussion” offered by the republicans during their primary debates, where they talked about how much they sweat, or the size of a man’s hands equating to the size of his manhood, again, I laugh at the idea that third party candidates have exclusivity on crazy, or incompetence, unkempt, or goofy. http://time.com/4242827/donald-trump-marco-rubio-insults/.

Trump: “Little Marco Rubio is just another Washington D.C. politician that is all talk and no action #RobotRubio” (via Twitter)
Rubio: “He’s always calling me Little Marco. And I’ll admit he’s taller than me. He’s like 6’2″, which is why I don’t understand why his hands are the size of someone who is 5’2″. Have you seen his hands? They’re like this. And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can’t trust them.”
Trump: “He has really large ears, the biggest ears I’ve ever seen.”
Rubio: “Donald is not going to make America great, he’s going to make America orange.”
Anyone ever heard the rumor that an additional party’s inclusion into elections has the very advantageous benefit of raising the topics up for discussion and the level of issue debate?  How is that bad for us?  And how is it good for the democrats and republicans (including for Reagan, Carter, Bush II, Bill Clinton, Warren G. Harding, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, Howard Taft or Abe Lincoln)?  Your continued compliance is exactly what they need and there is no threat that you are going to stop giving it to them.


Day 12 (Clinton III)

New York Has Done More for Hillary Than She Has for New Yorkers

Clinton herself would be hard-pressed to come up with a list of actual accomplishments achieved as Senator

http://observer.com/2016/04/new-york-has-done-more-for-hillary-than-she-has-for-new-yorkers/
“Ms. Clinton had no ties to New York, but it was the safest bet to start her own political career.”
“Of the 189 Senate bills that their lobbyists identified as significant banking or finance legislation, she cosponsored only 25,” wrote the Boston Globe this past January. Of those 25 bills, most were backed by Senator Chuck Schumer of the Senate Banking Committee. With Ms. Clinton stepping aside to let Mr. Schumer take the lead, some of the largest financial firms including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Bank of America poured donations into the Clinton Foundation and paid exorbitant speaking fees to both Bill and Hillary.

Day 13 (Johnson III)  October 14

Very few of my words this time- just click the links and play the video:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/opinion/gary-johnson-take-a-deep-breath-voters-there-is-a-third-way.html?_r=1

Hit play:

https://alibertarianfuture.com/big-government/propaganda/johnson-super-pacs-dead-abe-lincoln-video-is-2016s-most-viewed-political-ad/

The only political problem bigger than the one described in the link below, is the utility (and outdated generalities) of the Constitution, and what type of business those who choose to defend it, or to appeal to it, have transacted in its name.  Gun control and campaign finance are just two examples.  Enjoy:

http://www.debates.org/index.php?page=overview

Day 14 (Trump III)  October 15

If you are voting for Trump because he is passionate and an outsider- well, no one who has made the amount of money with the business deals he has, and avoided paying taxes, with that much pride, is an outsider.  I am not someone who thinks taxes should be raised on the rich, just because they have a lot of money- until we cut spending, cut donations to foreign nations, eliminate no-bid build military contracts, stop presidents from vetoing, or congress from voting down, bills mandating “buy American” clauses, and improve our trade policies.  Once we clear up all of that, we won’t need to tax the rich anymore and we can give tax breaks to the middle class, which is a promise many politicians declare and very few ever achieve.

I’m not including links to Joe.conservative.com’s blog or welfareRus’s Instagram page.

Just some random site pronouncing the words of Trump truth or lie:

http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

Day 15 (Clinton IV)  October 16

In Clinton’s defense, in anyone’s decades-long involvement in politics some conspicuous activity is bound to occur and for much of it, no amount of truth-telling or mea culpa will appease her detractors.  But the number of smoke signals these issues have sent up is enough for me to find another party to vote fire, er . . . for.  Course, I’d be voting for another party if just one of the referred to “scandals” was a thing.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/tracking-the-clinton-controversies-from-whitewater-to-benghazi/396182/

As for the emails/server scandal, you cannot get to where she is and has been, raise the money she does, brokering the deals, convincing this senator to side with you and these legislators to change sides (regrettably, I’ve watched two seasons of “House of Cards”) and then plead ignorance when plenty of your career has been made by gaming the system.

If this is a game of poker and you bet me an Aleppo, I will see that with a Benghazi and raise you a Whitewater.

Day 16 (Fairness, Hypocrisy, Objectivity, Ineffectualness, Crazy, Corruptness, Incompetence, Stupid) or FHOICCIS (pronounced- FOY-chees; derivation = Portuguese)

Gary Johnson isn’t perfect, and his candidacy, like everyone else’s in the history of politics, in any nation you could name, is not without its flaws.  Since Clinton and Trump voters don’t start with their candidate’s obvious challenges, I didn’t feel compelled to shoot myself in the foot, by highlighting Johnson’s minimal ones, before this train to nowhere ever got started.  

My logic on the big picture of revolutionizing the election process is still sound despite the anecdotal, and legitimate, complaints expressed about Johnson in the link below.  If one negative report (or two or ten) scandals were enough to derail a candidacy, no republican or democrat would have been elected since the inception of the country.  You lose discussions of any magnitude by not knowing the other side as well as you know your own, by being a hypocrite, by not conceding points where your side is weak, and if no one pays any attention to what you’re saying/writing.  Hello?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/years-before-aleppo-moment-gary-johnson-showed-little-interest-in-details-of-governing/2016/10/03/f62a00fa-873d-11e6-92c2-14b64f3d453f_story.html

After having read the above article (which I found because I am playing fair), let’s play Red Rover?  Yes?  Here is how it would work:  we get 3 lines of 20 negative things/scandals (examples are- [Clinton] private email servers, [Trump] woman groping, [Johnson] no BFF in the world leader community); next, we turn those “scandals” into humans, and have the three lines each hold hands separately.  Then, we take turns calling out the personified scandals; the scandals run into one of the other two lines to see which lines break.  

To be continued . . .

Day 17 (Red Rover- FHOICCIS [pronounced- FOY-chees] continued)

In this version of Red Rover, there are five lines- one line for each candidate you could vote for for president if all things were equal.  In Clinton’s line, to start, are all of her redeeming qualities, the things that would ordinarily make us want to vote for her- she’s got experience, is tenacious, is a woman, she’s done plenty for the downtrodden and the disabled, served in plenty of offices- which does give her a good idea on what it would be like to be president.

Jill Stein, Gary Johnson and even Trump each also have their own lines, for each has some requisite good qualities that have been, and are, appealing to hundreds of thousands and millions of voters.  If they weren’t that appealing they wouldn’t even be at 1-2% of the vote according to polls, the construction of which, themselves are as fraught with concerns as the candidates they legitimize.

The fifth line I referred to is one massive line of crap, because it is populated with all of the concerns a voter should, and does, have about the respective candidates.  This line isn’t any longer this election year, but we are more familiar with these personified issues than we normally are.  Since there are about 50 people actually running for president and on the ballot in at least one state, or seeking a write-in vote, and so I can keep this metaphor palatable, I stopped at 4.  You didn’t think a proponent of getting 1-4 more political parties legitimized would use a Red Rover metaphor featuring 2 lines did you?

In this fifth line are things we don’t like about each of the candidates- Johnson’s lack of foreign policy knowledge, Clinton’s email server, Stein’s inexperience, and Trump’s wall building ideas no matter the cost.  Assume that each candidate has all their own problems (let’s refer to them as skeletons, as it is 2 weeks from Halloween); but we have to assume that Clinton and Trump have more.  Hey, they’ve been in power longer, and let’s face it, when you get the reward of all that unbalanced media coverage, name recognition, poll better because you have tens and hundreds of millions to spend on an election, it is your fault you have more skeletons.  Legitimize a couple more candidates and parties by changing the coverage, take them seriously, and do your worst.

Up Next . . . Let’s play.

October 19

Day 18 (Red Rover- FHOICCIS [pronounced- FOY-chees] continued)

Game on!

Example:  “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Benghazi on over!”  From what I understand about this issue, it isn’t the end of the world.  Is there someone out there who thinks it is?  Probably.   So, I would assume they couldn’t vote for Clinton because of it.  

But to be fair, when the Johnson line yells out “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Aleppo right over!” the people in charge of the FHOICCIS rating would also judge that faux pas as mildly incompetent, but abstain from nailing him to a cross or act like he laced macaroni and cheese with Benadryl and fed it to the kids he was babysitting when he was fourteen. If the personified issue causes the joined hands to separate that implies the FHOICCI score was too high, and sheds light on why someone inclined to vote for Clinton would still find her candidacy defensible.  If in a discussion with someone on these issues is disgruntled by your challenge of their candidate raises their voice or points fingers, their objectivity has to be questioned, it just has to.  

The more broken, and separated the respective lines (which, remember, were populated by the qualities that make that candidate appealing) the less likely it is that you should vote for them despite your conscience.

After a game of Red Rover, Trump’s line will look like the aftermath of the Hindenburg and Clinton’s like a car crash victim in the ER on life support.

Day 19

One more specific thing here on this subtopic, and it is important.  Time, as it always does, vets the unknowns-  (after all, those who voted for Reagan couldn’t have known that he would exchange weapons for hostages despite an embargo, or Nixon would think secretly videotaping the events inside of the DNC was a good idea).  Looking at Nixon’s FHOICCIS score- well it is pretty substantial- crazy, stupid, corrupt and incompetent- a quadruple FHOICCIS score.  You couldn’t have predicted that.  

Let’s assume Presidents Johnson or Stein may turn out to be highly ineffectual, registering something on the FHOICCIS scale.  I include fairness and objectivity as measurables in the FHOICCIS calculation for a reason, because we need a way to judge the other six.  

All I am getting at here, the crux of the problem, is that you can’t give Clinton a pass on the 25 things that raise her FHOICCIS score to unheard of levels, if candidate Trump wasn’t around, and denigrate a third party candidate because of the 5 you heard someone mention, who heard it from someone else who watched the 48 seconds the local news devoted to its political update.

Assuming a third party candidate gets elected at some point in the next 40 years, ask yourself, in all fairness, were the non-traditional candidates (Green, Libertarian, Independent, or one that doesn’t exist yet) ineffectual because they don’t know anything about the dichotomy of inner city violence and racial outrage?  Is it because the currently ancillary parties can’t figure out how the poor, the hunyucks, or the 2^nd amendment fanatics, still obtain semi-automatic A15 rifles, or did they fail because the NRA has spent tens of millions to discredit their views, beat down any opposition by any lawmaker that would co-author a bill to limit rifle sales at gun shows because the NRA funnels millions into the re-election campaign of the republican or democrat who has much to gain if the additional party politicians are ineffectual should they actually beat this system I’m about to start showing is actually rigged (though not in the way Trump contends)?  

In a response to one of my tweets in support of voting for a third party, someone tweeted something about how we should ask the people in Maine how that worked out for them.  Look, you go out to eat often enough, and you are eventually not going to like the service, the food, the experience, the location, or the cost.  But you still go out.  The problem here is, too many people keep going to the same damn restaurant, complain about the same things, try a new restaurant one time and go back to the same restaurant that they forgot they hated.  Keep trying- now, I think that is a pretty good tip.

Day 20 (Blast from the Past-Gore)

Source of the quotes within this post courtesy of:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/us/politics/hillary-clinton-presidential-race.html?_r=0

“Mrs. Clinton may also get an assist from one Democrat who has been largely quiet about the race, but can testify to the importance of resisting the third-party temptation: former Vice President Al Gore.”

Seriously, she is appealing to the logic of Gore, who lost the election of 2000 because he was a horrible candidate, who was beaten by another horrible candidate.  If she loses this election, she is to blame, not someone who is trying to keep the other candidates, two entirely deficient political parties, and one overtly corrupt election process in check.

“ . . . after spending much of the summer hammering Mr. Trump, through both ads and stump speeches, it appears Mrs. Clinton has convinced many voters that Mr. Trump is not qualified to be president but has failed to win them over to her own candidacy.”

Ipolitics: Part 2

 
I am sam- sam I am, I Robot, I-ambic pentameter, I am legend, eye for an eye, bart simpson’s I-corumba (embarrassed enlightenment)

 

Foolish Consistency:  The Reasons Voters Continue to Make the Same Mistakes

 

Note:  This article also appeared on the 2^nd Congressional Districts website some years ago- 2010-ish.  The meaning in the use of the word “Independent” should be broadened to include any third party (Populist, Progressive, Independent, Green, Libertarian).  However, I’ll stop well short of applying it to Socialists and Communists, who are in a different category.

  

Last time- I offered 6 reasons why a voter, otherwise inclined to vote for an Independence party candidate, might withhold a meaningful vote for a party that might actually do this nation some good.  This time, I will list some reasons why people, whose convictions are often based on far more narrow-minded assertions, proudly continue to vote for republicans or democrats. 

 

There is, after all, something to be said for consistency.  Lucky for us, a pretty bright guy- Ralph Waldo Emerson, did say something about it, namely this: “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”  Some think that Emerson was speaking ill of consistency, but it is rather “a foolish consistency” he devalued.  Consider that the Emerson quote and the Einstein quote from last time, about insanity, work in tandem.  We may suspect that the act of continuing to vote for the status quo isn’t good for us, yet we consistently continue to do it.

 

It is absurd to believe that democrats and republicans, together, or separately, have adequately imagined or implemented a solution to every political issue that confronts American citizens and politicians alike.  I will call upon Jon Stewart again for the rational justification for finding fault with the ideologies of two of the other political parties; he put that sentiment this way: 

 

“Each party has a platform, a . . . menu of beliefs making up its worldview. The candidate can choose one of the two platforms, but remember – no substitutions. For example, do you support universal health care? Then you must also want a ban on assault weapons. Pro-limited government? Congratulations, you are also anti-abortion. Luckily, all human opinion falls neatly into one of the two clearly defined camps. Thus, the two-party system elegantly reflects the bichromatic rainbow that is American political thought.” (America, pg. 108)

 

Here are some reasons why democratic and republican voters have remained so consistent.  I cannot claim that these are all of the reasons:

 They are voting for ghosts.  John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan probably aren’t walking into an election any time soon.  If they do, I’m sure democrats and republicans, respectively, will vote for them.  I’ve heard Reagan’s name thrown around so often lately that you would think he created the world in six days and we’re just waiting for his messianic son to deliver us from evil.  Even President Obama genuflected at the Reagan political altar during the 2008 presidential election. 

1. Consistency’s hobgoblins.  People are habitual creatures and will continue to do things which are harmful to them, like smoke, eat bad foods, or vote for the same types of candidates every election.  Is there a legacy reward clause for not letting our former selves down, for consistently voting for a democrat for 30 years straight?  Worse yet, perhaps voters don’t want to let the dear spirit of their father down, who was a democrat all his life.  There is no reward for ancestral futility of this magnitude- only punishment.  A quality sticker that’s ideal location is the bumper of a 2007 Prius that reads: “Liberal” probably won’t be suitably transferred to a granite headstone after a lifetime of ineffectual voting.
    
2. Promises, Promises.  This is the frozen hamburger patty of reasons.  Restaurants indicate that they have a ½ pound burger on the menu.  That is only the size before it is cooked.  The likely fulfillment of a politician’s promises diminish the longer the reason you voted for them is left on the grill.  If what you ordered based on the picture on the menu looks nothing like what you got on your tray, try something else.  Consistently voting for major party candidates when they don’t represent your beliefs, is like showing up to a party of pygmies every two years, and asking if you can borrow someone’s pants.
    
3. I Robot.  Say these words slowly in your head using your best robot voice- Limbaugh said that Obama is a socialist . . . .  Must vote for republican . . . must vote republican.
    
4. Issues.  I have a relative who votes for candidates based on the issue of abortion.  If you aren’t identifying how a politician feels on at least your five biggest issues, you are wasting your vote, especially when it is an issue that is largely out of their control.  Just a quick follow up- when a woman is already pregnant- I tend to not want to tell her what she can do with her own body, unless removing your larynx is something with which you want a woman to have a say. 
    
5. I feel therefore I am.  These pundits, prognosticators and talk show hosts are far too convincingly animated in their passion against the other side, far too radioactive; they yuyulate more heartily than a soccer play-by-play announcer-  GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!  Consider Limbaugh, Hannity, and, locally (MN), Jason Lewis.  As we all know, vindictiveness is always the source of truth.  Some voters feel compelled to vote for the candidate the host’s vehemently endorse- I suppose because the foolishly consistent voter believes the talk show host has properly vetted the candidate of his choice.  To clarify- vetting in this case means: does the candidate have a giant “D” or “R” right next to their name (see #10 below).  It is unfortunate that the average voter hasn’t recognized that the talk show host has even fewer goals to announce than the soccer game announcer, (only one really)- to whine about the other side until the voter submits out of some collective negativity obligation quotient.  Typically, the average real soccer match ends 1-0.  After two hours of listening to your average political radio persona, with the conservative or liberal using his brain as a megaphone, the game ends just as uneventfully.  Seems like a waste for all of that diametrically opposed brow-beating in the political game to end with so few highlights; it is too bad that no one keeping score knows who is winning.
    
6. Change, again?  Yes, again.  I can’t believe either of these two parties can say they can offer change to the voter.  One party is nearly as old as the country itself and the other can trace its roots back to before the Civil War.  But change is another thing that keeps working, so they keep using it.  Imagine there is a boy, who after four years is tired of climbing the same tree; telling him he can change the experience by finding a different route to the same highest point, so he can see all the same things, isn’t change.  Tell him the trees he’ll want to scale in 20 years will require that he plant them now, so his son can climb them.
    
7. The bad times are here to stay.  The talk show hosts very adeptly excuse their own side’s flaws, and there are many, while accentuating the missteps of the other.  After all, like the eye, political blowhards can’t focus on two things at once.  The likelihood of us finding a well-meaning, objective cable news or political radio talk show host in this country are comparable to the odds that another Icelandic volcano will erupt this year, causing thousands of commercial flights to be cancelled.  Determining the least guilty of political vagary from among the democrats and republicans is like trying to determine the loser in a fight between two computer generated swarms of gnats in a future James Cameron movie.  Each side proclaims the sound judgment of their own side, without excusing their own faults.  They excuse their own faults by not referring to them.
    
8. Unidentifiable hypocrisy.  Chris Tucker from the first Rush Hour movie, which is the George H.W. Bush, “Read my Lips” comment on steroids- “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?”  However, I’m pretty sure Tucker wasn’t promising to not raise taxes.  No politician, that a democrat or republican voter would support, would lie and no conservative or liberal talk show host would steer the voter the wrong way.  As an exercise- listen to Olberman, Mathews, Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Jason Lewis, and count the number of times their party is to blame for something.  “The best defense is a good offense,” say many in the sports world.  The combined acrimony fueled by accusations and rhetoric spewed out by liberals and conservatives would power all kinds of New York city landmarks and energize subway sludge to come alive, ready made with evil intent in a colossal Ghostbusters sequel we’ll never pay the money to see, but somehow, in the political realm, we keep paying, quite literally to see the same disaster which is way over budget.  People that hypocritical are without the one thing they should be saddled with in order to recover from rote hatred that intense, not a physical mirror, but some self-reflection. 

There are frauds, hypocrites, ego-maniacs, sociopaths, thieves, cheaters, and elitists everywhere.  Most democrats and republicans know virtually nothing about self-reflection, and have no concept of individual responsibility, or objectivity.  The democrats ignorantly defend the abuses of entitlement programs (often by ignoring them) as ignominiously as the republicans arrogantly protect all aspects of the free market.  I know actual people who think that republicans are completely blameless in any political issue anyone could think of, even issues that haven’t been invented yet; Tweety Bird didn’t even think Sylvester was that bad a cat, and he was swallowed whole four times every six minutes.

 

    10. R and D.  Those don’t stand for research and development, though the typical voter is in dire need of some as it relates to the future of their favored political parties.  No, R and D stand for republican and democrat.  Some people lend more credence to a politician’s opinions depending on what letter precedes or follows their name.  The fairly recent cry of conservative talk show hosts, and certain republican politicians, for more conservatism in the republican platform may confound some voters. 

A few months ago, a former colleague, noting that I used the words republican and conservative nearly interchangeably, mentioned that there was a difference between them.  I replied- any conservative politician who is sincerely concerned about being misrepresented as a typical republican, should just go ahead and form another party.  But they won’t, and the reason why is because they would lose votes (see numbers 1 and 2 above).  The conservative in them doesn’t want to lose for being both almost unrecognizably nostalgic and progressive, and feel they can only win by remaining sneakily affiliated with the republicans.  Conservatives should have the courage of their convictions, or accept the liability that is an affiliation with the republican party.

 

     11.  The alternative.  People contend, erroneously by the way, that the Independents don’t have a platform that obviously distinguishes it from the other two.  Even if the principles and platform of the IP were exactly the same as the reps and dems in every meaningful area, wouldn’t it be worth a few votes to get some IP candidates elected to see if they could do something the status quo only promise to do?  The answer is no- (see #12) directly below.  Would you take a test that meant you earned another $5,000 a year and not study for it?  You simply cannot have the opinion that there is no difference between what types of ideas additional party candidates have vs. what the two major party platforms represent.  If you have that opinion, you shouldn’t have a vote, just like when you don’t show up for work, you don’t get paid. 


 12.  Mandate.  Independence party candidates and politicians won’t be considered successes, because there is not a healthy Independent constituency whether from the public or the politicians.  An Independent politician, until he is joined by a dozen of his like-minded friends in a legislature, will be like the Lone Ranger in the governor’s mansion.  Former Governor Ventura was just that.  Admittedly, half of Ventura’s problems were of his own causing.  The democrats and republicans colluding together to ensure his failure didn’t help.  Unless, and until, multiple Independents are elected in a state legislature and across the country, no one will be able to say whether a viable third party is a success or failure.  As a society, we embraced the pet rock, the Rubik’s Cube and ABBA, but voting meaningfully for an Independent is beneath us.  Very sensible.


   13.  The media made me do it.  Aside from political extremists like Limbaugh, Olberman, Matthews, O’Reilly, Hannity and Lewis, among many others, the somewhat less offensive media, both local and national, lead viewers to believe there are only two candidates running for any elective office.  Dean Barkley spent a fraction of the money of Coleman and Franken for the 2008 U.S. Senate seat and still got 15% of the vote, but CNN never put his name, image, or popular vote count on its board on election night.  People say that the news doesn’t cover Independents because they don’t poll well; they don’t poll well because the media doesn’t cover them.  The logic is as simple as the rules for tetherball, a game people stopped playing in the 1970s; too bad the media’s foolishly consistent game-playing is still going on.   


The print media is no less restrictive on who shall be covered in their news or opinion sections.  In an article which appeared in the Opinion Exchange section of the Minneapolis Star Tribune on April 18, 2010 “True Believers & Trail Blazers” D.J. Price writes about how wide open is the Minnesota governor’s race, but neglects to mention a single Independent candidate until the last two paragraphs of the article, and then only dismissively.  If the election is filled with such an abundance of wildcards and the race is to be so unpredictably interesting, why wait so long to include a candidate that could help decide, or be, the eventual winner?  Even the visage of Tom Horner (Independent) on the state capital’s balcony seems annexed from the rest of the competitors. 

1. The article found by this link about Tom Horner’s candidacy http://www.mercurynews.com/business-special-reports/ci_15018047, includes criticisms of him by leading republicans and democrats.  Until the media pursues, and the voters accept, criticisms of statements and maneuvers made by democrats and republicans by Independents, our state and nation won’t advance out of the foolishly consistent political mindset we’ve created.
    
    
   We change our clothes, our sleeping positions, spouses, our mailing address, jobs, change traffic lanes on 494, hunting for the right one that will get us home sooner, change our mind about what dish we order at the restaurant after the waiter has mentioned the specials, but change our voting practice and seek an alternative to the hobgoblins represented by the status quo- why not?

iPolitics: Additional Party Legitimacy- Part 1: Voter Logic

 

In his 2004 book America, Jon Stewart makes the following point about today’s two major political parties:

 

“The Republican Party is the party of nostalgia.  It seeks to return America to a simpler, more innocent and moral past that never actually existed.  The Democrats are utopians.  They seek to create an America so fair and non-judgmental that life becomes an unbearable series of apologies.  Together, the two parties function like giant down comforters, allowing the candidates to disappear into the enveloping softness, protecting them from exposure to the harsh weather of independent thought.” (pg. 107) 

 

Independent thought.  iPolitics.  There are Ipads, Iphones, Ipods, will Smith movies- I, Robot and I am Legend.  Individuality starts with an I.  That is where I start.

 

I adore Stewart’s practical irreverence, and his witty and disarming smarts.  Too bad he’s not an Independent who could humorously justify to the masses the value in casting a vote that makes more sense than continuing to vote for the status quo each election.  A citizen’s vote should be more productive; anyone over the age of four knows there is little use in using a white crayon on a white page.

 

I dismissed conservatives years ago as having no sense of their own hypocrisy.  They tout the republican staples of personal freedom and fiscal responsibility, while being unaware of how selectively they apply those staples.  Conservatives are only interested in protecting personal freedoms from being infringed upon by the government until someone they don’t know wants to have an abortion, two members of the same sex want to get married to each other, or a nicotine addict wants to pollute a bar, restaurant or casino with smoke that others will invariably breathe.  Their self-righteous ideas significantly impact the freedoms of those who are either societally conscious, irresponsible, or disadvantaged (abortion), GLBT members, (same sex) or employees or patrons who do not want to suffer from second hand smoke inhalation.  Conservatives consider being fiscally responsible only when they aren’t in office or when they can protect the bottom lines of corporations or the richest 10% of U.S. citizens from a capital gains or progressive income tax. 

 

Having learned that the typical conservative’s idea of fiscal responsibility has the shelf life of a package of strawberries . . . the Independent’s issue with the democrats should be just as pronounced.  The democrat’s willingness to hand our country over to the unassimilated or entitlement program abusers, for votes = power, has made our American financial house look like the changing room at Kohl’s after an indecisive, unemployed, color blind guy on a budget is done shopping for interview clothes.  It’s a mess.  Fraud is rampant- pants can pass themselves off as 67% polyester, or as having a 32-inch inseam.  Dress shirts take more time to extricate from their pin-infested existence than the bug collection of the average 4^th grader.  The two major political parties, and those they cater to, are also a mess, but the average voter doesn’t seem to realize it.  If they did, they would mend their ways.  So why don’t they?  Here are some fairly suspect reasons people might give for avoiding the reasonable course of voting for Independent candidates, along with a fairly reasonable rejoinder:

 

1. Independents cost other candidates elections- I read a Joel Stein column on the back page of the March 10, 2008 issue of Time magazine (about the then forthcoming 2008 election) with the heading “How Sorry is this Guy? If Ralph Nader wants any votes in this election, he should cop to the last one he screwed up.” (pg. 72).  I wondered why Stein would write an entire column about how easily someone like Nader could be dismissed.  Isn’t it easier to dismiss someone if you never actually pay any attention to them?  According to Stein, and thousands of other political pundits, Nader “[took] key votes from Al Gore.”  People on food stamps, receiving housing aid, who haven’t worked in five years, but are fully capable, feel less entitled to the bounty the U.S. government provides, and believe me, they have been conditioned to, than a republican or democrat running for political office.
    
   Stein continued:  “Nader just can’t admit that he’s at least a little responsible for Gore’s loss.”  Stein finds Nader culpable for what we, as Americans, were put through between 2001-2008.  It isn’t the Independent’s fault that the major parties put up two very average candidates in 2000; they put up pretty average candidates every four years.  I am not surprised it goes unrecognized by the voters.  Gore had every chance to prevail over Bush, the rhetorical juggernaut, but was unable to do so.  That isn’t Nader’s fault.  Stein also contends:  “. . . It’s important for people who feel they’re not being heard to have the option to vote for insane, incapable candidates . . . a two-party system is designed to eliminate extreme ideas . . .”  That brings me to the typical voter’s second objection . . .
    
2. Independent candidates are kooky and crazy (code words for insane and incapable).  This objection is easy to counter.  Anyone ever heard of Dennis Kucinich- democrat, Larry Craig- republican, Michelle Bachman- republican, Rod Blagojevich- democrat.  Extreme ideas?  Peculiar behaviors?  The sitting vice-president whispered an expletive into the president’s ear next to a live microphone, a device that is thought to amplify sound.  You would think that Independents all looked like Carrot Top or acted like Pit Bull (I’m embarrassed I even know who he is, but not as embarrassed as if I were caught using this as a reason to continue to vote for a democrat or republican).  Listen to the Hannity, Limbaugh, or Chris Matthews types and you would think that all Independents offer a twerk in response to every question put to them in debates event organizers condescended to invite them to.  The craziness of infidelity offers these examples: Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford, and John Edwards. 
    
   I don’t have the space to enumerate the list of candidates from the so called “two major parties” who acted inappropriately in one way or another- F.D.R. tried to pack the supreme court and Nixon resigned before being impeached for the Watergate scandal.  The RNC reimbursed a member of the committee nearly $2000 after a night spent at a bondage-themed nightclub a few years back.  Clinton had sex with an intern in the oval office, G.W. Bush ordered illegal wiretapping of phones and Obama claimed executive privilege in the Fast and Furious scandal, which involved the sale of licensed firearms to gun mules who may distribute them to Mexican drug cartel leaders.  I wonder how every Independent can be dismissed, by the voters and the media, for being different, and republicans and democrats can continue to be rewarded, with political victories, for all being the same.
    
3. Independents don’t have a chance to win.  This rationale would make more sense if the American public were choosing the high school prom king.  This is quite probably the most obvious case of a self-fulfilling prophecy I’ve ever seen.  I explained to a former colleague who referred to this as his reason for not voting for Independents when he was somewhat inclined toward Dean Barkley in 2008.  I explained to him, that in fact, an Independent does not have a chance to win if you don’t vote for them.  If 10% of the voters who thought this way would amend their thinking, the Independent popular vote would begin to grow each election, locally and nationally, and people would legitimize more options, be able to complain about three or four candidates, instead of two, and would see the flaw in their- for lack of a better term- logic. 
    
4. A vote for an Independent is a wasted vote.  This one isn’t that different from #s 1 and 3.  After being informed that Nader would receive my vote in the 2008 presidential election, I received a wry-smiled response:  “So, you’re wasting your vote.”  Typically, I vote my conscience and do not feel compelled to choose between the lesser of two evils.  He let me know he was voting for McCain.  That evening, I asked one of his relatives the same question.  His son was voting for Obama.  I leaned forward, touched his father gently on the shoulder and said- “it looks like you will be wasting your vote too.”  If neither one of them voted, it wouldn’t make any more of a difference as my well-intentioned vote.  If a voter merely chooses from among the two major parties every election, and the nation as a whole continues to be only 17-25% satisfied with congress, year in and year out, it looks like a quorum of voters, since 38-50% of the electorate actually participate, are wasting their vote. 
    
   Consider going to Applebee’s once every four years, and only having the same two dishes (vegetable lasagna and medium rare chicken) from which to choose, only choosing to eat, and pay for, the same one every time.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to find out if there is a different eatery, where something a little more palatable would be served?  Folks, if voting for democrats and republicans is so unappetizing, as ¾ of the country is chronically dissatisfied with congress, why not try a candidate from a party that raises the level of issue debate, someone who is a little more filling.  A “wasted” vote is something Jeff Spicoli would cast for class president after he has taken a couple hits from his doobie.
    
5.  Mob logic, a further discussion of #4.  Consider that millions of voters are more disgusted with the continued failure of the democrats and republicans than Yoda was when Luke Skywalker couldn’t use the force to lift his X-Wing out of the swamp on Dagobah in The "Empire Strikes Back".   This is the corner the conscientious voter has been backed into by a typical voter’s logic- A)  Many of the self-righteous voters deride and belittle anyone who refrains from voting for any reason, even when the non-voter has no clue what the candidates stand for; B) The conscientious voter cannot vote for someone that doesn’t have a chance to win (see #3) as that is a wasted vote (see #4) and we wouldn’t want to cost someone the election (see #1)- as Nader and Perot were blamed for doing in 2000 and 1992 respectively;  C) The conscientious voter may mundanely vote for a democrat or a republican because they have to vote, and they have to vote for a candidate that has a chance to win.  If the conscientious voter chooses a democrat over a republican and the democrat is perceived to be ineffectual, is having intercourse with interns or unconstitutionally wiretapping phone lines, or invading countries without congressional approval, then the voter is said to have only himself to blame.  For, of course, the duped voter should take the responsibility for any action, or inaction, of the politician who “earned” his vote.  Ultimately, voters are the only people really held accountable for the mistakes of the politicians whether we voted at all, or voted for one of two candidates rather than the other.  Some voters who cast protest votes, with principles, have longer range goals and are simply waiting for the rest of the disgruntled citizenry to catch up.  Ten million protest votes will likely secure for the country multiple additional political parties that may help hold the other two accountable.
    
6. Voting for change that makes a difference.  Almost every politician who has run for elected office has used the word “change” to describe how their approach to solving difficult problems would be different than the incumbent’s or predecessor’s.   Heck, Woody Boyd, on the advice of Frasier, used that as his slogan when he ran for city council on Cheers.  And he won, so we know it works. 
    
   Every two years, many voters, if they consider the majority party had every chance to put through some meaningful legislation, but failed, and the voters will exchange them for republicans, just as they had exchanged republicans for democrats two or four years earlier.  This result is obvious, except to the average voter who will not question their logic or make a call to their temporal lobe (the part of the brain that controls memory).  I am not sure what kind of “Groundhog Day” hell the average voter adores, but if I picked up the same kind of apple, and it was always infested with worms, I’d pick one from the tree, like Sean Connery advised a very green Kevin Costner to do in the “Untouchables”.  Voting for change makes it seem as if the voter has some control, as if those who take this approach are all converting to Catholicism for the day and seek to punish the party in power by sending them to some imagined hell that even Dante never detailed.  But neither party is ever really punished, as they know that redemption is only an election or two away.  A 2-4 year stint in purgatory, as everyone knows, is very intolerable.
    

Note:  I declined to capitalize words like democrats, republicans and supreme court on purpose.  For the same reason, I don’t capitalize the word god.  The-can-of-worms justifications for those decisions isn’t important enough to get into with this subject matter.  Until words like “Progressive”, “Independent”, “Populist” and “Libertarian”, when they are being used to introduce or clarify a party, movement, or specific candidate are capitalized in kind, my capitalization-strike will continue.

Echo Morning

I haven't posted anything in nearly 4 months.  I found out in early December that my services would no longer be required at my former employer.  Ironically, due to the REALITY of GLOBALIZATION I wrote about in my last two posts but one.  Yeah, who could have seen that coming?  So, figuring I would be in violation of my severance agreement for comments I had planned to incorporate into my final posting on my middle class bloga (i.e. blog saga), I decided to play it safe and redirect my creative juices, such as they are, into the fictionalized version (a book, with actual characters, a story, etc.) of all the research I'd done over the past four years on the various subtopics.  All of the postings, the non-fiction version can still be found along the left side of this site.  The book is progressing at a steady pace, and with any luck, given that I have a third child on the way, I'll complete it at some point in 2016.  By that time, I expect its release to be more anticipated than the next winter olympics, or not.

I've been too busy with looking for a new job, taking care of the kids, writing my book, going on a vacation, and attending to all of the things life has to throw at you, and have had no time to continue with the bloga,  I also haven't had time to consider, or write intelligently or amusingly, about any other topic.  With that said, I decided I would post something different.  Below is a poem I wrote in October of 2006 in the basement in the early morning.  HTML treats the appearance of words arranged in a poem horribly, but I don't know that the average reader would take that into consideration, supposing they consider the words themselves.  This poem is one of my less cryptic offerings.  The two main versions of the mythological story of Echo are included below and I simply allude to them both as different in terms of origin, repurcussions and connotations with one version something that the mythical Echo would be reverred for and the other a version she might be ashamed of.  I used Echo as one part of my term for political pundits who are in love with the sound of their own voice and their opinions, and created the term- Echo Narcissists (and Jack- you will love this one- please see part 16.  Actually if you Google- "Echo Narcissism" [remember to include the quotes], you are taken immediately to that post).


Echo Morning

We bow our heads once in reverence
and once more in shame;
no metaphor can honor-placate the mind
for the declines appear the same.

The same sound in the ear, the ear that has a stomach
And must die jest-
just as the eyes must digest
just as the hands must digest, as the mouth must digest,
the ears must digest.

The ears consume the sound of a hollow foot fall
on frosty grasses on a mid October morning, amid the cold-covered dawn-
the blades encased in a veil of frost,
for where is nature
there is god!
and for that
the ears of the world applaud.
We seek a sound that is lost and that is found.

Elsewhere (not meanwhile), a poet, who at least once
has written what he has said-
that memories echo, they echo, they resound in his head
until he can no longer stand-
his imagination- “the mind can grasp more than the hand.”

Soft thing, you whisper and I hear you years later . . . in the morning-
When words are there, and not there,
And are naught but air,
When, if there were angels, they would meet- in the cold stillness,
Where it is too frigid for our hours to leave us.
Anything that moves here is moved by the wind and regret.

You might say this, this is elusive, abstract stuff,
but should know
of the excess of anonymity that is love-
the cigarette satisfaction of one memory after another,
gone in a puff of smoke,
that came without a fire to stoke,
that upon all good ears confer,
some words that yesterday’s prefer.
We know not which hours to keep
And are, someone else before we wake and sleep.

This is evening-morning.
pink clouds in the autumn to east and west, (the evening like the morning)
from a sun that shines too late and sets too soon,
so lost are days . . .
and like begging fury- ears chase the previous tune.

So, mythologically we bow our heads once in reverence for Echo-
grimly torn to pieces, revenged by Pan (via shepherds, whom he drove mad) for being unreceptive to advances; and her voice remains

And we bow our heads in shame for Echo-
because false Zeus was repeatedly warned of Hera’s approach by Echo who was then made to repeat the words of others.

In shame and reverence is the echo, the story.
A faint voice survived,
or the recall of other voices so derived.

Little boys and girls asleep before the dawn
so some can contemplate an echo marathon.
A repeat of a yesterday so gradually gone,
of mimicked scenes, pregnant pauses-
of days as soldiers gaunt and wan.

We imitate the theoretical-inimical,
For it is work to think of criminal royalty, to think of plebian slight,
To change an echo for a fainter echo because our ears are awake at night.
And my former self can write nothing that makes sense
of what has passed heretofore, or what will pass hence.
we know nothing of the color of the rain,
but know the sound of the sane-
which is the pretense for the storm,
a weather entity without a form,
much like an echo- no symbolic, meaty words to give it shape,
just grasping, empty, semi-soundless words
in a mind ill-equipped to make them live-
just lost, disheveled, elusive, somewhat re-cognized rarities,
milk after the cereal is eaten kind of words,
light bulbs after the filament breaks kind of words,
the sky after the sun descends,
the trees after the leaves are gone,
the pockets after the bet is played,
the sleep after the bed is made,
the sound after the chord is struck,
the wine bottle after the guests have left,
the idea of the old song after the new one begins,
a mountain lost in the waves,
the mirror after the ghost passes,
the ear after the laugh fades- kind of words.

We were, we are
comprised of an entourage of hours,
and as we never are who we are going to be
we are not still who we were- and some of us hate ourselves for that.

The echo is the promise of a bubble’s life,
Whose end comes by cold departure,
not by the blade of a knife.
It is a sound that fades in the morning,
Our ears straining to hear,
its’ presence is no symptom, its’ absence is no cure.

Just as the prince is guilty of the cobbler’s crimes,
We enliven mornings- we are echo paradigms.