Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your daily surreality check! Oh, what fools we mortals be! Any bored god will tell you that.
I sometimes read a little bit about politics. Only a little. In big doses, reading about politics works on me like that little bottle of stuff you keep in the cupboard in case someone swallows mothballs.
I'm catching a drift that there's some quarrel between the Clinton and Obama campaigns about who has the best record of helping black people (or even being a black person).
I'd like to tell both candidates something. Until they stop raking in stacks of big money to pay for their overpriced commercials and nonstop touring, neither of them is black. They're politicians. Being bought off like pork futures.
Am I the only one who finds it just a little distasteful that political candidates of both parties are spending more than $500 million each just to get a job that pays about $300,000 a year? I mean, don't you just want to ask them, "What's really in it for you?"
Having your picture in a history book? Go ahead, convince me. Then I'll sell you a damn bridge, Mrs. Clinton/Mr. Obama, because you're the only people I know with enough ready cash to buy one.
The country's broke, and it won't get fixed by people who play by the same old rules. Who B da Blackest? My students, that's who. And they sure could use those wasted campaign commercial funds to buy nice, up-to-date history books. Which they don't have now.
I'm Anne Johnson, and I approved this blog entry.
6 comments:
your dead on right about that..there should be no money raised to be president..each party should pay for x amount of commericals...bus fare + chits for food to go to each state.....and you can only start 6 months before the election..
Ah, now an economist would say that they are doing a good job of spreading the money that the rich folks gave them on the campaign trail (hotels, transport, etc, for large entourages can blow through a lot of dough). It's that whole "trickle-down effect" thing-a-ma-bob. In fact, it could be argued that the _only_ thing keeping our economy at all afloat right now is the fact that nearly a dozen candidates for president are criss-crossing the country, spending money on all sorts of services in areas in dire need of economic pick-me-ups.
Then again, I'm pretty much a pessimist when it comes to the opinions of the economists. Anybody who has had their eyes open over the last 3 decades knows that it's a load of fresh manure. As for the candidates, they are sending a lot of "their" money to the media conglomerates who'll be sitting on it. And all of those poor hotel housekeepers and overnight receptionists getting some of that moolah in trickle-down form, well, it may keep them employed an extra month or two, but they aren't seeing any direct gain (in the form of higher wages, better hours, benefits, etc).
I'd rather see the money go to your students; then again, _are_ there any history books out there that you could buy that don't spend 99% of their pages on dead white guys? Something to ponder...
A thought put forward by Robert Heinlein in his novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress asks why we can't arrange for politicians to pay for their anti-socila hobby out of their own pockets.
This might be one way of keeping government smaller and less harmful.
I think it's a great idea, which has little hope of ever coming into being.
Love,
Terri in Joburg
> why we can't arrange for politicians to pay for their anti-socila hobby out of their own pockets
Because that would guarantee that only the rich had a political voice. We need more real people running the government, not fewer.
Politics is something the political monkeys play that we have to go along with.
I say let's boogey on down and change those "same old rules." We need campaign finance reform. All candidates get the same fistful of cash from us the voters -- and no more from anyone else.
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