A lot of campaign speech is hurling my way via emails. The rhetoric is scare tactical, and I don't bother to read it. When you address me as if I can't figure politics out on my own, then I can't help you. There aren't candidates for me. My favorite Presidential election vote was Shirley Chisholm, and that was a long, long time ago. I once was a delegate for Jesse Jackson. Otherwise, I vote without enthusiasm. Vision is not marketable these days, and I have to be comforted by the fact that we have finally elected an African American as President and possibly soon will elect a woman. But both are hawkish and boxed in by notions of capitalism and globalism. Nobody is fighting multinational corporations and their interests. We accommodate. And the country is rife with fear. What divides us is fear that our greatness as a country is now history, that our absurdly abundant way of life cannot continue and is unsustainable, and the heavy responsibility we bear for our example and wasting of resources. Underneath, we are ashamed. So some of us blame others of us, but there is no naming of the malaise.
Is it any wonder? Jimmy Carter attempted to name some truths and conserve our energy, and people held their hands over their ears. We preferred the lies of Ronald Reagan. Because they comforted us. But grown ups, and a grown up country, must see clearly what the problems are and the sources of those problems, and no one in the coming election is going to address the fear and the adjustment it would take to be honest and responsible citizens in this world. Because then they really wouldn't stand a chance of being elected. So there is nothing to hear worth listening to, and all I can do is try to hold my representatives accountable in my own small way.
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