The Election Day Exercise Schedule

I exercised today! Naw, naw, didn't go to the gym. But I did exercise my right to vote. Though I recognize this is only one smidgen of our duties as citizens, and that there is so much more I can be doing in my community, to continually participate in democracy. And I hope that no matter the outcome of our fevered contests, whether it's national or local, no one rolls over and plays defeatist like it’s all over. That's what pansies do, not 'Mericans. Get up and educate, respectfully persuade with your well thought out findings. Don’t blitz or relay messages you haven’t digested. That’s how propaganda gets its foot hold, tipping our emotions up and over like dominoes. Politics isn’t a football game, though it’s become its own genre in the entertainment industry, a hybrid of competitive sports and soap opera. Fascinating stuff.

If your party doesn’t win, instead of proclaiming half the nation a bunch of idiots, ask yourself if you did what you could to effectively communicate the meaning and consequences of your beliefs. 

Democracy isn’t a once a year thing when we show up at the polls. Let us get involved with our communities and get creative. Politicians are not our saviors, though their rallies draw the kind of reverence typical of a mega church. Election season is the Easter when the believers show up.

I’m just as guilty of all of the above as all of you. I am trying to be a better citizen. We can all do with a little reevaluating from time to time of the effectiveness of our citizenry, and better fend off societal rot.

Elephant Conquest

My sophomore year of high school I felt the itching of rebellion and drifted into a subtle bad-ass stage, or I should say, attempted to promote the appearance of one. I didn't have the balls to really get in trouble, but I did little things to sprinkle my angst into the world. When the new Super Wal-Mart opened, my friends and I would go there, fill up a shopping cart with ice cream, some perishables and other items throughout the store and then just leave it in some aisle. I justified this asshole move to myself since I worked at CVS at the time and my favorite task was restocking the returned/discarded bin around, so I could zone out and not talk to people. 

I also found myself apt to doodling. I particularly enjoyed drawing big, powerful elephants. I thought it was a beautiful animal, thought it could maybe be my power animal. I would doodle these elephants using a sharpie on the cafeteria tables where I had study hall. I fantasized that if I was ever working some corporate job, the greatest rebellion would be to max out the company credit cards on the purchasing of many elephants to be delivered on the vicinity. A kind of fuck you for no specific sake, fueled by the movies that came that year with anti-corporate tones; Fight Club and American Beauty. Amped up by the Fugazi albums I was absorbing. 

I wasn't truly sure why the elephant was this power symbol to me. I could look to other cultures and their spiritual representations. Ganesh for example, the elephant headed god in Hinduism. The collective subconscious maybe. I changed my AIM screen name to RadElephant. But when my friends noticed and asked me if I was Republican because I was so into elephants, I was immediately embarrassed by my oversight. I had forgotten this beast was the symbol of the Republican party, and here I was spreading their image around thinking I was cool, thinking I had a thing of my own. And if you're not a young republican, whoa man, being young and thought of as a Republican kind of hurt. Especially if you thought you were parading anti-corporate ideals. What a fucking misunderstanding, I thought. Why'd they have to go claim that beautiful animal, man? But I wasn't rooting for the other side necessary, I was voting for Ralph Nader in my school's mock election. 

The two party system is a chess match of driven blockage, finding opportunities to push through moves. But democracy isn't, or shouldn't be a mashing board of opponents knocking down the other side's pieces. Democracy should consist of many voices, having a say, and coming to a reasonable accommodation of each other's liberties and wishes. Democracy, if it were a game board, should look more like a Chinese checkers board with all the marbles intermingled, independent in one's own pock space, multiple views competing, just as fierce, yet co-existing beside a marble a bit different from itself because it has to interact, it doesn't have huge mob of buddies to back its arrogance. I speak like a Millennial, in the gyst of "everyone is a winner" because that's what democracy is, correct? Everyone having a say? Being a participant? Shouldn't capitalism thrive off of more options? Or does plan A or B suffice for our desperation? Platforms pieced together by desperation, because previous platforms laid the groundwork for desperate situations. The longer the two party system persists, the more losers we will accumulate, players checked and placed aside, forgotten about, because the game then focuses on taking down the other's King. One side muttering "dirty, bleeding heart liberal..." and the other muttering "heartless conservative greed ball." Each piece is pressured into accepting the aspersions of their side and bouncing fiercer ones back. 

Like a football game in perpetual overtime...

Stalemate, exhausted eyes, pissy spirits that don't want to play anymore but are obliged to keep on tearing up the grass while supporters pin on them their championship dreams. 

I am a political news junky in the way one is hooked on a soap opera.  The political arena is indeed a soap opera, but with actual consequences.

But the reasonable players keep my attention and earn my enthusiasm. And there are those players not so reasonable, they become villains, but not before declaring their opponent the villain.  They're less so playing for an underdog's cause. They're playing to win for themselves, maybe because there are certain monetary stakes, reelection funds, and that obsession makes for inconsistent, sloppy moves. The idea of winning becomes too important, fantasies of knocking out the opponent is the objective at hand. It causes them to drool it excites them so damn much. Solid strategy goes out the window. I like seeing smart defense when the offense is erratic. Bill Clinton's speech at the DNC was delightful.

I'd like to see a third party called, The Reasonable Party. Strength in conviction is a virtue to a degree, it's important to stick up for what we believe is right, apathy isn't a good option either. Standing up, voicing opinions is respectable until one party becomes blinded by the full speed of their quest that they forget other's have points of view. And rather than bolster up their own cause with supporting evidence and case studies, the energy of one's conviction is spent on belittling other perspectives because they may not understand them, or realize that asking to be understood themselves may be an effective strategy, because if another side is so fervent against them too, perhaps they aren't being understood either.

The fervent dream of an elephant conquest for an elephant conquest's sake is civically nauseating. And without effectiveness, much like my rash markered etchings on cafeteria tables. The recent Tea Party rally cries reminds me of my own rebellious immaturity at age 16. Perhaps the party should go all out, max out their coffers on a parade of elephants, shitting in the streets, making a dire mess of everything, so the extremism will mellow post overdose.

Patriotism, a Man Made Nuisance?

Over the weekend I enjoyed the small town fireworks display over the harbor in Lexington, Michigan. Despite the Michigan economy, and small size of the municipality, they were indeed grander than anything I had seen off of Navy Pier in Chicago. My girlfriend, my mom, my brother and I all settled into watch from my mom's sailboat moored on the dock. Across the way a fellow decided to plug in his electric guitar and amp to his boat and play his rendition of Jimi Hendryx's rendition of the Star Spangled Banner over and over and over and over again, with a little Freebird riff here and there. Needless to say, it was pretty annoying. Now I'm sure he had the best of intentions, to entertain the masses from the surrounding townships on Holiday with 4th of July themed music, but it did cross beyond the border of irritation, and people around us expressed their loss in appreciation of his gesture, but he was oblivious. Certainly in the patriotic zone. This scene, the day after witnessing people at a concert in the park whoop around with high pitched wails, accompanied by over the top salutes while a cover band played "Proud to be an American" led me to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, those who try to revel in their patriotism, might be perhaps, the most....annoying people? Is this a terrible thing to say?

I certainly appreciate my country. There are many freedoms I do enjoy, and hearing the daily world news, there really is no other place I'd rather be. Europe maybe, some parts. But when does whooping around like an animal or playing monotonous riffs to get underneath one's skin in the guise of patriotism become an honorable trait? Look at the Tea Partiers and their tooting of the constitution to an almost self destructive level. Or the Committee on Un-American Activities and McCarthyism? Or Nazism? Patriotism in moderation is a good thing. Loyalty is a great thing. After all, in order to make this beast of a nation work, people can't be giving up on it. But excessive patriotism makes baboons on ecstasy look chill, reasonable. And to make democracy work we cannot just be blindly singing its praises. We must question it. Hold it accountable. Checks and balances (with reasonable thought, not just to toot a party horn). Maybe when our country doesn't try to fuck over teachers, when it stops giving out handouts to major corporations which gamble recklessly on credit default swaps, when congress stops playing party thumb wars, when american industry stops shipping jobs overseas, will it be cool to crush a can of "American Beer" on one's skull and catcall. Being a citizen is a little more of a responsibility than rooster screeching for a sports team. Yet "team spirit" with taunts against opposing teams is often an identical twin to patriotism. Am I terrible in expressing such thoughts? Am I a terrible American? Atleast I can be thankful that I live in an America where I can post such crabby rants on "over american activity."

God Bless the U.S. "ay" - insert Canadian dialect