Op-Ed

All of these politico ramblings and postings are a waste of bandwidth. It starts earlier and earlier every time, kind of like the shlepping for the Christmas season shopping spree does, and I don’t nor have I ever had any of that stuff on my radar. Call it disaffected youth aging into disaffected adulthood, I stand up for my disaffected-ness the way others stand up for yet another licentious candidate that promises change and unselfish advocacy on behalf of the people. So, here’s my $0.02 on that :

I watch and listen to my peers. The political season is fingernails. They keep growing back so they must be chewed or cut off and every time it comes around there they are, gnawing and biting off the information about so-and-so and so-and-so and their initiative here and there and everywhere. Every four years they’re cut off and every four years they grow back.

Even if I were interested and concerned and proud of our system, I must say I would have a hard time maintaining my sense of self-worth every four years. All the talk about changing and improving and empty thoughts full of only the void of getting what they want and me going along with it? It would make me feel like the friend who’s always threatening to move to Alaska and make some drastic life change and never does. Talk about lessons in self-loathing.

It’s a very manipulative thing.

Remember being very young in school or pre-school? We got to pick the snack. What a THRILL! We got to choose what everyone was going to have for a freaking snack. That’s the vote : the adults, the teachers, the leaders were still the ones who had already gone to the store and created our choices for us.

Remember in that same era when someone was given the “power” to be the first in line for a whole day? Is that like the way we treat minorities and single out one of their ranks from time to time and make them feel special? Is making trivial decisions still such a thrill to so many of us? As kids these decisions are made out to be these HUGE things that, later on some of us stop and think “hey…that didn’t matter at all” and didn’t teach us anything besides always wanting to be first in line.

What’s the solution?

For a start, why don’t we hold one of our intrepid candidates to creating some kind of “change” that’s at least tangible to us all. Four weeks of vacation for everyone in our nation the way the entire EU does! We’re the richest, most productive nation in the world they tell us, but we get a bloody two-weeks? That’s something I could get behind that would, indeed, add to my quality of life and self-worth even as just another cog. Why hasn’t anyone tried that? They’d win by a landslide. Morale would shoot through the sky! There’s no telling what effect that would have on the economy and our overall productivity. Who knows, it may even restore the thrill of choosing yet another predetermined sugary and/or salty treat.

Chad Calease is Chad Calease is a filmmaker currently living in Minneapolis nearing completion on a documentary film about the game of Tag. It's likely he can stay awake longer than you can.
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