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Tuesday, October 11, 2016

The Joke is on US!

    The cartoonist Walt Kelly once said in his famous comic strip Pogo, "We have met the enemy and he is us".  The cartoon was with regard to pollution and it was posted on the first Earth Day event. He captured the essence of the problem in a way no one else could and the phrase has been used by many others (including me here) over the past decades.
   
    Watching the debate the other night and listening to people discuss how this election has reached an all time new low has been another eye-opening experience for me.   I have talked to people on both sides and both feel betrayed by their parties in allowing people like Trump and Hillary to be their party's nominee.   But I often reply back saying it's not Trump's or Hillary's fault.  The fault is with us!   We put them there.   We elected them.  Trump and Hillary represent what we (or at least MOST) the American people have become.  We have become two-faced autocrats that care little (if nothing at all) about the rule of law or our Constitution.  We have treated politics like some sort of blood-sport like Football or UFC fighting. My team vs. Your Team.  Winner take all.

   Hillary represents the cynical side of America.   Politics is a joke.  The law is a joke.  All that matters is winning.  We can talk about the American Dream and our "Love of Country" all the while we mean something entirely different inside.  Words are just words.   They can be made to say one thing but mean something entirely different.   To Hillary, the truth doesn't matter.   As Pilat said to Jesus, "What is TRUTH?" so also the truth to Hillary is whatever she can con you into believing to keep you on her side.   If she can con you into thinking that 3rd trimester abortions (abortions that occur in the 7th,8th or even 9th month) are not bloody and not painful to the baby they so be it.  If she can con you into thinking she only had Yoga classes and wedding plans on her email server then so be it. If she can con you into thinking that she is for the middle-class when she gets millions of dollars from Wall Street banks and Saudi princes, then so be it.

   Trump represents the Anyone-But-Hillary crowd.  He is the other side of the same coin.   He too is "connected" and he has "name recognition" like Hillary, but  Trump represents those in America who only care about appearances (which is most of us).  He is the product of Reality-TV,  Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.   He represents us: vapid, self-righteous, fake and easily distracted.  Interested in only scoring points (or "likes" and "re-tweets") but not in winning hearts and minds.

   Trump and Hillary are reflections of who we have become in America.  They didn't pop out of a laboratory somewhere like Frankenstein's monster.  No.  They took their cues from us the American people.  Like a child learning to talk and taking it's language and ideas from their parents, so also Trump and Hillary learned their behavior from us.   Most of America doesn't care about hearing the truth so they don't bother telling us the truth.  Most of America doesn't care about the law, so they don't care about the law.   Most of America doesn't care about the Constitution so they don't care about the Constitution.  Most of America is vapid, fake and heartless so they become vapid, fake and heartless.  Most of America is godless so they are godless.

    Lament all you want about your choices this election but know you had a part in creating them.  They both truly do represent us the American people.

   What is funny, is that we laugh at them when Saturday Night Live comedians satirize them and poke fun at them .   It's all great fun watching Alec Baldwin squint and push out his lower lip to try to resemble Donald.  But the joke is really on us because the real buffoons are not the candidates up on the debate stage.  Instead it's us, the American people.

   We have met the enemy and they is us.
 

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