Loose Leaf Notes

I don’t hide my politics. I don’t think of them as something separated from the rest of my life. The laws that politicians make directly affect my personal health and welfare, as well as my civil and human rights. During the 2004 election, an African American man was being interviewed by a nightly news reporter. He said something that still sticks in my mind: “If you don’t vote, you might as well be saying…do whatever you want with me.” You could also put it this way: “If you don’t engage in some politics, you might just as well say, do whatever you want with me.” It was politics that brought us the Iraq War under false pretenses and with no post war plan.

 
When I turned 18 I registered as an Independent.  My politics are generally progressive. I come from a working class background, and so I think if the top 1% wealthiest Americans can have a big tax cut, the working class should get a minimum wage raise. Without a decent wage and affordable health care, how does President Bush think the average family can invest in the stock market for their retirement, as he proposes they should? When I think about the stock market, I think about men jumping out of windows when it crashed during the Depression.

 
I’m fascinated by how many people will vote against their own personal interests in order to vote for an “image.” Never before has politics been so contrived, marketed, and superficial. In the news of late, the Bush Administration has been implicated in a series of questionable and potentially illegal practices that have included: distributing fake news spots to promote their policies, allowing fake reporters in the press room to toss them soft ball questions, and paying pundits, who are supposed to be independent, to further promote their agenda. Unfortunately, the makers of product advertisements are held more accountable than some of the claims the Bush administration has made.

 
After the recent presidential election, I was devastated that the administration that has given us the worst environmental record, the highest deficit, and the worst case of anti-Americanism in history had managed to stay in power. (After much research, I have come to the conclusion that the 2004 election was fraught with fraud – but that is a possible post for some other day.)

 
After the election, I quietly constructed a simple altar as a way to express my grief. (No, I don’t have a voodoo doll of President Bush.) It sits on a tiny spot on my kitchen credenza and consists of this: A small round tin of mints decorated with red, white and blue stars and stripes with a picture of President Bush’s face placed on a cartoonish body. In one hand he’s holding a missile, in the other a bag stuffed full of $money. Purchased at our local health food store, the words on the tin say: National Embarassmints. Next to the mints sits a short cut out poem, about 2” by 2” in size. Written about 15 years ago, but always applicable; it reads:

 
Change armory into harmony
Change artillery into art
War into worship
and nuclear into new clear
Change invasion into vision
Conquer into concur
Change bombs into bonds
Change end into mend