Batten down the hatches for the blizzard
By Alan Caras
I think it is time for me to trade in my snow shovel. Oh, not my real one. I did that more than 30 years when we moved here, well actually when we moved to Puerto Rico. We came here a year later, but that's another story.
No, the snow shovel I refer to is the literal snow shovel. You know, the mental thing we all seem to develop during the presidential election mountain of snow these folks shovel at us. We would be buried in disinformation and have absolutely no capability at making any decisions.
I do not want to meander into areas that are foreign to me, but since campaigns were turned over to professional politicos and PR types, our candidates spend more time pandering to special interests than enunciating and clarifying their core beliefs. Then, of course, we have presidential types like Bill Clinton, who is still trying to evolve a set of core beliefs.
Ever since John F. Kennedy's dazzling speeches, succeeding hopefuls have all searched for "magic bullet" buzz words to catch on with the electorate. We end up with a hodgepodge of slogans about policy statements, tax or no tax proposals, budget-cutting ideas, platform proposals to the left and right of center, and government programs that intrude on citizens' private decisions.
We have allowed our government to grow so large that 40 cents on every dollar made finances government. That came from a speech given by the eminent economist Dr. Milton Friedman in 1986, to the San Francisco's Commonwealth Club. I imagine it is even more now.
So there it is. Until someone comes up with ideas, policies, programs or magic bullets to reduce the fixed cost of governing ourselves, I am burying, eliminating or whatever my snow shovel. Let 'em talk. I am not listening.
Nothing these people say concerns me beyond the size of this blessed government. I find little, if any, difference in how either of the two major political parties affect my day-to-day life, other than increasing the size of the governing bureaucracy.
As for the Reform party, how can we refer to it as a party with any ideological foundation, if it can consider either Donald Trump, Pat Buchanan or Jesse Ventura as a leader of the party? The only party that seems to propose a platform somewhat close to being acceptable to me is the Libertarian Party, but their candidate choices aren't (OK, OK, haven't been) acceptable to me.
Little, if anything, these people ever propose comes to fruition. I recall quite vividly George Bush's "Thousand Points of Light," no new taxes, and a litany of pompous blather from the candidate from Little Rock. What Newt Gingrich said had no value after we learned what a fraud he is. Yet, he is still a power broker. Is that right?
And then there's the New York senate race. Are you telling me that the best New York can offer for the Senatorial candidacy for the Democratic party is a carpetbagger from Arkansas? Is Mario Cuomo such a nonentity that he cannot influence this sham? Has anyone checked in with Daniel Patrick Moynihan on this? By the way, what happens to the mortgage guarantee if she loses the election? Come to think of it, if she wins the election there is no room in California for all the resultant New York émigrés.
I have been lied to, misled and misinformed by presidents and presidential advisors, successful and non-successful presidential candidates for all my adult life--forty two years. (You do the math).
Almost nothing we read in the newspaper from the spokespersons for these people, or even the politicians, is raw and unadulterated.
Virtually all of it goes through the spin mill first. No literal snow shovel I ever had could deal with this blizzard. It is not possible to move all of this aside. So, I am no longer listening.
Anybody got any ideas?
Alan Caras manages a business in Los Gatos.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
