All politics is loco
October, 2011

With all due respect to former U.S. Speaker, Tip O’Neill, “All politics is loco.” Just read this Opinion page. Everything politicians or their mind-numbed minions suggest or implement is immediately decried as loco by at least half of us. From the naiveté of our own City Fathers throwing our money down the electric car rat hole because they presumed a market for little undercharged golf carts, to the current green-everything craze, it’s all loco. Take man-made climate change. When we can change the climate by gunning our engines and pointing our exhausts toward city hall at the same time, then maybe I’ll consider it. Too many people are scoring too much money and power to think that they’re really interested in the common good. Least of all, mine.

Like snakes in the grass, politicians are only interested in sneaking up and squeezing the life out of us. But the game is to make us think they’re one of us. Odd business. They promise us the world, we hire them to give it to us, then they make sure, “on day one,” that they and their buddies squirrel away their fair share of our money. If there are any new highway intersections left for us, they loudly trump that we were on their minds all along. The Temptations saw it clearly, “Vote for me and I’ll set you free!”

Candidates preach the Constitution, higher taxes, lower taxes, fair shares, fair taxes, or just letting the government take it all. The state takes its fair share from businesses, large and small, no matter if it’s not fair to the business owners who could’ve given someone a job with the same money. The City and County raise “fees” and taxes on everyone on the loco level. Never mind that the turnips they’re squeezing ran out of blood a long time ago. But they don’t care; they need the money more than we do. After all, they’ve got promises to keep.

Ironically, a politician’s worst enemy is an educated electorate, because it’s much harder to fool someone who’s smarter than you are. No wonder our education system is in the sorry state it’s in. What would happen if schools turned out people who are smarter than politicians?

On the other hand, politics is a game everyone plays. We just call it manipulation. Junior wants a new video game so he cajoles Mom until he gets it. Mom wants a new car so she works the old man. Dad wants a raise, so he works the boss, ad nauseam. It’s all politics, and it’s all loco.

Ok, so let’s get loco. What are you politicos going to do about the roving gangs of gophers that are sinking Salinas into the salt marsh that gave it its name? Their skullduggery is everywhere, including my front lawn and our rose garden. If you really wanted to do us a favor and win the undying support of thousands of Salineros, you’d make it a felony to harbor a gopher or protect a gopher city. They’ve already been declared an endangered species at my house. I’m not really interested in “trapping” them, but I’m all about killing them. I prefer gassing the little varmints for the cold satisfaction of waging acrid, chemical warfare down their dank little tunnels, turning their underground tenements into suffocating chambers of death.

I’ve got a friend who sprays the fields where, interestingly, they don’t have a gopher problem. He says he got the secret sauce to take care of them for once and for all.

But, of course, it’s illegal to use the stuff in town. It would probably kill all the birds and half the preschoolers. But it’s comforting to know that barrels of it are out there. Just as it’s comforting to know the politicos that banned the real gopher killing goop were thinking about me all along.

It’s just loco.