Finally, autumn is here and the big heat that just wore me out this summer is gone. My garden is in full fruit, and it’s a pleasant job to keep up with the harvest. A season for salsa and pesto — though with basil going nuts, pinon nuts are hard to find. I stand over the sink picking the most basil tender leaves for my sauce, and my mind gets a chance to wander.
I think, I could go to D.C. and get all the nuts I want. I realize that my political sensitivities are tender already, and we’re yet fifteen months from the next election. The thought of the political class already trying to harvest my vote makes me tired all over again.
Couldn’t we pass a national election season, sort of like hunting? Baseball has extended to 162 games a year because they can sell tickets for that many seats. How did we get this extended election season and what kind of monsters could endure that marathon and then actually run our nation? Maybe that’s an insight to why they are all doing such a lousy job of it.
I can pick what’s in season, eat it till we’re tired of it, and move to the next thing. Our politicians continually do everything with an eye on the next election. What are they so worried about? They have lifetime pension and benefits, something I’m unfamiliar with. Ah, second insight; the seduction of power. To be surrounded by sycophants is to have your every thought and motion worshiped. I’m not familiar with that either, but it sounds like a great way to not understand what is really happening out here in the world.
I’ve heard Washington D.C. described as thirty square miles, surrounded by reality. Listening to the acrimonious legislative debates we’ve heard lately, I believe it.
When I make salsa, it’s fresh, basic ingredients to which I adjust the spices gradually, getting the flavor exactly right. When Washington makes legislation, it’s sausage time with 536 cooks who don’t measure anything, put everything in the grinder and get a product that pleases no one. Like a salsa, if you put too much of something in, you can’t get it back out, and the final product is ruined. So do it right the first time, and to the taste of the majority of your dinner guests. Good gravy. What’s a rational, bill paying, centrist child of the sixties to do?
It’s exhausting to hear liberals disgruntled that their crown prince isn’t extreme enough. I can’t even think about the conservatives trying to find the rudder while the Tea Party poles the boat to the edge of the falls.
Corporate jets equal symbolism irrelevant to the problem. Balanced budget amendment equals untenable, unrealistic and undoable. No one is going to take Grandma’s Social Security and Medicare. Seriously? She’s more likely to vote than the people still paying in. We’re spoon fed a bunch of malarkey, then polled to find out what we think about one party or the other. What’s a pragmatist to do?
I am certain that our founding fathers would very much enjoy the debates, if not the attitudes that have brought us to this precipice.
The summer of 1787 in Philadelphia was hot when they built our Constitution, and all they could do was open windows, which they were reluctant to do lest unformed ideas leak into the public. Thank God for the absence of Twitter.
The debate was messy, loud, acrimonious at times and political. But there was an awareness among all that they were making history, not sausage, and that ideas had to be weighed carefully, inserted into the mix gently because they were building a nation, not a sound bite.
There had to be thoughtful balance, something sorely missing today. I will grant you all, it is difficult to find the whole truth when most resources amount to a blast from left or right. I live in a conservative community, run around with conservative friends and it takes work to get at the center of things.
I watch some Fox, CNN, major network news and for a dose of pure liberalism a little MSNBC. I read everything: The Denver Post, Wall Street journal, Hightower newsletter, various periodicals. Good gravy, its job to sort it all out, and it’s what I don’t hear that is often most revealing. I have become suspicious of everyone’s agenda, and every large group has one.
I hear the malaise in my tone and I’m not comfortable with it, because inside is a voice that tells me I know better. So I think of the way our country is structured and of the nature of our national character. I have hope.
I had the good fortune to spend ten days in Europe in July and had several in depth conversations with an ex-pat Englishman living in France, a couple of Dutchmen and Americans working in Europe for NATO and the Atomic Energy commission. I came away proud to be an American and optimistic about us, the people who actually make America work.
My English and Dutch friends want their children to make new lives here, and why? Because we still have a dynamic society that can change and adapt. One they believe still has the energy to overcome our current obstacles, and we should too.
Take a step back from the malarkey. Assess who you are, who we are as a polyglot culture. Work to understand more than one side of the discussion and contribute to the dynamism that made us the envy of the world. Here’s what I’m going to do: Work at being fully informed, vote, and if needed, recycle our elected officials into civilian life until they get this message — This is about our lives, our national honor, not your election.
Mark Sandstedt (sandstedtm@gmail.com) of Grand Junction is a retired pharmaceutical representative.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
