"Be good, do good, live long in peace." --DJ 

Why I don't Play The Politics Game
By Don Jibaro Orlando
There are farmers who get paid not to grow wheat or raise pigs, politicians ALSO should be paid not to smile or make promises. Honest Americans and Puerto Ricans alike are fed up with politics that we see daily, with ineffective, shortsighted, special-interest-driven policies that are as shallow and empty as the politicians who make them.

Politics has degenerated to "government to the highest bidder." In Puerto Rico, is even more deplorable than that! Under our current system, 90% of the time, the candidate who spends the most wins. As a result, our elected leaders are those who are most skilled at raising special interest money. This is the basic premise for aspiring government leaders, and NOT traditional sound principles that work. That's not what's bought and paid for by special interests.

There is an urgent need for foundational reforms in every area of government: from health care to education, from campaign finance to defense. These reforms, to me are idealistic because they are like candy to a kid staring a the untouchable goodies through the store glass window. To the politicians, they are the basis of their invisible promises... "If I'm elected, I will..." Yeah, right!

But simply put... I don't like modern politics because of the strange bedfellows that play the political game. With no offense intended towards any good honest politician (did I say that?) that might be reading this out there like Brother Kenneth... politics is an unscrupulous, conscienceless, corrupt, crafty, crooked, deceitful, degraded, dishonest, exploitative, knavish, perfidious, questionable, recreant, roguish, ruthless, scandalous, scheming, self-seeking, shady, shameless, shifty, sinister, slippery, sly, two-faced, unconscientious, underhanded, unethical, venal, wicked, wrongful and FOREMOST... a volatile endeavor that explosively ignites at any given moment, hurting saints and sinners alike.

Language and politics, inextricably linked together, have become so polarized and overused that they are losing their meaning to many people. Today, candidates run campaigns that rely on manipulating constituents through TV and direct mail and other media. Then the masses whine and moan as they realized they've been taken.

The politics of the former regime are always rejected by the new government leadership because the promises that got the politician elected are the ones that were used to bamboozle the people into electing that particular bamboozler. Take Arnold Schwarzenegger, for instance, the elected "illustrious governor of the fine state of California" (sic). He came with such an astonishing, cockamamie, far-fetched, fishy, implausible, impossible, improbable, incredible, kooky, past belief, phony, preposterous, questionable, reachy, staggering, thick, thin, too much, unconvincing, unimaginable, unsubstantial, unthinkably remarkable whishy-washy campaign that everyone thought that his promises were actually going to be delivered. Now those who elected him want him out. Sound familiar?

So what of my Puerto Rico 'tis of thee?
Now you hear: "Yeah Fortuño, Booo Roselló, Gunk Acevedo-Vila, Warp Sunshine Logroño, ad libitum and without end. This "quítate tú, pa' ponerme yo" politics is more of a musical chairs game than a bona-fide sincere quest to revitalize the flaccid economy in Puerto Rico and bring the people up from the relational slump they been in since the "guácara days". Any idealistic desire for Puerto Rico to be as politically successful as any other country is a well intended dream that won't cook in the Puerto Rican Bar-B-B-Q...

WHY? Because for more than 500 years, Puerto Rico has been a colony, dependency, outpost, possession, protectorate, province, satellite, subject state, territory, ASS. FREE STATE, ad libitum; ergo... a distant territory that remains subject to the ruling country... that has nothing left but 4 million souls with an humongous passion for living well.

Of course, islanders see the Island as a constrained cocoon waiting to be born again a free butterfly nation some sunny day, others... a state not as poor as Mississippi (with $22,300.00 avg. annual income). But in the words of Amos 'n Andy... IT AIN'T HAPPENING! No, not yet. Not if the almighty USA has something to say about it... and they vehemently do!

Puerto Rico's remaining main export (after being virtually depleted of sugar, coffee and tobacco) is, of course, college graduates who dream of a ghostly prosperity in the USA that is perniciously painted as such by the media, i.e., a two story house with two poodles and an SUV. Never mind our killer rum or tourism. When we as a people realize that our only hope is God and his mercy, the politicians will roll over like a puppy drooling for a chain of sausage links.

YES! Sausage!


donjibaro@gmail.com

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