Advanced Scatology

Have you ever held a diamond in your hand? If so, you’re familiar with turning it ever-so-slowly to view how the slightest change in angle offers a whole new view of what it has to offer. Each facet is unique and provides its own character to the overall effect of the stone.

OK, let’s take that analogy and alter it just a bit. In mentally reviewing the events of the past several weeks, I find myself holding something else in my hand: horse manure. You know, a meadow muffin. A pasture puck. Or, if you prefer, equine excrement. It, too, has many facets and, to be fully explored, one must turn it slowly in the hand.

Here you’ll find the Washington government facet where the right is witless and the left is gutless. Throw in a president who seeks compromise over any kind of confrontation and we’re reduced to an over-indulgent parent and a spoiled child that threatens tantrums until it gets what it wants.

And here’s the global economy facet. You’ll see how interrelated every country is to every other one and how one’s economic headache is shared by all. Our stock market swoon is partly due to the spasms in Europe. Of course, the debt-limit debacle didn’t help, but you’d have to go back to the Washington government facet to fully appreciate the irony.

The jobs facet is something to behold. The private sector has no need for worker bees and now the public sector has no money for projects, programs, or wages. You needn’t be an economist to see where the unemployment rate is headed.

Look! Here’s the “I’ve got mine” facet and what a sight to behold. Those that have, want to keep it and to hell with those that don’t. Yes, there will always be those that take undue advantage of any program, but the very fabric of our society depends upon the premise that we help those in need. Otherwise, we devolve into a series of tribes scrambling to protect our possessions with nary a thought to the bigger picture.

There is a large facet for which I have no simple name. It is the one that illuminates how folks vote against there own best interests. The Republican party has marketed itself to be the sole source of family values and all that is good and right for America when, in fact, it is more aligned with corporate interests of no regulation and limitless wealth. These goals run opposite to the interests of the typical middle American yet the bulk of Republican voters occupy that economic strata. As a friend of mine says: “You’re not a Republican unless your Gulfstream has winglets.” (A Gulfstream is a high-end corporate jet and one with winglets is a high-end Gulfstream.) Last week’s hogtying of the FAA centered on Republican positions of reducing air service to small communities and making it harder for airline employees to organize. Do they sound like positions to protect the little folks?

And, should you be looking for the vision facet: forget about it. There is, however, a myopic section that has eschewed “long range planning” for quarterly reports and the next election cycle. Yet another disappointing perspective. 

By now you’ve realized that your examining a piece of crap and, unlike the diamond, it leaves both a strong scent and brown stain, neither of which are considered highly desirable. But most of the players in today’s economic and political theater have some muck on them. From the Commander-in-Chief down to the lonely voter in the polling booth: we can each claim a role in our current state of affairs.

It’s going to take much more head-work than hand-wringing to extricate ourselves from this funk. Let’s hope that our elected representatives are up to such a task and, if not, it falls to us, the voters, to ensure a better mix of legislators in the future.