We Have Met The Enemy, And .......

Older readers of this blog are already smiling, because they know where the ....is going. Below is a brief explanation for the younger readers so they will get the full impact of how this applies to GOOOH.

In days of yore, there was a cartoon strip that was intended for adults as well as kids, because of the underlying political messages from the cartoonist. The cartoon was "POGO", and Pogo was an opossum that, along with his various animal friends, lived in the Okefenokee Swamp.

A famous general is often quoted regarding a statement he made to his leader and people after a huge victory on the battlefield. "We Have Met The Enemy, And He Is Ours!"

Pogo, when discussing the failure of the common folk to pull out of a political quagmire facing them at the moment, quoted the same general....with a twist. "We Have Met The Enemy, And He Is......

US!"

Get the GOOOH connection? We can fuss all we want about the way things are in Congress, the career politicians that lie every time they move their lips, the dirty back-room tactics of the party bosses, etc., but none of this complaining and finger-pointing can erase the fact that it is completely within the power of "We The People" to end it all.

GOOOH is for term limits, but I recently had a state legislator (whom I admire) shock me when he said in a debate that he was NOT in favor of term limits. He made two good points: (1) Some of the worst legislation he has ever seen was done by lame duck politicians. Tell a politician that his time is up, and you face the risk of seeing horrible legislation. (2) The voters have the option of putting a "term limit" on him every two years, so legislating a term limit does not make sense.

I have ideas on how to overcome the first objection but don't need to discuss that here. I still believe, like GOOOH, that term limits are a good thing, but must admit I had to ponder for a long, long time about his second point. It relates to GOOOH's oft-stated "insanity" clause about putting people that we don't like right back in office because we "don't want to waste our vote". Yet, this legislator makes a valid point that we can vote him out any time we choose to do so. So why don't we do that?

We are our own worst enemy. We don't want to "waste our vote" on that Independent because, well, the media told us he just wasn't electable. Can we not think for ourselves? Can we not make a paradigm shift in our thought process to believe that it is the other person who is wasting his/her vote, by voting for a party-backed mouthpiece or nebulous party platform, instead of a principled Independent candidate who was hopefully selected by an unbiased process like GOOOH?

If your reading of this blog put me into the position of "preaching to the choir", then take this as a pep talk and direct your unenlightened friend to read it and consider it carefully, especially during this rapidly approaching election cycle.

Maybe, one-by-one, the enemy will be........OURS!