They are beginning to be heard again and they are becoming more visible each day, working hard to win public confidence and public trust.  They are all out to make their case on the stage and on the screen in every living room across America.  Respondent politicians have a right to be heard because they have a duty to inform us and we have a duty to listen because we have a right to know.  We see them confront and dissect one another, decorate the truth and embroider lies in their campaign for office. Politics is a game without a scoreboard and without a referee and that is why punches below the belt come with foul language to put their opponents in bad light.  It is a replay of the habitual rhetoric, the old plavers and the swinging flip-flap, tongue-in-cheek, so to speak. They have discoursed to us before even more than we can remember and we keep hearing what they have said many times before.  Politicians win and lose and yet the witch hunt of politics percolates.

A politician recaptures the biblical prodigal son who squandered his fortune in the paradise of conspicuous consumption.  We can't be too naive listening to their patriotic words that belie their unpatriotic deeds in offices of power.  We should be smart enough to know that politics is a drive for power disguised as a mission for service.  That drive for power crippled us, divested us, diverted us and degraded us in more ways than one.  If this is not true, I need someone to help me understand the politics of betrayal.  Politicians are good fly-by-night magicians for on short notice they can gather peaceful assemblies while their select friends are bringing in guests for fund-raising drives.  Again, if this is not true, please hold your breath and ask if this is what campaign finance reform implies.  If this is not true, I need someone to help me understand double talk and double play in politics.

There is no question that politics is the genesis of comprehensive power for it is happening every day, everywhere.  It is a serpent in the soul that has driven politicians to behave like drunken sailors and act capriciously with bewildering passion. Mothers may still want their favorite sons to grow up to be president but they don't want them to become politicians in the process. It is in their DNA to think big, plan big and talk big about the little things they have done. We should know better for we were not born yesterday to believe that big plans, big words and big talk are negotiable instruments and have buying power. To people in need, they want someone who can give them earning power, spending power, credit power and not word power.  Politics is not the answer and politicians are not the solution to people in destitute conditions.  Lip service and self-service sweep out public service to make room for self-enrichment.

Political solutions won't work to solve economic problems. Speeches are not the answer to financial issues.  Economic problems relate to costs and prices, and financial issues deal with figures and funds.  Economics and politics are tangled strands because politicians politicize their approach in their drive for power.  I don't think anyone can walk straight when his right shoe is on the left foot and his left shoe is on the right foot.  The law of supply and demand has nothing to do with legislation and policy. The law of cause and effect cannot be modified by legislation, it cannot be moderated by policy. It takes an intellectually-honest politician to admit that government power cannot provide quick fixes and magic formulas to economic problems and financial issues.

There is nothing in the background of the Republicans that makes it possible for them to accomplish what the Democrats thought impossible to accomplish.  Likewise, there is nothing in the background of the Democrats that makes it possible for them to accomplish what the Republicans thought impossible to accomplish.  If politicians on both sides of the aisle are unable to solve their own problems, it takes a bigot and a fool to believe that they can give a better life to everyone living in America.  No matter which party is in power, it's more of the same with politics as usual.  Anything that is good for the Democrats is demonized by the Republicans and anything that is good for the Republicans is demonized by the Democrats.  This has always been the political circus in their drive for power.  It's like two dogs quarreling over a bone, like an old song being played on a broken guitar.  By the number of people suffering in quiet frustration, I can say without reservation that the drive for power is not a mission for service.

We have more than enough of blame game, fault finding, finger pointing, name calling and mudslinging.  All this won't help to make things better.  Negative talk is bad for our mental health just as we get sick eating spoiled food and drinking dirty water.  At a time when change is the norm, still politicians are men of words when we need men of action to energize hope with resiliency.  There is no hope without change and there is no change without action. People on welfare will always be there until politicians take action to bring them from welfare roll to payroll. We can't be too lenient with dog loyalty that leads to political idolatry.  Countless lives have fallen into the alms of charity because the drive for power subsidized the greedy and paralyzed the needy.

It is up to us to resist every attempt to make us sacrificial lambs in the politics of power play. Power seeks to conquer us and manage our lives, and that is why politicians compete to divide and rule us. Their relentless drive for power extinguished the flair of nobility and dilapidated the crucifix of sacrifice in the altar of public service.  The drive for power converted government into a huge fishing ground where self-help and self-service are the preoccupations of people in the inner circle. The drive for power obliged us to socialize losses and privatize gains as it heightened the spoils of office, breach of trust and disservice to the nation.  Power is a necessary evil that has caused mission of service to remain in the back burner.  Because of passion for power, change is an abstract of hope and a perception of reality. Love for power and love of money have produced record-breaking casualties in war and in peace.

We have empowered politicians to give us what we need but they don't have the ability to deliver what we need.  We have not empowered them to give what their rich friends want but they have the ability to give them what they want.  This incongruous situation means that we get the chaff while their rich friends get the grain. We are politically connected to them while they are financially connected to their rich friends.  If this is not power sharing, if this is not double crossing, and if this is not double dipping, then there is nothing wrong with serving two masters.  Power sharing between autocrats and plutocrats is a soul-searching matter because money talks and the moneyed class dictate policy and shape public policy.

Just as a man is free to choose a woman to marry and a woman is free to choose a man to marry, we are free to choose our leaders. We have no right to blame anyone for choosing the wrong leaders.  We have to suffer the consequences of our own choices. We learn from experience that credentials cannot guarantee good leadership and that nothing but character is the most reliable test of leadership during tough times.It its not in giving power that tests leadership but it is in giving power that we test character. No one can deny us the right to change the leadership in a government that is not responsive to our concerns. The euphoria of change is at hand when politicians are bereft of the drive for power.

 

 

Munting Nayon News Magazine