AN OUTSIDER LOOKING IN
Vote? Why Bother?
by Chris Gelken

Feb. 25, 1998 -- HONG KONG (APJNS) -- Checking through the wire services at work a week or so ago I came across a real gem. The AP copy told of a divorced mother who wrote to her State Representative about the need for child-care assistance. Arizona Republican Mark Anderson told the woman that what she needed wasn't a bigger state hand-out - but a man!

He then went on to suggest that she take another look at why her marriage failed, and perhaps consider signing up for some parenting classes. I don't know Anderson, but it seems to me he must planning to give up politics at the end of his current term. Frankly, I can't imagine what the man was thinking.

But then I have never really understood the mysterious working of a political mind. They take what are essentially simple questions and turn them into major problems. One phrase I remember Mad Notsobright using time after time during her attempts to sell Gulf War Two to Ohio students: "This is a very complicated issue."

No it isn't. But what was she really saying? "Listen up suckers, we're smarter than you and you are too moronic to understand the complexities." No, politicians aren't smarter than us normal folks, and there are no complexities to understand.

Call me naive, but essentially I believe that most issues can be resolved quickly and without fuss by asking; What is the right thing to do? Okay, so it is a bit of simplification, but if Western political and business interests did the right thing with Saddam Hussein a couple of decades ago we wouldn't be enduring all this BS right now.

The problem is, political types don't consider the right or wrong - or at least those options are not high on their priority list. Politicos are more concerned with what is expedient, what is popular, what will get them re-elected, or what will divert people's attention away from the fact that they really don't know what they are doing?

I saw a clip on CNN recently about the elections in India. Anita Pratap had thrust her microphone into the face of some poor slum dweller who lamented; "During elections the politicians come here and ask how we are and tell us how much they are going to do for us. But after the election, we never see them again." Yeah, well, its the same the world over, pal. I think it was Kruschev who said; "Politicians. They are people who promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers."

The thing that really confuses me, though, is why folks keep going to the polls and electing these jokers. Personally, I exercise my franchise and demonstrate my disgust by not voting. With a few possible exceptions (but unfortunately never in a constituency that I was eligible for) the choice was always between the lesser of two or possibly three evils - and that's no choice at all.

I did vote against Britain joining the then Common Market - now the European Union. Even as a young chap fresh out of college I could see where the thing would lead - I was right, the politicians of the day were wrong (or they lied) and look where we are now. Within a decade or so power will almost completely devolve from London to Brussels and I'll be a European from the province of England, district of Birmingham. I can hear the howls of protest; "Never," British politicians will scream loudly, "you obviously don't grasp the complexities!" Yeah, right.

The bottom line? Perhaps I have without knowing it, but I believe I have yet to meet a politician who represents anything other than their own self-interest or an agenda that is quite different from the one on which they got elected.