HONEST ABE

I saw a politician on the tube the other day. Now that is not unusual. And this politician said, I'm paraphrasing, that he would do this, that and the other thing, among which was, "I will create new jobs..."

Now, you know he lied, don't you? Have you ever known a politician who was capable of creating a job? It, my friends, is an impossibility. A politician works for the government, in some capacity or another, and government cannot create jobs. It can only tax those who are creating and or working at jobs.

And a politician's only quest, once elected, is to be reelected. Don't let them give you a different answer to the question, "What are your plans now that you are in office?" The only answer is, "To get reelected." Fior that is what a politician is for. He has only two overriding designs in life--first, to get elected, and, second, to get reelected. If you have ever run into one who was ever elected against his will, let me know. I don't think I'll hear from you real soon. And, once elected, if he doesn't want or try to get reelected, he was not a politician in the first place.

And how can a politician create a job? The government has no jobs, just "public servants", if you listen to them when they want something more on their paychecks.
Besides, a single politician, by himself, can do nothing. Everything in government is done by committee. That's why the results (non-results) are so poor. It is kind of like tying five mules together by their backsides and then throwing five ears of corn in five directions. Whatever they do, it is a self-defeating process.

Honest politician>? Oxymoron.
Hard working politician? Oxymoron.

If they're honest, they're not politicians, and if they are hard working, they are just trying to find funding for their next campaign for reelection.

Politicians are similar to preachers, lawyers, used car salesmen and news purveyors. All will tell any story necessary to get their advantage. A preacher will go back and forth so many times in one conversation that he needs a tight saddle on top of the fence so he can swing either way, depending on what the listener has to say. And there are few respectable lawyers around anymore, if there ever were. Used car salesmen will tell you whatever you tell them you want. They take your own words, translate them to fit the situation, and sell you the same car as barely used that they told you ten minutes before was a wreck (when they wanted to upgrade the sale.)

And news purveyors. Yeah, reporters, anchors, editors--the whole lot, including managers and executives. When was the last time you heard, or read, a news report that did not have a personal slant to it? Probably longer than you imagine. It has gotten so bad that I seldom read the "news" sections anymore, or watch the nightly news. I go straight for the op-ed pages or to the talking heads, for I know to be on guard to what is said then.

There was a report a year or so ago that illustrates well. Small matter, a recently constructed bridge was being dedicated. Now, why it needed to be dedicated, I'll never know. But it was. Both the newspaper coverage and the television coverage proclaimed the heroic legend of the person for whom the bridge was being named. Both interviewed a number of local residents, none of whom knew the honoree, they were just glad to have the bridge back after waiting three years for it to be rebuilt (and that is a story unto itself.) And when we come to learn the actual
facts of the case, the honoree was a local man who had been drafted into the service in WWII and died in France, just as thousands of others did (many from the local area who died in France, Germany, the Pacific theater, Italy and elsewhere.) There were no heroic deeds, other than those made up by the media to justify their expense in covering a laudatory and local affair for a particular family.


But, perhaps the worst of all, all four classifications listed above, are self-serving professions (if you care to call them professions), in which the service to fellow human beings has been perverted to the cruelest disservices. The taking of needed sustenance and ego of those who, let's face it, deserve no more than a quick kick into perdition for their callous disregard of the basic tenets of humanity.


But the politician tops them all, for he simply disregards any semblance of truth. He says he will do this. And he won't. He'll do that. And he won't. You can never tell what he will do, or won't do. For he is a consummate liar, cheat, and you can pick the next disreputable adjective, that you want to ever see going away from you.

As far as creating anything, the only thing he can possibly create is a poor reputation. AND HE ALREADY HAS THAT, so why would he need to sweat it out trying to create something he already has?