Grinding Our Own Ax

It often seems that our elected representatives are unresponsive to the needs of the average American. If you’re a millionaire or part of a large special (self)interest group, you matter. Otherwise, you're one vote for the lesser of two evils you never wanted in the first place doesn’t motivate you to the polls. Your indolence is repaid in kind, people say. You can’t complain if you don’t vote, often follows.

By this standard, nearly half of all eligible voters have been unqualified to complain for more than a century. Therefore things are actually twice as bad as we hear, so thank God for standards.

Many have opted out of politics altogether, especially those who suffer from a conscience, extended recall, or the ethically afflicted who are forever damned to have ethics. Roger Waters might say, “They have become comfortably numb”.  While militant animal rights activists claim meat is murder, this equivalent puts politics on par with an incestuous anal rape murder suicide pact, if it's allowable to mention such a thing in polite company.

But wait, rape is involuntary. How could it be a pact? The same could be said of our politics! We’re choosing to get raped and murdered. We’re grinding our own ax.

The rest of us just keep playing along as if Republican and Democratic legislation produces different results. The only differences occur in the  rhetoric which precedes the vote. Words like “pro-business” get replaced with “income equality”, “border protection” replaced with “environmental protection”, and “freedom” with “tolerance”, all  semantics designed to motivate specific demographics up the same slaughterhouse ramp. Meat is murder when it's butchered from other human beings, but it's a renewable resource and green. Soylent Green. We’ve become comfortable cannibals.

One path designed to appeal to class envy the other to foster personal greed, both result in the evisceration of another sister or brother. The politicians just hand out the freshly sharpened axes and wait for the meal to come. A wolf lies in wait, while their more carnivorous primate cousin lies and waits for the meal to come.

The Trees by Rush

There is unrest in the forest. There is trouble with the trees

for the maples want more sunlight and the oaks ignore their pleas.

Trouble in the maples and they are quite convinced they're right.

They say the oaks are just too lofty and they grab up all the light.

But the oaks can't help their feelings if they like the way they're made,

and they wonder why the maples can't be happy in their shade.

There is trouble in the forest and the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream 'oppression!' And the oaks, just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union and demanded equal rights  
'The oaks are just too greedy, we will make them give us light!’

Now there's no more oak oppression for they passed a noble law

and the trees are all kept equal by hatchet, ax, and saw.