The Ultimate Game of Life
- Details
- Category: Treasure Addis-Mills
- Published on Tuesday, 05 October 2010 19:12
- Written by Treasure Addis-Mills
Checkers and chess, poker and roulette. When did politics become a game like the rest? I'm tired of hearing about how seats are going to be lost or gained with the air of feeling like we're playing checkers and our opponent has just jumped 3 of our black chips and taken them off the board forever. Why is politics such an "us" and "them" game? If it must be a game, I feel like people within the parties have forgotten who and what they are playing for. The Republicans sit there and use the threat of filibuster against just about every Democratic-created bill. Their tactic is to make the Obama administration look bad and block legislation so that they can say the administration hasn't done anything. The media is used as a pawn to make mountains out of molehills. Did somewhere along the way it get forgotten that politics is about the people? That it's about our country? That it affects each and every American and has affects on the global stage?
It seems like we are getting way to mired in the thought of playing a game to make one side look good or tear down the other side instead of really working towards what our country needs and what our people need.
Healthcare, homelessness, unemployment, taxes, war, and social equality should not be played like a game. Politicians—all politicians—should come together with the intent of seeing the whole picture and determining what's best on a grand scale for the people and for the country, not on making their opponent look bad to gain an extra chip on the table.
And voters, don't act as if it's a game either. The inattention that we give to the political system and happenings make it easy for the media to lob out scary or half-true headlines that we take as full truth without hearing the true story or even the entire story. Political ad campaigns that are now flooding our mailboxes with literature is case in point. What do you really know about the candidates? It's just talking points about how good the person is or how bad their opponent is. In no way does it truly give you an idea of what they stand for or how they are going to perform in the elected position. Go to the talks, the meet and greets, the town hall meetings to meet the candidates and make a decision for yourself, not because a flyer that came in the mail looked pretty and had nice family photos on it.
