Are You
Crazy??
Another municipal
election season is upon us. I know this
because my stomach is in a constant state of
agitation and my hair is turning grayer. It
happens every time I see the slate of
candidates and it’s been going on since 2001
when I moved to Aberdeen from the wilds of
Montana.
Each four years we
hear from incumbent aldermen, mayors and
chiefs of police about the wonders they have
performed in our collective honor. They tell
us – but only when they are backed into a
corner and pressed with something
approaching violence – all the reasons they
have failed to bring jobs to our community.
They “tell us” they’ve improved our quality
of life, but cannot point to examples or, as
in the case of the police department, point
to inaccurately reported crime rate figures
which belie the facts. (It’s a very clever
statistician’s trick. Report only the good
stuff. And whatever you do, don’t include a
column in your report for “crimes ignored,
overlooked or taken on by the Sheriff’s
department.”)
In the past I’ve
observed outright criminal behavior. It’s
called voter fraud and/or voter
intimidation. This year I’m trying not to
look. (You can verify this for yourself if
you note that I have not once yowled about
the campaign signs placed illegally within
the rights of way on our streets.)
In Aberdeen, I’ve seen dead people vote
and I’ve known living humans to be refused a
ballot because they were deemed to be
officially “dead” by a member of the
Democrat Executive Committee. This happened
in Ward 2 during the last election cycle
when a young man moved back to Aberdeen to
take over his recently deceased father’s
home. Because he had the misfortune to bear
his dead father’s name and address,
he was banished from the world of the living
by Helen Price who would not hear his
protests.
And then, and this
happens every single election cycle, we all
prove ourselves to be certifiably insane.
It was Albert Einstein
who gave me my favorite definition of
insanity. “Insanity is doing the same thing
over and over again and expecting different
results.”
Following every
election I’ve observed since I arrived, I
find Alonzo Sykes and Cloyd Garth still
lounging around the board table shuffling
their papers and giving the city employees
bad advice. This is not just insane, it’s
stupid. If you track the downward economic
momentum of Aberdeen over the past twenty
years, you’ll see that two things have
remained constant: Alonzo Sykes and Cloyd
Garth. So why do we keep electing them?
We’re crazy, that’s why.
We’re so simple minded
that we can ignore their failures and what I
believe to be their criminality. We
enthusiastically approve of their ineptitude
and give them opportunity upon opportunity
to drive our little community into
bankruptcy. I’ve watched them manipulate the
system of municipal justice by appointing a
judge who is ignorant and corrupt enough to
do their bidding and populating the police
department with spineless puppets who do
exactly as they are told. By the way, if
they don’t knuckle under, they are promptly
fired as we have seen (and paid for by way
of lawsuit settlements) in the past.
So, back to our
original question. Are you crazy? Here is a
short quiz.
1)
When politicians pee down your leg
and tell you it’s raining, do you believe
them?
2)
When city employees knock on your
door and tell you to vote for certain
candidates in order to stay out of trouble,
do you follow instructions?
3)
When you are told to get into a
van, are transported to a voting place and
told to vote for a certain candidate even
though you know you’re in the wrong ward, do
you?
4)
If you live at address A, but are
told by “gangsta” types that you really
live in house C, will you swear to it at the
polls?
5)
Do you live in an inviso-house on
an otherwise vacant lot?
6)
Do you believe that Aberdeen is
better off today than it was 15 years ago?
7)
Do you think the school board, the
majority of which are appointed by the
Aldermen, is functioning well?
8)
Are you happy with your child’s
education?
9)
Have you kept your mouth shut
instead of helping a better candidate win?
10)
Have you sat quietly in a corner
when you KNOW the community is being raped,
pillaged and plundered?
If you answered yes to
any of these you should buy yourself a
one-way bus ticket to Whitfield. You are out
of your freakin’ mind.
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