Last week I wrote a column about my perception that children with greater financial means appeared to receive more leeway in elementary school. As a student of a private, Catholic school, Immaculate Conception, in Las Vegas, I generally felt treated well and respected.<\/p>\n
That was most of the time. But during at least one year in elementary school, I felt there wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly ethnic discrimination, but a bit of a class (as in social, financial status, side of town) distinction. That was the gist of my column, which leaves the question, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Has anything changed?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The pervading theme of that column was whether and in what way some people feel elevated by putting someone down. And the illustration I used, the time my attempt to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153out\u00e2\u20ac\u009d someone who was cheating on a spelling test, backfired, is evidence that I too thought I could score points by getting someone else in trouble. I thought then it was good to accentuate the negative.<\/p>\n
Just as one can conceivably rise by stepping over bodies of those underneath, I often wondered how put-downs provide a leg up.<\/p>\n
Some of my elementary school classmates must have believed they were earning indulgences for squealing (we called tattlers \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chuchos\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). Do politicians, regardless of party affiliation, accrue some kind of elevated status among voters by scooping up dirt, raining on someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parade, slinging mud (or whatever political clich\u00c3\u00a9 comes to mind)?<\/p>\n
Well, that spelling incident, which spans six decades, must have impressed me. Has anything changed? As I write this, I watch an endless procession of commercials \u00e2\u20ac\u201d most of them for the top job in New Mexico \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in which Susana Martinez slams current Lt. Gov. Diane Denish. But in the next spot, Denish wields the cudgel and whacks Susana, La Tejana, whose birth was in El Paso.<\/p>\n
A minute later, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Martin Heinrich and Jon Barela exchanging barbs, and let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not forget Steve Pierce and Harry Teague, calling each other corrupt. Is this what we voters want from our candidates? Does heaping dirt somehow elevate the mudslinger? Does one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nativity in a border city \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in this case El Paso, the same hometown as Sen. Jeff Bingaman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u201d make one candidate more legit than one born in Hobbs?<\/p>\n
So this is what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re being asked to send money to? It enriches most of the electronic media and for what, or as my late mother would ask, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Y pa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 que?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Now, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s see if we have this straight: Each candidate for a major office has a well-lubed machine happy to collect donations from the gullible public, donations that will enable the candidates to buy even more vitriolic ammo they hope will stick to some mythical mephitic walls. So if we send, say, a hundred dollars to the campaign of one of them, he\/she can devise even more paid commercials in order to slam the opposition.<\/p>\n
We, who the politicians must think of as gullible, are being told some incredible things: My opponent wants to raid Social Security; my opponent is a Socialist; My opponent wants to take food off your children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s table (or even more graphically, My opponent wants to pull food out of the mouths of your children).<\/p>\n
Enough already! We have the dirt on your opponents but not a clue as to what you stand for. Can you tell us \u00e2\u20ac\u201d without even referring to your opponent \u00e2\u20ac\u201d why we should vote for you?<\/p>\n
I realize it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s our patriotic duty to vote, but for the first time in my life, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m wishing there were a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no\u00e2\u20ac\u009d lever to pull or a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153none of the above\u00e2\u20ac\u009d choice, at least for the top races in New Mexico.<\/p>\n
Reciprocal flagellation isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t my idea of good times.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Before the Obama-McCain race in 2008, I met a man from La Jara, Colo., at the hot baths in Montezuma. The conversation turned to politics. He said he could never vote for Obama \u00e2\u20ac\u0153because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pro-choice, not pro-life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Then do you mean,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a single-issue voter? Is there any other reason to vote against Obama and for McCain?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Then, knowing the answer I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get, I asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Does this mean that there were no abortions during the eight years of George W. Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tenure?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Well, we settled nothing and talked about football instead, from separate ends of the hot baths.<\/p>\n
Obviously, abortion is a controversial matter that shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be used as birth control. It bothers me that a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body is her own, until she conceives. Then immediately, her womb becomes property of the state.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
In the heat of next week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s midterm election, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard a lot of attack ads that contain the words, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The list goes on and on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s usually in the context of listing an opponent\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s peccadilloes. A politician might say, for example, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My opponent voted with Nancy Pelosi 97 percent of the time, voted against veterans, and failed to appear for three crucial votes, and the list goes on and on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The list goes on and on\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is merely a way of saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have any more hyperbolic accusations to provide about my opponent.<\/p>\n
And on this subject, I could go on and on and on.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an electronic billboard on Legion Drive near Sierra Vista Elementary. As we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re almost into November, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to replace the September announcements with something more current?<\/p>\n
We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not referring to fine wine here. Notices of long-past events don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t improve with age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week I wrote a column about my perception that children with greater financial means appeared to receive more leeway in elementary school. As a student of a private, Catholic school, Immaculate Conception, in Las Vegas, I generally felt treated well and respected. That was most of the time. But during at least one year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=669"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":672,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669\/revisions\/672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}