A real presidential candidate

I look at the upcoming presidential election and just sigh.  Once again, we don’t have anyone to vote FOR–they are all wolves in sheep’s clothing.  How can we seriously believe that the president or any federal politician is going to represent us, the 99%, the common man?  They are all wealthy people, far wealthier than the average, and they are all elected after using vast sums of money donated by their corporate sponsors.  Is it any wonder that they are primarily concerned about protecting corporations and the wealthy when that’s who funds their campaigns?

So…I have a fantasy solution, probably no more viable than fantasy football, but nonetheless, it’s a great fantasy.

First, it would be a woman, and a former single parent at that.  Who else is going to be able to balance this incredibly out of whack federal budget than someone who is used to taking practically nothing and making it stretch to cover all of the essentials?

That former single mom is used to wearing a lot of hats and being efficient at managing time too.  She’s got years of experience at figuring out how to cope with a sick kid, a job, shopping, laundry, doctor appointments, school activities, and everything else that a single mother has to juggle.  She’s also skilled at preserving peace, because the Congress acts a lot like a bunch of kids who all want the same piece of cake.

She’d have to be firm and decisive, with a streak of pure iron.  For that reason, we’d be looking for a menopausal former single mom.  Nobody has the kind of decisive ability to just make things happen with a sheer fury than a menopausal woman.  Wars would last a single day, because nothing can stop the fury of a menopausal woman either, and she won’t play namby pamby games about it once its deemed necessary.  Don’t mess with Uncle Sam when it’s Aunt Sam in the suit, ya know?

All those bureaucrats with their cushy jobs that don’t do anything?  They’ll be booted out of their offices so fast they won’t even remember their own names.  Our dysfunctional departments?  Gone…with the wind.  Forget Obama Care–she’ll have a decent and workable health care plan ready for Congress to sign so fast that they won’t be able to call their corporate sponsors in time to get advice.

The ridiculous “No Child Left Behind” program will be dumped in the trash where it belongs, and real education will start to be readily available, nation wide, as she put a workable and modern system into practice.  No more spending all year preparing for that single test that determines a school’s fate at the detriment of educating children.  For the first time, real interactive educations could be obtained using the internet, letting kids from rural Minnesota participate in classes taught in sunny Florida, and kids in rural Alaska taking classes alongside kids from New York City.  Any adult who wished to get an education would be able to get a grant to cover tuition and books at a government supported college or university, as long as their grade point average was high enough.  Community colleges would offer community education classes again, allowing everyone to learn local arts, crafts, and skills that would entertain and interest them again for low fees.

The FDA would be reined in, no longer at the beck and call of pharmaceutical companies.  Rules and regulations would be revamped and made both understandable and reasonable.  Medications for the average person would be made more affordable, lowering health care costs, without discouraging the development of new medications.

A new program encouraging the consumption of local foods would be put into place, and farmers markets would be doing a booming business too.  People would be able to buy these locally produced foods directly from the growers, including things such as meat, raw milk, and eggs, without a long list of regulations making it impossible for small producers to meet them, and allowing the consumer to make an educated choice about who they purchased these potentially risky foods from without Uncle Sam interfering.

Oh, and the war on drugs?

President Menopausal Mom may not be crazy about drugs, but she isn’t stupid.  We’re dropping, as a nation, an immense amount of money down a rat hole with no end in sight.  In the meantime, drug gangs and other organized criminal elements are collecting huge paychecks, just like they did in the days of Prohibition.  This isn’t rocket science–this is pure economics and actual American history here.  If we make it legal, we can regulate it and tax it, turning it into a source of revenue and reducing the strain on our states’ correctional systems as they deal with the aftermath of this war on drugs.  After all, we have the largest prison population IN THE WORLD!  Let’s let some totalitarian nation have that title, it’s not one we need anymore and we sure can’t afford it.  Besides, raising hemp and cannabis (the same plants, but with different end purposes, sort of like comparing sweet corn and flint corn) will give farmers another crop, and processing plants can employ other people, as the products are turned from their raw state to their marketable state.  We could quit fighting in Afghanistan if we produced our own opium too.  Why not?  We import a substantial amoun t in terms of pharmaceutical products, and a much larger amount as illegal drugs.  All of those so-called “FEMA Camps” can become “Addict Camps” where addicts can live and work, sparing the rest of us the crime we see today, and allowing their families to quit worrying about them as much.  If they want to get “clean” and resume their lives…well, we are already paying for that to happen in jails and institutions around the country, we could have a program to allow them to do that too.

Just spend a little bit of time imagining what Menopausal Mom would do for this country, and then compare it with the politicians of the past and present.  We haven’t seen this much action in office since the days of the “New Deal,” and maybe not even then.  Each politician that has taken the oath and filled the Oval Office has failed to live up to their campaign promises, and they also always have an excuse.  She wouldn’t take excuses, she’d be busy DOING something because that’s what a single mom has always had to do.

Fantasies…

But, if something is never imagined, it will never happen.  From our cell phones to space travel and even to the political machine of today, they are all born from someone’s imagination.  If we all imagine a better world, with real change instead of lip service change, then we’ll get it.  If we just sit around and whine, or stand on street corners shouting angry words and waving signs, nothing real happens.

We need to quit demanding politicians who can produce the illusion of having lived a perfect life without error and start looking for people to elect who have lived real lives, made real mistakes, and really learned from them.  We need someone to believe in, not a story to believe in.

Right now, neither the Democrats or the Republicans are delivering that.  Instead, they are delivering more rhetoric and illusions.  I don’t want the man behind the curtain anymore, he has not done us any good.  Give me Dorothy instead!