Heavy Handed Metaphors in Politics

Its chilly and grey this morning. Fall has set in relatively on schedule this year as opposed to the late October set- in we’ve been experiencing in the last few years. It makes me think of patchwork quilts and wood burning stoves, though I’ve never really experienced either of those as a signifier of fall. Having grown up in the north east what typically signals this season are apple picking trips that somehow always involve hay, pumpkins, and an increase in my consumption of tea. A good cup of tea always takes the chill off.

The other thing about the fall that sets in, often like a wet blanket, is the election season. Right when the world feels its dullest the politics of our tangled little democratic republic seem to take up the cause and try their hand at breathing life into the land. Unfortunately they always seem to fail in some terrible and predictable way.

Now don’t get me wrong- the election season can seem very exciting and will get people chattering about health care, economics, the environment, big business and all the news worthy topics. They will talk from June to November about all the things they believe should matter to them and to the politicians, and for that time it will matter. But then, like the first real frost of winter, once the election begins coming to a close those things seem to no longer hold life- it begins to be about getting your candidate through the door no matter how their policies have changed through the summer. And once they are through the door? Pardon the heavy handed metaphors, but it’s as if we begin to feel that it’s acceptable to hibernate on the things that mattered to us in the first place.

I was at a panel discussion a couple weekends ago and one of the panelists began talking about how he’s noticed that if there is a candidate we like in some general way, that because of this default two party system (where our options are often seem to boil down to Mary-Kate or Ashley) we find ourselves throwing our full support behind a candidate we feel connected with in spirit, but not in policy. The panelist talked about how instead of letting our hopes and dreams die with the election season, and instead of following the concept of doing our duty to keep the other guy out of office, we should continue to throw our energy into changing the chosen candidates points of view once he/she is in office. We should keep working on and talking about the things that matter most, the things we usually remember we care about as the spring hits us, and allow to die with the leaves in the fall.

Now obviously this is not the case for all. Many people continue to think about these things and concern themselves with their importance all year long, but maybe what we need is more people to not only care, but to act on their concerns and to speak on them.

I know that in my last post I talked about change through life choices and the benefits of sometimes leaving the rafters silent, and I still maintain that for certain life choices that’s ok (I’m certainly not going to write to my congressmen about the importance of vegetarianism or buying used items) but for things that affect our health, our ability to feed ourselves, our ability to keep a roof over our head, I’m just not sure how we can let those issues go unheard for so long. They matter to all of us in small ways every day, so why would we think that talking about it once in a great while would make a difference? Perhaps if we talked about it more regularly the candidates would have to address it more regularly. I’ve never been a believer that change comes by revolution. I think it comes by evolution and I think that evolution takes time, effort, and persistent adaptation.