{"id":2097,"date":"2008-04-26T08:19:13","date_gmt":"2008-04-26T13:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/04\/26\/buy-a-vote\/"},"modified":"2008-04-26T08:27:49","modified_gmt":"2008-04-26T13:27:49","slug":"buy-a-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/04\/26\/buy-a-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"buy a vote…"},"content":{"rendered":"
Television came to our house when I was in the 5th grade, but the only station was in Atlanta – 120 to the miles to the south. We could only watch at night [on clear nights] as the sound and picture came and went on the "snow" that covered the screen. By Junior High, Chattanooga had its own stations. And one of the early highlights was watching the Political Conventions and the election returns – all "Live."<\/div>\n

The only Republican I’d ever known was my father. He was from the North, which explained this oddness about him. Of course, I didn’t tell anyone, but I secretly thought it was okay. After all, the President was a Republican – and he was a GENERAL for God’s sake! the Savior of Western Civilization!<\/p>\n

So we watched the election returns until the television went off with some Army Band playing the National Anthem while a flag waved in the wind on the screen in various shades of grey. During the returns, there was much talk about "the control wards." Were they in yet? Their votes [the "control wards"] were 98% for some candidate, and the Commentators alway knew who those votes were going to be for. I don’t remember how I came to know that those were the wards where Black people lived, or how I found out that those votes were purchased – by Democratic Politicians. It was just part of the way things were back then. But as a more alert person years later, I was horrified to learn that such things still went on into the late sixties in Memphis, where I was living.<\/p>\n

Why did those old "control wards" come to mind this morning? I was reading this:<\/div>\n
\n
Bush says Treasury to begin issuing stimulus tax rebates next week<\/strong><\/a> <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

US President George Bush said the US Treasury expects to make the first electronic deposits to taxpayers from the fiscal stimulus package on Monday, five days early. ‘On Monday, the Treasury Department will begin delivering the first of these tax rebates by direct deposit,’ Bush said at the White House today. ‘This money’s going to help Americans offset the high prices we’re seeing’ for gasoline and food, he said. ‘It will also give our economy a boost to help us pull out of this economic slowdown.’<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I don’t really understand economics, but this rebate business strikes me as insane. We’re throwing away money in Iraq, the dollar is falling, prices are going up, and Bush is giving away money. Feels like "control ward" stuff to me. Here’s some money – don’t notice what’s happening. Here’s some money – vote for us. <\/em>I don’t think I qualify for a rebate check, but if I get one, I’m sending it to Obama for President, 2008.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

In medicine, we call people like Bush, "symptom doctors." They treat people’s symptoms, but don’t look carefully for the underlying cause – the disease behind the symptoms that might be need treatment. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Television came to our house when I was in the 5th grade, but the only station was in Atlanta – 120 to the miles to the south. We could only watch at night [on clear nights] as the sound and picture came and went on the "snow" that covered the screen. By Junior High, Chattanooga […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}