When I was in Junior High School, in the 9th grade, school elections were getting underway for the semester year. I took about as dim a view of politics then as I do now and decided to add my bit to the grand drama of electioneering.

So I got a pair of bed sheets and some red paint, painted up two big signs that read “Vote For Chinga” on them and with the aid of a couple henchmen, some ropes and the darkness of night, hung them way up high where everyone in the school would see them and they would be difficult to take down. Years later, the Legend of Chinga still floated around that school.

There was no student with that name, although a Chinese-American boy did catch a lot of crap over it from one of the teachers. What those signs did succeed in doing, however, was throwing the school elections for that year into total turmoil, as “vote for Chinga” caught on and students were writing “vote for Chinga” signs on the hallway walls and wrote the name in on their ballots.

I was proud.

What all that proved is that even non-existent people can become popular overnight and win elections. I look at what’s being offered up to us by the Parties Political and see non-existent people, actors on a stage, prepared personalities, created personas that are wrapped in shiny plastic and glowing glitter and don’t begin to touch the actual person somewhere inside those coached creations.

You get all hepped up over your candidate. You think that this person is way better than that person. You think that your political party will do a much better job than those other political parties. The truth is, you don’t think at all. All you do is get all emotional and react like a Pavlov dog, salivating. You suck it up blindly and when the bell rings, you drool.

None of the candidates gives a shit about you. Every one of them is a ruthless, self-serving bastard. I bet you voted for Bush. See?

What you see is not what you get.

You might as well vote for Chinga.

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