On:Vote for common sense By Bud Johnson The "Old African Warrior"

Howbeit I often confess that the only time I’ve voted, was when Minnie Ryans (Roy) was elected Miss Wheatley in 1947, I’m still an advocate of suffrage. Yep, I’m playing with big words again (for the benefit of my epistemologically challenged folks, who grew up in homes void of idiolect like me), who don’t know why suffrage is defined as, “a vote in approbation or assent,” or simply “the right to vote.” Hey, the word is a Latin term vovere, which translates to, a solemn promise, or to wish for. Nevertheless, I don’t have enough space to follow the meandering trial of the past participle votus, which eventually feds directly into English as the verb vote.
Hence, suffice it to say, it’s as painful as being jilted by a lover to keep voting for fickle and/or special agenda politicians, who fail to keep their promises. Damn that’s a clever deduction. If I have to say so myself. Even so, let’s stop playing around and cut to the chase, because (like Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill’s classic 1946 hit, the September song (that Bing Crosby crooned), “Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few…” before it’s time to vote for the lesser of two evils, whom we must choose from to run our troubled country for the next four years. Truthfully, I see little difference between Sen. John Kerry and Pres. George W. Bush. Hence, even if one was proven a saint, while the other remains a sinner, that ain’t gonna change a damn thing. Okay, okay! I hear The Twilight Zone theme, so I won’t stray any further into The Outer Limits of vulgarity.
After all (contrary to what you siddity brothers and sisters may think), I do have young Eyeview mavens, who love reading the ramblings from a crazy, old African warrior’s “cobwebberier” mind. Then again, Kerry and George W. ain’t nothing but flesh and blood, middle-aged angry White men... who cut for evil in high places. Ergo, they’re bedeviled by the same common denominators that make us equals. Square business, you might off yourself before you become a deranged, street person (sleeping under a freeway bridge, or standing on corner a with a sign saying, “Homeless! Will work for food”), or you’re definitely gonna get older, with each tick of the clock; suffer when you’re sick and die when the grim reaper comes tap, tap, tapping at the back door of your God given “unholy temples.”
Verily, verily I’m saying to you, that it doesn’t matter if you’re rich and famous, or impoverished and lonely, the good Lord is respecter of no person and since He is still calling the shoots, there ain’t a damn thing you can do but beg for small blessings and tender mercies. So, can we talk politics?
For sure, political astute brothers and sisters could never see voting as nonsense, thus might not know where I’m coming from. Even so, my maternal grandpa, Rev. William Paul Fonteno, drilled it into my nappy noggin that when something doesn’t make sense, it’s nonsense. Thus, you don’t waste your time trying to make sense out of nonsense. As simple as that sounds, the whole world is going crazy trying to make sense out of nonsense.
That’s why I thought of that old, evil Frenchman Descartes’ profundity, “Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it,” in his Discourse de la Methode manuscript. As true as that might be, you know and I know, what makes sense to you, just not make sense to me. You see common sense, really ain’t what most people think it is.
Let’s use the Iraqi war for an example: It makes sense, to most of us, when Bush says that his preempted strike on Iraq was the right thing to do, because 9/11 was a wake-up call. Hey, you have to be crazy not to agree that it’s better to bite first, rather than waiting to be bitten. However, when Bush talks winning the peace and making Iraq a democracy-- after bombing the hell out of it--he’s talking nonsense. You have to be stone crazy to believe that a people, no matter how they are treated by a tyrant, is going to thank America for totally destroying their way of life (which was pretty good as long as you didn’t piss Saddam off), arbitrarily killing and maiming their kinfolks and dishonoring Allah. Then again, that’s from our common sense Black perspective. There is no way a sane descendent of slaves can think like any other ethnicity in America.
We’re convinced that what makes sense to White, middle, class people can’t make sense to Black folks trapped in the crime and drug infested urban jungles in the land of the free. Nevertheless, there is a mindset among many brainwashed Black folks, who (in hindsight) truly believe that the slave traders did us a favor to kidnap our ancestors and subject them to brutal slavery for centuries, because it ultimately allowed us to live in the greatest, most democratic country in the world. Okay, I won’t go there. Because I wouldn’t make sense to think that we’re a monolithic people, who all think and vote alike. Yet, I would be remiss not to explain where I’m coming from when I talk common sense. First, and foremost, I think it defies common sense for Americans, who value our one-person-one-vote democratic system of government --to vote for term limits.
In addition, politicians with common sense don’t support term limits. And it shouldn’t make sense to politicians for America to import (legal, or illegal) workers and export jobs? Moreover, how can it make sense to outsource jobs overseas, when America has the highest unemployment rate since The Great Depression? Hark! Space demands a quick conclusion. So, I’ll just say that people with common sense should have sense enough to vote for politicians who make sense. They should have sense enough to know that a lost job translates to loss income to an American, when we have homeless folks standing on corners begging for bread. Thus, I implore you, my brothers and sisters… please don’t vote for public servants who condone paying consultants to tell public officials (making six figured salaries) how to do their jobs.
And, you don’t have a lick of common sense, if you vote for folks who think it makes sense to privatize public jobs (to save taxpayers money), woebeit cuts payroll tax deductions. If, however, you are among the political apathetic who don’t have sense enough to vote. Period! Be forewarned, my brothers and sisters, it makes even less sense to check the election results on Nov. 3rd, if you didn’t vote on Nov. 2, 2004. I wonder if anybody knows where I’m coming from?