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How Can the American People Get to Carnegie Hall?

The day in 2004 when Vijay Singh briefly interrupted Tiger Woods' reign as the world's top-ranked golfer, he celebrated by going to the practice range and hitting a few buckets of balls. I saw this with my own eyes.

One of Woods' many commercials is dedicated to the idea he never takes a day off. Those who are number one don't have the luxury of relaxation.

The United States of America is the greatest country in the world. To keep it that way, all citizens have to do is vote for the liar who's telling them so, or buy the liar's disposable consumer good. Same difference.

Americans don't have to DO anything to be number one. God forbid. The subtext of the message is "We're number one because YOU are one of us."

This sick dialetic is what's most wrong with our still pretty OK country, a rhetorical device invented by scoundrels to lure busy people into apathy. Americans aren't any worse than any other's nation's citizens. In many ways, they rank highly. But a diet of unearned praise rots the soul faster than Milk Duds rot teeth. The lies we've chosen to believe make us the world's LAZIEST citizens-which might as well be the worst.

I know from lazy. I' m a procrastinor born and a procrastinor bred and when I die I'll be a procrastinator dead. But even I can sum up the energy to drag my butt to the polling place come Election Day. Most Americans can't be bothered.

My home town Lexington, Mass. has one of the highest voter participation rates in the country. For a presidential election it's close to 90 percent. Yet for a local election for town offices, which impact this upper-middle class town more than any president could on a daily basis, 33 percent is a strong effort. "It'll be OK" is our motto.

"It'll be OK" is engraved on the tombstones of every dead society in human history. If we Americans expect to avoid such a sad fate in the VERY near future (hello, People's Republic of China!) we'd better lift our collective posterior and head out to the driving range.

posted by Michael Gee @ 7:29 PM