Are you mad as Hell?

by Michael Dymmoch

Really, really mad? Mad enough that you’re not gonna take it any more?

Really?

What are you going to do about it? Besides complain?

Carol Marin’s column last week in the Sun-Times, “Want to send a message? Elect Claypool. “ offered one suggestion.

Here’s another: Next time somebody bitches about the state of the State of Illinois, ask him if he voted. And for whom. If he says, “Why bother?” ask him how many blank personal checks he’s handed out lately. And why he isn’t demanding that politicians who overdraw taxpayers accounts aren’t having their accounts closed.

Ask him why it takes a Federal indictment to get a blatantly crooked politician off the ballot, a conviction to eject one from office. Ask him why he comparison shops for TV sets and cars, but happily “buys” the first hack his favorite political party offers up. (Or, more recently, the latest nutcase rich enough to run as an “independent.”)

I’m happy to say I helped a lot of other pissed off citizens vote Todd Stroger off next November’s ballot. And I wrote Mickey Mouse in for governor because there wasn’t a candidate I could stomach on the ballot. (Which doesn’t mean I won’t vote for the least awful of the pitiful choices in November.)

Politics in Illinois is crass and Machiavellian. But no more complicated than Monopoly or the office football pool. And in case you need a score card, there are plenty of brilliant reporters covering it (Carol Marin and Mike Flannery to name just two).

Tiny children manage to “get” Monopoly. “Grown-ups“ play it with fake money for fun. Why don’t “adults” bother to notice how elected officials and their cronies are monopolizing taxpayers’ real dollars? If more people paid attention, we might get a better class of elected official. Attentive voters might even find “the game” entertaining.