I found a quote from the bible while scanning “Dear Prudence”, Emily Yoffe’s advice column. She advised a man on how he should deal with a family of devout Christians after having decided he’d lost his faith. The correspondent signed off with the name: “the whitewashed tomb”.
I found the column effective and affecting. It can address one of my pet peeves: machine manufactured politicians. If you look at the incumbent resident of the White House, his predecessors and all the wannabees lining up on the opposite side of the aisle you understand the analogy.
Politics, by the nature of the beast, is a set of unholy alliances bound only with the tissue strength ethics of people more enamored with power than public service. But, they posture and preen; primp and groom, file and manicure their presentations. They’ll spout the vacuous statements to attract our attention and then, our votes. They’re hollow; without content and substance for the most part. They say what they will and act as they see fit to get what they want.
Predatory tactics designed to turn history into a fairytale, revisionist fact shifting, slides into action to misdirect the voting public from remembering when they witnessed the truth of any particular candidate’s existence and recognized it all as a shame and a lie. Many of the recognized “conservative candidates” are no more than re-treads put before the public because they have name recognition and track records. If you walk alongside any major necropolis you see the solidity and strength of any mausoleum sitting stolidly atop the manicured setting. But for all of the grandeur of the setting and the quiet resolute nature of its appearance; no matter the number of coats of whitewash laid upon the surface, it’s still a cold, thick, impenetrable and unfeeling box.
Politics is a dish best taste-tested before consumption. While people keep pushing for the power to direct the menu, they seldom understand the way things blend or how distasteful they can become. They gain stature for not having vomited their entrée of campaign drivel on their multi-thousand dollar suits while on the campaign trail. They want the chef’s laurels.
Politicians passionately pursue those laurels awarded for the best performance. They never see the laurel’s dead, plucked from the bush and presented as a fleeting statement of accolade to a person soon forgotten like all those before him, or her. But still they chase the laurels. And still they have no real understanding of why they run. They reject the idea of all being a matter of history.
Gingrich has history. Romney has history. Paul has history. They reject the possibility we chronicled the happenings before they could develop the revisions appearing like scar tissue in place of where the warts once existed. But the virus is still resident and alive in the area now looking like its clean.
But there are still newer maladies in the younger generation experiencing political infancy. Pawlenty, Paul, Rubio et al were bitten by the bugs transmitting the drive to ascend to the Olympian dais and wear the laurel. The political environment pollutes the ideals of the newer sycophants, the brown-nosing wannabees of lesser age but no less self-aggrandizing and power-hungry nature. We set the stage for the future they so desperately cherish and chase. They believe they’ll one day be the chosen one.
We all understand they simply want to be Caesar in receipt of the people’s love and in command of the Senate. But then, the lighted clarity of comprehension illuminates the recesses of our perceptions and we see what’s real. The full impact of the quotation strikes home as you come to appreciate it where these people are concerned.
“You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean” Matthew 23:27
Santayana said it best in many ways: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Look at your “select” candidates and tell me where I’m wrong, but worse, where we may be wrong as the electorate.
Thanks for listening
