plastic shovels and the yes she can attitude

last week i saw something that i would now like to blow way out of proportion as a metaphor for what is wrong with the political process in america.

although the past few days have been sunny and bright, there is still a thick amount of residual black ice stuck on the pavement in shaded areas about town. last week i was parking atop some of this refrozen slush in a residential neighborhood. while i was gathering my things and getting ready to get out, i saw a woman come out her front door carrying a plastic snow shovel. this is the kind of tool you use when there are six inches of powdery fresh snow on your driveway and you want to hand plow it out of the way. it's flimsy, wide, light, and good for moving fluffy snow. i wondered what she was planning on doing with this shovel, since there wasn't any "real" snow on the ground, and thought she was maybe returning it to a neighbor. but she didn't go to a neighbor's garage, she walked right out into the street and went to work at the hard ice on the pavement in front of her house. the warm temperatures had melted the top, oh, 1/8th inch of ice of the slab, and the woman scraped this with her plastic shovel a couple of times with little effect. she then tried to hit the ice with the corner of the shovel, resulting in a cartoonish "boioioing" of the plastic blade, which spread up the wooden handle and into her arm. this disoriented her and she took a step back to regain her senses. with further determination, she made the plow approach, but her efforts were immediately stopped by the density of the ice. she looked defeated. with one more feeble scrape at the top of the ice, she quit the project of the ugly frozen slush removal and went back inside. after she shut the door, i noticed that her living room window sported a "hillary" sign.

now on to part two:
with both candidates in hot pursuit of the texas and ohio delegates, there is no limit to the amount and content of internet videos, op-eds, articles, blogs and photoshopped images (my favorite recently being the scandalous "driving miss hillary" photo found on FARK). i was watching the coverage of campaign rallies in austin and saw that the clinton supporters are now shouting "yes she can". ok. sure she can, she can do a lot of things. like support NAFTA and then say that anyone that says she supported NAFTA is acting like karl rove. it's a clever little tactic employed to capture undecided voters by equating "obama" and "rove" so that people will chose the "true" democrat. when one has such respect for voters, it's incredible how easily one can imagine throngs of them believing such bullshit.

the "yes she can" chant is an interesting retake on the "yes we can" slogan of the obama campaign, but i find several things wrong with it as a motivational force for hillary's campaign. notwithstanding the football game quality of ripping off someone else's cheer for your own team, the "yes she can" chant is insufficient as a rally point because it places responsibility for change in america squarely on hillary's shoulders. she can do it, she can change my medical costs, interest rates, accessibility to higher education, the environment, the war in iraq, everything! i don't have to do anything, because hillary has experience, she fights the republicans, she knows washington, she can do it. yes she can. this approach removes any need for subsequent action from the voter- all they have to do is vote and bada bing! things is changed.

a simplification to be sure, but let's revisit the plastic shovel lady to amplify the difference between a "yes she can" and "yes we can" attitude. plastic shovel lady set out on a task with the mightiest of intentions- she was tired of parking atop a nasty black mound and removal of said nasty black mound was the logical remedy. BUT. when it came around to the actual process of changing her parking space situation she spent all of two minutes using an inappropriate tool before deciding that it was inevitable that there be ice on her parking spot for the duration of winter in colorado. this is the kind of person that wants someone else to remove the ice for them. this is the kind of person that would not go to a neighbor to see if they could borrow a metal blade which could hack through ice clumps with a measure of elbow grease. this is the kind of person that doesn't realize that elbow grease is inherent in our bodies because they're never tested it's strength. this is the kind of person that votes for hillary clinton.

now, that might be all well and good- not everyone wants to build up a sweat, but the sweatless people of america have been running the country too long and i'm tired of their ineffectiveness. i'm tired of believing that someone else is responsible for my well-being, that someone else can be blamed, revered, excused, or esteemed in regard to the quality of my life. i used to feel easily defeated when attempting difficult tasks, i still do sometimes. i throw shovels in frustration and try not to succumb to the "there's nothing i can do about it" trick that locks us into stagnation. i think there is a great big pile of frozen muck in front of us, and if we want it removed we need to gather the right tools, believe in ourselves and believe in the we.