My Chicago Rant

As some of you may know…I am a big fan of board games.

I am happy to devote an entire weekend to the likes of Pictionary, Scrabble, and of course my personal favourite: Operation (You know there is something delightfully obscene about a game that revolves around trying to replace a little plastic spleen with a pair of tweezers into a bizarro man with a large red blinking nose. After a few wines you can take that barrel of fun to the bank…..in spades!)

However, there is one board game that, even with three bottles of my favourite plonk under the belt, you could not get me to play.

That game is Monopoly.

My aversion to this snotty and greedy little game probably dates back to my childhood, when my disdain for the millionaire in the top hat spawned, along with a morbid fear of clowns and raisin sandwiches.

                                

When I was eight, our neighbor’s children would come around on a Saturday afternoon with said game in hand and an evil Gordon-Geckoesque glint in their eyes wanting to know if we would like to play. My parents, eager to offload their offspring for a few hours of peace and a few glasses of Chateau-De -Headache, would promptly agree on behalf of my sister and myself that “there would be nothing we would love to particpate in more”.

Begrudgingly, we would sit on the floor, have our multi-coloured bills doled out to us, set up a little Scottish Terrier or a Vroom-Vroom car and wait for the inevitable.

The game would always start out in a reasonable fashion. You would roll the dice, land on a coloured square and then buy it, hoping to collect a set of properties and start reaping the rewards from your fellow players’ misfortune when they would make pit or toilet stops on one of them.

My sister and I are not stupid, and quite often we would kick start a match with very promising results…a Trafalgar Square here… a Park Lane there … all very much in the spirit of good, juvenile fun.

However, about twenty minutes into the venture we would notice that our neighbors suddenly had at least DOUBLE the cash and more lego-like houses than even Coomera Realty could develop in such a short time.

When accused of dodgy dealings, our neighbors would suddenly claim “Off-shore Swiss bank accounts” and “Legitimate Tax refunds” to explain their rapid accumulation of wealth;  and, when we argued that landing on “Free Parking” did NOT entitle the player to all of OUR money, the reponse would be “Don’t you KNOW what the rules of the Parker Brothers 1979 edition are?”

                                     

Even when either my sister or myself overcame such questionable regulations and still looked very favourable to cross the finish line, we would always be hit with the “She Who Smelt It Dealt It” Tax when landing on “GO”.

The end result was usually ugly, with little, green plastic houses being shoved into various orifices and an almighty indignant holler to “MUMMMMMMM!!!!!!!”

So, you could say that I get very angry and resentlful when I think about those games of Monopoly, or any other competition, where one party, upon realising that he or she is losing, decides to change the rules to serve his or her position.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that I was more than a little peeved when, this morning, I watched a re-run on the news showing  the Democratic National Committee hand down its decision on the unseated delegates from Florida and Michigan as part of the US Electoral Primary process.

For those of you who follow American politics, you would know that, at the end of last year,  both Florida and Michigan were banned from having their Democratic Party delegates seated at the convention coming up in August. This was due to each of those states’ decisions to go against the Democratic Party’s rules by moving their states’ primaries to earlier dates than when they had been directed to conduct them.

As a result, the powers that be at the highest echelon of the Democratic Party punished both states by declaring that their delegates would not be counted in the process of electing a nominee for the general election in November.

At the time of this decision, Hillary Clinton remained silent. Tacit then, in her agreement with these findings. In fact, in the latter part of 2007, she was quoted as saying that the findings were “fair”.

When the numbers and polls started to look decidely shifty for the Senator from New York, a murmur from the Clinton camp began to circulate about how potentially unreasonable this decision was.

This murmur grew to a grumble, which grew to a whinge, which now has blown out to an almighty “MUUMMMMMMMY” howl of indignation from Clinton and her supporters, now that the nominee for the Democratic party, if the numbers are correct, can only be Barack Obama, given any current scenario.

                   

 After much deliberation, the committee ended up awarding the majority of Florida delegates to Clinton and divided up half of Michigan between the two remaining candidates (again, favouring Clinton by 10 delegates I might add) even though Obama went along with the original party decision to not campaign or put his name on the ballot in this state.

And yet……

….the screams, foot-stamping and hissy-fits from Clinton supporters that followed the decision, could probably have been heard from Washington all the way down to those who reside on their porches in the Appalachians (whom apparently have heard the call and are on their way down to protest  as well…those nice, fair-minded, white working folk from West Virginia)

There was strong talk from Clinton’s camp about appealing this decision and taking this argument/all the way to the Democratic convention.

Does this not remind anyone of a certain horrific incident…umm…let’s say 8 years ago?????

In short, it is a divisive and desperate call from a wing of the party that is critically wounded, and will take “whatever means necessary” to try and shift the goal posts in order to favour their candidate.

           

The USA has had eight years of disasterous governing with the Bush Administration. The election in 2008 is there for the Democrats to “lose” at this point.  If this issue with Florida and Michigan is taken beyond today, it can only weaken the result for the party in November.

And for what?

An overwhelming, bitter sense of “entitlement” is my guess.

Those of you who know me, know that I have been a Barack Obama fan since….well, since first saw him speak in Chicago back in 2003.

However, this is not a Pro-Obama/Anti-Clinton rant. It is an observation that what seems to transparantly obvious to me, is not shared by others.

This is a blog about playing fair.

You play the game, according to the rules.

If you are losing the game, it is not then reasonable to change those rules because you are pissed off that someone landed on Mayfair before you did, or that you just don’t like the look of the little silver dog.

At any rate, the way things are going, the only board game that Hillary and Obama might be playing over the next seven days will be “Battleship”.

                    

Kylie Evans
http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/do-not-pass-go-do-not-break-the-rules-679089.html

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