Bernie Sanders, please don't be Ralph Nader 2016

Holy Hanging Chads, I am terrified!

I heard on the news that Bernie Sanders supporters are urging him to run as a Green Party candidate if he doesn't (and it appears he won't) get the Democratic Party's nomination.

This is terrible news if he decides to go along with the idea.  Unless the Republicans also spin off an independent campaign, this could let Trump (gasp!) win the election and become our next (and maybe last) freely-elected President.

The unthinkable will become reality.

Ralph Nader, with nothing but good intentions and essentially correct ideas managed to aid and abet the debacle that was Bush Junior's administration through stubborn refusal to see the clear and present danger of his times.

Please Bernie (and your supporters), please don't fail to see it this time.  Please put love of your fellow countrymen ahead of ideology, at least this time around.

Real Reality

Let me confess up front ... I like the Daily Show, Late Night With Colbert, John Oliver, and just about any show that let's me take in and then laugh off the craziness that is Our World.

Laughter is the best medicine, right?

It does our minds and hearts good to listen to expert satirists convert our anxieties over Russia's Throw-back Thursday Soviet-style military provocations into smirks and grins. A good joke about Trump's resemblance to Mussolini can ease our fears of his resemblance to Mussolini.

You get the concept.  After a tense day of news, we get to view it comically and feel unburdened.

We all get it, and we enjoy it.  Heck, at times I think I really NEED it.

So it may come as a surprise when I claim that all of this laughter is doing us a disservice.  In fact, it may be leading us unwittingly into a very dark era.

My premise is that we've reached a place in the history of our nation and of the world where diffusing our anxiety, fear, frustration, and anger with comedy may be keeping us from getting done what must be done.  It might be that satirical relief has become our collective opiate to the pain we feel when we learn what our leaders are doing (or not doing), and the consequences of their (in)action.

So let's ease up a little on our self-medicating with TV for a while - at least until this election cycle is over, and vow to wallow a bit in the harsh news fed to us.  Let's use the energy of our anxiety to ensure we learn as much as we can about the issues and vote well in the local primaries and in the National Election this November.  We owe it to ourselves NOT to sleep-walk through this in an ironic haze.