Politically motivated wake-up calls

It’s used all the time, but usage tends to intensify when it’s campaign season. It’s one of the favorite terms of politicians, wanna-be’s, and especially the sawsaw syndicates (those who issue press statements on anything and everything)... The term is “wake-up call.”

How many of the candidates got up on their soap boxes and said the recently released figures on poverty incidence is a wake-up call for the government? How many – candidates, politicians, NGOs, militant groups, student groups, etcetera etcetera – tagged the recent suicide of a student reportedly over inability to pay tuition as a wake-up call for government, education officials, university administrations to reform the country’s educational system, to grant scholarships and increase financial assistance to needy students all over the country?

When a child was killed and several others were wounded by stray bullets from indiscriminate firing of guns during the new year celebration, there was a loud chorus of wake-up calls for stricter legislation on gun ownership and a crackdown on illegal firearms. When a wanted foreign national was able to slip out of the country through the airport, it was a wake-up call for immigration reform.

And so on and so on and so on...

We should all be about deaf by now with all the alarm clocks ringing with all these wake-up calls being sounded. We must be a nation of somnambulists, needing to be awakened to problems that are staring us in the face.

Unfortunately, most of those sounding these wake-up calls set the alarm clock for other people and not for themselves. Instead of calling others to action, wouldn’t it be better if they actually did something, took action themselves, so that their press/praise releases would have some value.

Wake-up call isn’t the only overused and abused phrase around town these days. Another is “political harassment” or “politically motivated.” Any charge brought against any official or candidate is politically motivated harassment, ne-vermind that there are documents and other evidence supporting the charges.

One candidate issued a most confusing statement recently that he believes he is being targeted by political opponents he did not name, even though he admitted that he is still not sure exactly what these opponents are doing – just that he is sure they are doing something to bring down his ratings. I guess it’s unimaginable to him that his ratings went down because the people just don’t like him.

With just a week before elections – thank goodness this insanity called the campaign will soon be over – I really wish the alarms would sound for a wake-up call for our voters to choose wisely.

How many are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works – he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke. I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. May my meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the Lord.

Psalm 104:24, 31-34