THROW THE BUMS OUT

I have this vague memory of my mom explaining the meaning of the phrase, “Throw the bums out.” I was probably five years old.

She said that no matter who’s in charge, the people eventually get tired of them and want to “Throw the bums out.”

The same Sisyphean paradigm is central to Kenneth Burke’s The Philosophy of Literary Form.

It’s a cycle that repeats on it’s own.

In this context the Obama phenomenon finally makes sense to me.

When Obama promised a new kind of politics, I wanted to think he found a way to break the vicious Circle of Strife. I was of course skeptical.

Hope, I realize, is not a promise, it’s just a phase in a familiar, mostly dreary cycle.

Now I feel comfortable with what a vote for Obama means: Throw the bums out!

Bring the new bums in!

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