“Baby Sale,” says the sign on the side of the road way as you drive down the road in the Sin City suburbs toward the distant neon jungle on your daily commute to pay the mortgage. We all need cash to live and to do things and own things.

“OMG they are selling babies!!!… So it’s come to the selling babies,” you mutter quietly snickering under the cover of the loud dark metal blasting from your car stereo confident the heavy metal din will cloak the vision of you talking to yourself and laughing snickering at your own joke from other motorists and pedestrians.

It is kind of like the political process in this country. Everybody is selling something in an election and everybody is looking to buy something either with their votes or their donations. Some peddle anger and resentment hoping to buy your loyalty with populist performance art everybody knows is an illusion. Some peddle steadiness and fear of the very resentment that empowers the other salesman and in the end you buy the product that is least dangerous. The lesser of evils or the lesser of cons.

In politics some want to buy a voice with their votes. They want a fellow traveler,  a stern father _  a tough guy to fall in line behind and who will beat up the bad guys who are so different from us. Take us back to the good old days whether they existed or not.

Other voters seek to buy a flawed but enlightened and equally stern grandmother who will protect them from the bullies they see lined up on the other side and make the bullies play fair.

In much the same way Politics sells myth casinos sell the Vegas illusion _ the Vegas myth _ the opportunity to indulge your inner hedonist _ the inner child who doesn’t have responsibilities or bills to pay. Many, many times I have seen young healthy people get run out of hotel stairwells where they were sleeping because they didn’t have any more money left for a room.

To paraphrase an old adage you pays your price and you takes your chances.

In politics and life you buy with your votes and sell with your support but the choice doesn’t own you unless you let it. Raise your voice to the salesmen and their supporters. Use your brain _ educate yourself. People will study like madmen to discover the kind of car they want to buy. They will spend days on end scrolling through hours of critiques and testimonials and technical articles before buying a car but will not spend one day looking past the sales material peddled by salesman in politics, society and life.

In this city ..nearly everything is for sale. If you have a poison it is here somewhere.

But things do not own you and neither do people. You own you.

You buy and sell like always _ like you have to _ It is a part of life..but it_  the selling and buying _ the process doesn’t own it doesn’t own your decisions or life you unless you let it…