REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

“Go Green”, the “Green Party”, “lush greenery”, “emerald green”, “Luck of the Irish”, “British racing green”, “greenhorn”, “green with envy”, and “money” are just some of the things that may come to mind when we think “green”. The concept is heavily burdened semantically. And, given our current political climate within the US, that burden is very much weighing on the minds and emotions of both candidates and voters.

If you are young, the concept green figures prominently within your concerns for the future of our planet. You want a healthy green environment that stays healthy.

If you are a young adult, money edges upward in your priorities. Yes, you want a healthy environment, but you also want a healthy economy with high paying jobs yielding opportunity to buy a home and raise a family and take a vacation now and then.

If you are middle-aged, you may worry more about competence, foresight, reliability, and security. You’ve made your choices and your investments. Now you worry some arrogant know-nothing or naive greenhorn idealist may mess things up, undermining your hand-built business and retirement.

If you are new to this country, from any number of places, you may be looking at all the bickering and animosity around you wondering if maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to bet yours and your family’s future on this country whose reputation of abundance for all is rapidly being displaced by a potential future of bloody civil unrest and the trampling of greenery everywhere.

If you are Black or Hispanic or Native American, you may be feeling an increase in alienation, like maybe it just isn’t worth the effort to try to fit in, voice your opinion, offer your insight and help, realizing you may always be considered “less than” no matter what you do. Your thoughts no doubt turn to consideration of “greener pastures” somewhere else, either in this world or the next, resulting in total disengagement from our current political processes.

And for a not inconsequential set of white voters, green may reside deep in your soul as envy, sometimes rising to malevolent vindictiveness where you feel primed to take out your gun and even the score, the direct result of being repeatedly passed over and denied advancement toward the fulfillment of your dreams by our much promulgated and heralded “merit system of advancement”, where lack of pedigree, lack of higher education, dirty clothes and hands, crude manners, and unorthodox ideas add up to “without merit”.

And finally, if you are elderly, you worry that your health and finances may begin to fail and you will no longer be able to afford your home and the enjoyment of your green garden.

Yes, the burdens of green weigh heavily upon almost all of us this election season. Wouldn’t it be nice if we ended up picking candidates that truly felt the weight of our burdens and had both realistic ideas to offer and the will and competence to effectively implement policies that actually ease some or even all of those burdens?

Yes, let’s do just that. Let’s vote for capable candidates committed to easing ALL our various green burdens.