“I thought you were a liberal, Panch. What’s with the indifferent attitude since the election?” Enon was spreading a cloth in preparation for our lunch.

“Yeah, Pancho,” Kite joined in, “I thought you’d be all happy about it.” She was helping with lunch by pulling out the contents of the bags and sorting them on the cloth according to some semblance of type. I had just returned to camp from a food run, had managed to score quite a bit. We would all enjoy a well-balanced diet today, except possibly for Skute, who had earlier consumed some kind of narcotic in pill form, was at the time passed out cold, and I didn’t expect him to awaken any time before all the best food had already been eaten. Snooze you lose, I thought.

“You know, guys,” I told them, “just about everything I voted for was a winner this time. That’s never happened with me before.”

“And you’re not happy about it because,..” Kite had opened a jar of pickled jalapenos, proceeded to dig her fingers down in search of the best looking one. I winced in phantom anguish. The chick actually likes jalapenos. And I remembered how I selfishly thought that I would not have to share them with anybody when I picked the jar from the store shelf.

“I’m happy about the minimum wage increase,” I said. “That’s a keeper.” The truth of the matter is that most of the people I know who actually do work tend to earn more than the minimum wage anyhow, so I really don’t see it affecting anybody in my particular circle. There are, however, quite a few employers out there who insist on paying minimum wage in order to keep their bottom lines. These are the same people who don’t pay for sick time or holidays, and forget about medical or retirement benefits. These are also the same people who threaten to move their operations overseas when the costs are too high here at home. They can get the fuck out, as far as I’m concerned. There’s billions of starving Asians who would just jump at the chance to earn $0.30 per hour working for their little shit operations. They don’t deserve to have Americans on their payrolls.

“So that’s it, Panch?” Enon asked. “Minimum wage, but nothing else really made you happy? What about all the Democrats who got elected?”

“I’m not really sure I trust those polls,” I told him. “Even six months ago everybody was blissfully unaware of how dangerous things were becoming. George Bush and his cronies were busy stripping us of our civil liberties one by one, and nobody had a clue about what was going on. Our Congress and Senate sat on their hands because they thought that that was what the voters wanted. And you know what? I don’t think they were too far off the mark.”

“The one consensus we all share,” I went on, “is that we all seem to agree that things are going badly with the war in Iraq. But is that enough for everybody to all of the sudden decide to switch sides? I don’t think so. These are the same people who elected our Republican Congress and Senate in the first place. These are the same people who put George Bush and Dick Cheney in office. And all of the sudden they decide to change their minds about it all. These are the same people who are going to be goose-stepping across the parade grounds on the first indication that the tide is turning that way again. These people are more dangerous than the politicians they elect.”

“Wow,” said Kite. “That’s pretty extreme, you know?” She’d finished eating her pickled jalapeno and had begun fixing a ham and cheese sandwich. I had my eye on the jar of peppers and was making plans to confiscate it before she got too comfortable with it.