Choke Hold

Posted 7:41AM on Thursday, August 4, 2011

I remember as a kid the first time I saw former professional wrestler Dusty Rhodes place an opponent in his famous chokehold. Maybe old Dusty might be a bit before your time, but it's worth a click on YouTube to see this maneuver in all of its glory. The move usually came out of nowhere. Dusty and his opponent would be about even, blow for blow, and then the next thing you know Dusty had applied the chokehold and rendered his opponent seemingly lifeless. Match over! I later learned that perhaps wrestling was not all a 14 year old boy thought it was. And, I also learned that the recipient of the chokehold was not really lifeless! It was all about the dramatics. For the past few weeks, I've watched a new rendition of the chokehold. This one has not been in a ring, but in our nation's capital. And, this is not one opponent placing the hold on another; this one involves both opponents placing it on our country, our political system, and through that system, each of us. We have now been left seemingly lifeless based on the mother of all chokeholds, also known as political deadlock. Each time one side seems to gather a little momentum, the other side squeezes a little harder and the literal eyes of progress roll back into the proverbial head of nothingness, and when the other side gets a twitch, the same process again occurs. The result is two giant competitors, intertwined by the massive arms of stubbornness and political partisanship, lying in a useless heap on the mat of our nation's future. In any contest, the point is that someone eventually wins. Well, that's true for everything but soccer, and don't get me started on that. But, in these mammoth fights of apparently dysfunctional giants, no one ever seems to win as one match after another occurs and the opponents disqualify themselves due to a technicality. Technicalities that are far more serious than a below the belt punch or a foreign object in the glove. Those issues can actually be corrected. Our current technicality issues are mired deep in political ideology, which should never be confused with politics. Politics are the give and take of ideas that include compromise and non-partisan conversion. Political ideology involves "winning is everything", "don't give an inch", "common sense doesn't matter", and "what ever it takes to make the other side look bad", even if that "looking bad" affects those of us on "both" sides of the issue. As long as one side can say we won, it doesn't matter that we all may have actually lost. We have gone from a system with two sides that had a clear and unobstructed aisle up the middle for free flowing conversation and ideas, to a two sided sub-system, in which each side has varied levels of dissention. Not only are the aisles no longer clear, they are cluttered with Constantine wire, whereby neither side dares to communicate with the other. So, we all continue to sit in the audience and watch this epic, but totally useless battle, simmer on. It's like watching a once manicured lawn give way to a patch of weeds that eventually causes the one lush yard to be unrecognizable. I remember in one of old Dusty's matches, he was applying the "fatal" chokehold and all seemed hopeless for the opponent in question. Then, like a bolt of lightning, a masked figure comes over the top rope and delivered a blow to the back of Dusty's head. The chokehold was released, the match proceeded, and the winner was the one who actually brought the true skills, techniques, and savvy that was needed to get the job done. That is how the system, life and everything but our current political system works. One sided issues are exactly that, one sided. Our nation is based on the assumption that some semblance of confluence must be present for any real and measurable movement to occur. No one really wants to watch two sweaty and completely overweight, dysfunctional opponents flopped in the middle of an issue, posed in some fairly unattractive positions, with no movement, progress, or final resolution in sight. We need for the "chokehold" to be released. Only then will we be back on track for the movement and progress our nation desperately needs. So it comes down to this sad, but perhaps last premise for us to consider. Does anyone know an old, overweight, sweaty politician who wears a mask, doesn't care how he looks in tights, can jump a top rope and deliver a Bionic Elbow? If so, please call them immediately, our nation needs his (or her) help! In the mean time, we all wait patiently as our country gets counted out, one-two-three, as we lay flat and lethargic on the mat. Stan L. Hall If you would like to have Stan speak at your next group event, please send your requests to [email protected] The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and are not those of the Gwinnett District Attorney's Office. Featured columnists' opinions, views and comments are not necessarily those of AccessNorthGa.com or JACOBS Media.