The current presidential campaigns, which have now gone on longer than FDR's presidency and spent a sum of money nearly equal to the gross national product of Mitt Romney, have mutually decided that there is a single word which defines, delineates, describes, and distills what America wants, needs, and hopes for in the next administration. That word is change. No, make that Change; wait, I've got it: CHANGE. No, I mean CHANGE!!!. No, hold on -- imagine an enormous billboard, say, the size of western Nebraska, floating overhead and imagine the word CHANGE completely filling it, in flashing neon with Roman candles going off and cannons firing, and the special effects guys from "Lord of the Rings" making it do all kinds of really interesting things, and ... .
Anyway, we need change; we get it. And in California, thanks to the small piece of this miserable circus which actually wended its annoying over-commercialized way to a conclusion on Stupor Tuesday, we, alone among our sister states, have officially declared that we really need change, need it bad, need it now.
We need change, preferably quarters, to funnel into the shiny, flashy, electronic noise-making new slot machines, all 17,000 of them, which we approved by a large margin after discovering that slot machines have recently become a threatened species due to excessive expansion of non-gambling activities in this state, requiring that drastic steps be taken to preserve and protect our precious casino environment before it's too late. If through our own negligent selfishness we fail to grow our native slot machine population so that our descendants can enjoy the awesome beauty of thundering herds of one-armed bandits roaming free across the Southern California plains grazing on our money we will have deprived posterity of a sacred right.
Naw! I was just joshing with you; we didn't do it for the environment, we did it for the money! Yes, we decided to partner up with the tribes to "share the revenues" and help bail out the State after discovering that pesky $14 billion shortfall. Perfect: just as the public is hit with the body-blow of a huge budget crisis the tribes come along and generously offer to help -- a win-win outcome if ever there was one, so of course everybody says look, free money and just when we need it. And now we all have a vested interest in the success of those bigger and better casinos, because the more they make the more they share and the more we get the better off we are.
There is a small fly in the ointment, really nothing worth bothering about: revenue sharing comes from profits and profits come from gamblers who lose. That's how it works -- players lose, house wins, house gives some to us. The more of the first the more of the second and the more of the third. So the logic of the situation takes us far beyond legalizing gambling and far beyond tolerating gambling; it is now officially in our interest to ENCOURAGE gambling, or more specifically, to encourage losing. We have to want our fellow Californians (who are the majority of the gamblers in Indian casinos) to get in there and lose, lose big, lose often. If we don't have a large continuous stream of players pouring coins, bills, and credit cards into those machines without equal reward there won't be much profit, and we will be getting chump-change out of the deal. All those millions that the tribes could afford to spend on advertising, all the sympathy generated for their earnest desire to become self-reliant so they could share the wealth with us, will produce only a drop in the deficit bucket.
So come on, people! Step up to the plate and show us what you're made of; put your money where your vote was. We don't want to pay several dollars more in taxes, do we? Of course not; root canals without anaesthetic are infinitely better than paying any amount at all in increased taxes no matter what they're used for. So it's up to us to make the alternative work; we have to go to the Indian casino of our choice and lose hundreds, thousands if possible. We need to be making bad bets, reckless wagers; don't quit just because you're behind.
This will be good, really. It's not a bad thing, it's totally different. See, the problem with traditional gambling is that traditional gamblers are pitiful creatures, blowing the rent money on their favorite roulette number, staking the kids' college fund on long odds, and getting deeper and deeper in the hole because they always think the next bet is going to turn it all around; they're going to become winners raking in the chips and overtipping the croupier like in the movies. But we're just the opposite: we WANT to lose -- winning is not an option. If we go into a casino and don't come out broke we've failed California: we've failed our kids' schools, we've failed our highways and bridges, we've failed our cops and firefighters. Every dollar we don't put in a slot machine means revenue the casinos can't share with the State. Can't have that; defeats the whole purpose of the election.
So, in keeping with the version of reality California has always been most fond of, the only way to win is to lose. If we all do our part someday the Governor will call a press conference, smile that inimitable Schwarzenegger smile, and proudly announce that our budget woes are over because we have met the challenge: we are all losers.
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