Elected Leader Boot Camp

By: Mark Stegman

America can not risk having another president of our country being so far out of touch that they do not have a clue what it is like for the millions of Americans everyday struggling for survival. These men who rule our country do not have a clue what it is like to be part of the 90 percent of the population who are forced to live in the system that they establish. That is why I am suggesting that all candidates must go to the “Elected Leader Boot Camp”.

Elected Leader Boot Camp, or ELBC for short, is a two week camp located at the fabulous Army boot camp at Fort Jackson Columbia, South Carolina. There, the politicians will endure the rigors of ELBC right alongside the fine young Americans who they are personally sending overseas to wage war. Achieving for some the first lesson of ELBC which is to offer first hand the experience of what it is like to live the reality that politicians throw around only knowing as words or statistics.

The first week of ELBC is the hardest, humblest, and substantially the most important and life altering week the candidates will ever experience. This is a five day fast. The purpose of the fast is three fold; first, it relates to the future leader of the free world the feeling of hunger that millions of people in our country, and billions, around the globe, experience every day. The candidate will feel the hurt of hunger pains, the fear of starvation, the lack of energy, the slow thoughts and the alienation from the world that eats three squares daily. They will look with hungry, hot eyes and see the soldiers who eat everyday and who do not give a second thought to the hungry potential candidates, for they are fed and have no idea how bad hunger hurts. Secondly, the fast offer a chance of a new profound respect for all things in life that are provided like beds, blankets, housing, shade, a place to sit down; fasting enhances the small beauties that are always present in our daily lives but we overlook in our quest for domination over our environment. When a person fasts they see things in a new light; if politicians were ever truly hungry in their lives they would never make the decisions they continue to make such as spreading war, death, pestilence, and hunger. The third learning part comes on day four and five of the fast were it truly gets hard. Like in real life for those who need food and support the most instead of getting help, they get evicted. Now the candidate who is hungry has to find a place to bed down, if they are seen by a soldier the soldier will wake them up and harass them; symbolizing the constant harassment the most vulnerable of our society receive when they are in need.

After that week they will have two days off to eat, relax, and think over the experience that millions of Americans go thru every day. Then the second part of the camp focuses on the realities of the minorities. This can be creative but serious.

The candidate is put in a wheel chair and told to fill out a form and have it done by the end of the day. They must maneuver in a wheelchair to various offices around the camp acquiring signatures on the form; the last office they must get to will not have wheelchair access.

On day two they will be informed that for the rest of the ELBC they will not have medical coverage. During this period they will realize that if anything were to happen too them like a fall, a cavity, or god forbid a broken bone or stroke, then they would experience what most experience if this happens to you without insurance, your in serious debt and done for; forget about a family, forget about a future.

Day three they have to get up early and work hard all day in the cafeteria. After the days labor in the cafeteria when they are finished cleaning up and restocking for the next day they are given the paycheck most people receive from working in the service sector, minimum wage minus taxes.

The elected leader boot camp is not real; I am not seriously suggesting its implementation. What I am suggesting is the need for our leaders to get re-acquainted with the American experience, what it really is like living and working in America. These men and women are so rich that they do not feel the same daily struggles that 90 percent of the country experience everyday. Our elected leaders are so out of touch with the people and the reality of being human on the Earth that they continually make decisions that create more harm, more pollution, more suffering, intimidation, and even torture and death. I believe if they were to experience a camp like the Elected Leader Boot Camp that they would not continue to spread violence, pestilence, pollution, and greed upon the Earth and would start seeing the good that they all claim to cherish and admire.

By: Mark Stegman