jaeleslie

When I was eight, every Friday afternoon our third-grade class had a little practice in parliamentary procedure known as the Book Club. A small group of the elected officers would stand with some pomp and embarrassment at the front of the room, where the most popular kid in the class -- hold on his name will come back to me -- would recite ceremonially:

"The meeting of the Room 19* Book Club will now come to order. The Secretary will read the minutes of the last meeting."

Thus were the President's duties fulfilled, whew, and he could sit back. Whereupon the girl most skilled at writing entire sentences would read her summary of the previous week's events, couched in equally traditional boilerplate language. (Why was I not elected to this position? Because I had joined the class some weeks after the beginning of the school year, and was once again the New Kid.) After that there would be a vote to accept or amend the minutes, someone else would have been drafted to deliver a book report, and maybe there would be a special snack. Our week of toil was nearly over, there would be a bell at 3 pm, and then a weekend.

*I am not sure about the number of the room, but the rest is still astonishingly vivid. That is why the language springs back so easily to use.

So last night when a political advertisement narrated by the Republican Resident began on the television, and our hearts fell, right in the midst of our Pleasant Dinner, I sprang to action, at first like some sort of bailiff.

"The meeting of the We Hate George W Bush Club will now come to order. Mr President?" I glared significantly at Number One Son, designated president of the organization, and he enthusiastically slammed the table with his fist as substitute for a gavel. "The Secretary will read the minutes of the last meeting. With your permission?" Then I winged it, in a ceremonial singsong, describing the formation of our familial intention to take appropriate political action by forming a club. This consisted mostly of saying, you can be president, and I'll be secretary, so there wasn't much to tell, but it fulfilled my own professionalistic impulses as a General Secretary, or maybe a Secretary General.

"Will someone move for the acceptance of the minutes?" I suggested. We were all in deep water now.

"I make a motion the minutes be accepted!" Mr S volunteered happily.

"You're not even a member!" I protested.

"Yeah, Dad, last night you didn't want to be a member, but now...!" Our ragged procedure dissolved entirely in emotional debate.

I have always refrained from serious challenge to Mr S' lack of even minimal political involvement, viewing it as a respectable stand on the principle of Don't Vote, It Only Encourages Them, a view which I have often enough shared. But now in these dark days to keep the embers of democracy lit, I have (to shift metaphor absurdly to one of a dogfight) sicced his son on him, who is only sixteen and can't vote to express his reasoned outrage. So we have formed a committee, a Recruitment Committee (of the whole). We are going to struggle him, as the maoists used to say, until either Mr S registers to vote, despite our shared despair and perceived futility, or the likely election event comes about, however it resolves. We are all pretty stubborn, so it should be good clean family fun. Let the games begin.