I on the World

I recently received a survey from the Democratic National Committee, asking for my opinion on how the President and the Party were doing.  To coin an old saying, be careful what you ask for.  This was my response.:

Really want to know what we think?  Okay, here’s what we think.  People, who had such high hopes for a new president, for real change in Washington, for actual solutions to some of our problems, are now scratching their heads and wondering how they could have been so bamboozled, how new and fresh could turn so quickly into business as usual.  Don’t get me wrong, a McCain/Palin White House would have been a total disaster.  But even knowing that isn’t good enough.

Perhaps it’s true that the qualities one needs to become president are not the same as the qualities one needs to be president, but holding nothing more than popularity contests every four years is how we keep digging ourselves deeper and deeper into ruin.  Mr. Obama comes across as aloof, weak, naïve, and in over his head.  He has surrounded himself with the same garbage that’s long been wrong with Washington – Emanuel, Rubin, Bernanke, Summers, Geithner, to name just a few and, across the board, he is taking some very bad advice.  The result?  Instead of fixing the problems left behind by the Cheney/Bush regime, he’s compounding them.  Change we can believe in, eh?  When?  Where?

Campaign promises should be kept.  Or they should not be made.  Health care reform is a joke.  The economy, from most people’s perspective, is still on the brink of collapse.  Financial reform is even more laughable than health reform.  And I just can’t wait to see what an energy bill would look like!  Even with the kind of majorities in both houses that Republicans can only dream about – you can’t get anything meaningful done.

The only thing folks in Washington seem to care about is making sure their own pockets are lined.  If our government doesn’t give a damn about making the lives of ordinary Americans better, then everyone in Washington should just get the hell out.  How about Congressional term limits?  And true campaign finance reform?  As I’m sure you know, both are amazingly simple to do.  If the DNC really cared about this country instead of just getting more Democrats elected to office, you’d insist on it.  That is, if you aren’t just as corrupt and incompetent as the other side.

And while you’re at it, get us the hell out of Iraq.  Get us the hell out of Afghanistan.  Enough good men and women are already dead.  Enough money has already been squandered.  And then there’s foreign aid, a wonderful thing, to be sure – but don’t you think it should be dispensed only after a country first takes care of its own homeless and starving and sick?

Al Qaeda isn’t going to destroy America.  It won’t have to.  We’re doing a first-rate job of it all by ourselves.  And China – the next world super-power – is waiting in the wings, just watching it happen. . .and maybe giving it a little nudge now and again.

We want universal health care.  We want financial reform that will curb greed and never allow anything like this decade’s debacle to happen again.  We want a serious jobs bill.  We want clean energy now – not after every lake and bay and gulf and ocean has been destroyed.  In other words, fix what you were elected to fix, or a lot of us will be looking elsewhere in 2010 and 2012.

In Washington, that is.

Except, of course, when the Republicans are in the majority.  Then the majority rules.  They rule very poorly for the American people, and very well for their special interests.  But they rule.

The Democrats, on the other hand, can’t rule at all.  As the minority, when threatened with the nuclear option, they caved.  As the majority, when it’s clear the Republicans are simply being obstructionists, they caved.

When the only thing a politician thinks about is reelection rather than representation, there is no governing.

All in all, a dismal failure for the American people.

Whatever you might think of the recent SCOTUS ruling on campaign contributions, one thing is abysmally clear — the collapse of America is coming closer and closer.  Why, you ask?  Because, without a true functioning government — and in this country, that means a government that is of the people, by the people, and for the people — there is no bottom to corpocracy, to greed, to corruption, to disaster.

And the sad truth is, it’s so easy to fix.  And the people who shudder at the very mention of campaign finance reform are, sadly, those who thrive on corpocracy, greed and corruption.  And, tragically, many of them are your senators and congresspeople.  They like the special interests.  They like the special attention they receive.  They like the money that pours into their coffers.  They didn’t seek public office to give a hoot about their constituents — they sought public office to enrich themselves on the backs of their constituents,  to make career changes that would, one way or another, set them up for life.  The worst of the worst at it get caught out and kicked out.  The rest get away with it.  Are there some good ones in the bunch?  I’m sure there are, and I can probably name them.  But they’re too few to make any real difference.

Don’t agree?  Okay, let’s put it to the test.  A couple of years ago, I suggested a simple, winning solution to my own congressman.  I suggested that a designated sum of money be transferred from every taxpayer’s tax return to a national, interest-bearing election account, and then proportionally allotted to every legitimate candidate for national office every two years.  That’s it.  No other contributions accepted.  At any time.  For any reason.

Just think what that would do to clean up the dirt that is the American government today.  Our senators and congresspeople would be beholden to no one but their constituents.  They could admit that global warming does indeed exist.  They could hasten the planet on the path to real sustainability.  They could tell health insurance companies where they could take their business if they didn’t treat their people right.  They could suggest to pharmaceutical companies that gouging their constituents was not okay.  They could tell big banks and Wall Street that their heydays were over.  They could perhaps then honestly claim the moral integrity to lead the world.  What a novel concept!

Oh yes, and what did my congressperson do in response to my suggestion?  He ignored it.

The truism that the qualities one needs to become President are not the same as the qualities one needs to be President has never been so dramatically illustrated as it has been in the case of Barack Obama this week. . .well, at least not since it was so dramatically illustrated in the case of George W. Bush for eight years.

It’s easy to promise, it’s hard to deliver, and the list of undelivered promises made by Mr. Obama grows daily — from transparency, to changing Washington, to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, to closing Guantanamo, to. . .well, you know what I mean.

Just what does it say about a Democratic majority elected to change government barely a year ago, when a Republican in the bright blue state of Massachusetts can get elected to the US Senate by campaigning on the need for change?

It says that a lot of people had better start taking some long hard looks in the mirror.  It says “change” is more than a word, more than a concept.  It says winning isn’t the end, it’s the beginning.  It says govern or get out.