Here it is, March 15, 2009. Barack Obama has been president since 12-noon on January 20, 2009: exactly 54-days. Despite all the campaign huffing and puffing, not much seems to have changed.
It’s still just a big “one-upmanship” partisan blame game. But, it took this country over 25-years of concerted political incompetence, on both sides of the aisle, to reach our current level of dysfunction.
I’m not about to blame it on Barack Obama. And, I don’t expect him to change ANYTHING in only 54-days. Hopefully, he’ll eventually be able to slow it… perhaps even open a way to reverse it.
Until then, however, it does not matter who occupies the White House. Even if we could recall Abe Lincoln from the grave, we'd still be up to our ears in trouble.
Make no mistake about it; Mr. Lincoln’s Congress was every bit as spitefully divided as Mr. Obama’s is. But it was much smaller. Also, Mr. Lincoln’s Congress had its share of self-interest oriented crooks. And, so does Mr. Obama’s.
The difference, however, is that Lincoln’s Congressional crooks were far less sophisticated and easier to detect because common sense among the voters still reigned supreme.
Additionally, there were significantly fewer lawyers involved. And, news traveled on the backs of snails; what people didn’t know…
Now, though, whenever the Beltway burps, the world hears about it instantly. So, to offset this, Mr. Obama’s Congressional crooks shield themselves behind an army of lawyers.
In fact, most members of Congress ARE lawyers, amazingly highly skilled in the art of obfuscation. They have elevated the practice to the status of a prime directive.
Intellectualizing simplicity (aka, mental masturbation) is NOW an imperative. The “good of the nation” is merely an option, which Congress only invokes if it does not interfere with myriad individual Congressional self-interests.
The bottom line? With the aid of technology and a cadre of the finest lawyers money can buy, today’s Congress, in conjunction with corporate lobbyists, can steal the country blind for years without any chance of an unsuspecting voter bloc catching on.
And, even when we finally do catch on, the same lawyers have methodically reduced the criminal code to a cumbersome merging of the games: “May I” and “Simon Says.”
According to Information Clearing House, four in ten United States Senators are millionaires. Each has a net worth in the multi-million dollar range, THIS in addition to annual earnings in excess of a million dollars.
In the U. S. House of Representatives, 123 out of 435 members also fall into the multi-million dollar net worth range, along with annual earnings that far exceed the million-dollar mark.
I’m not advocating that the United States Congress should be an annex to the poor house. But, when the median income of the nation’s voting bloc is under $40,000 a year, it’s clear that Congress has lost touch with financial reality.
A friend of mine sent me this video clip about a month ago. While I rarely get all bubbly-eyed with gratitude over these things, this one is different. It’s not the usual lopsided “RIGHT” stuff emotional hype.
Its message is clear: stop the incessant Left/Right turf war show and tell baloney and get back to doing what’s best for the nation.
But, they won’t listen because we keep telling them to maintain the status-quo by sending the same old self-interest-oriented millionaires back to the Beltway, poor performance and ALL.
These self-preserving egocentrics have done whatever they please for so long that they now consider doing so an inalienable right.
They’ve lied to themselves and to the nation’s voters to the point that they’ve completely bought into their own press. They’ve become their own mini nation supported by a constituency of financially well-heeled corporate lobbyists.
And it isn’t going to stop until WE make it stop. We’d only have to clean house once, maybe twice, before they’d ALL get the point. It would be like tossing the proverbial “bucket of cold water” on them.
And we voters have to do something else; cease getting our opinions from the talking windbags on Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and CNN. Let’s stop mistaking speculation for fact.
Presently, it seems like ALL the people who know how to run the country are just TOO busy hosting, calling talk-radio shows, and posting unconnected, absurdly clueless garbage on countless partisan and divisive online forums.
It’s become difficult to tell, at times, whether we’re hearing the admonitions of serious intellectuals that are just “putting us on,” or the deadly serious rants of sincere idiots. At times, it’s just plain frightening!
I miss the late Tim Russert on Meet the Press. I enjoy David Gregory, but he’s no Tim Russert. He lacks that amazingly subtle killer instinct that was pure Tim Russert.
Seriously, I’d enjoy seeing Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) host Meet the Press a couple of times a year. It would be so refreshing to watch him tear into some of these political panderers the way he ripped CNBC’s, Jim Kramer, to shreds last Thursday.
The labor pains (a long and bloody revolutionary war) were excruciating during the birth of this nation. And, unfortunately, effective anesthetic relief was either limited or nonexistent.
But, just to get to such a point, the citizens and leadership of such a small, fledgling wannabe nation had to want freedom bad enough to say, “Enough’s ENOUGH!”
They did reach that point, though. And, against incalculable odds, they TOOK their freedom away from the tyrants. There were no guarantees of success, although failure meant certain death.
A nation of people, eight-tenths of one percent of its current size, forged its freedom and political philosophy out the courage, blood, and guts of a few leaders willing to die for a better way of life.
Not only this, the nation became the world’s beacon for ALL in search of the same thing. It became the envy of its enemies, an emotional inspiration for its friends, and a willing protector for the world’s downtrodden. IT became America!
Some claim that we won our fight because God was on our side. They claim that we remain free because God continues to bless us.
While I don’t deny such possibilities, I don't assume a correlation, not because I don’t believe in God—I have no idea if there is a God. And, truth be told, neither does anyone else.
Regardless, I do know that we’re not the only folks on this planet that long to be free. Perhaps God just has not had the time to answer their prayers.
God or not, I believe we're free because we've always resolved, through both unshakeable determination and unassailable ability, to STAY free, or DIE.
While prayers probably haven’t hurt us, I doubt if they’d do much good if we EVER lose either our raw determination or our absolute ability to fight for our freedom.
We’d be history in a heartbeat no matter how many hours a day we devoted to prayerful supplication. It’s amazing how much God seems to help those who are determined to help themselves.
Where is it written that nations, including ours, are forever? It’s NOT! But, if WE fail, it won’t be at the hands of an external enemy, especially a group of suicide-bombing, rock-throwing, fanatically religious terrorists.
Like all free nations before us, we'll do it all by ourselves. We’ll self-destruct! And, at the rate we’re going, it will be sooner rather than later.
If we don't soon get BOTH chambers of Congress—regardless of party affiliation—back in sync with our founding core values, the only thing that's going to change for us is the speed of our spiraling around the drain of disaster.
It won't happen in my remaining lifetime. At my age, I've already noticed some signs to my off ramp from life’s freeway. But many of you are still several miles from YOUR exits.
If not you, certainly your children may see it happen if WE don't stop the petty-minded partisan shoving matches RIGHT NOW, and get on with what's best for the collective good of this proud and free country.
Joe Walther is a freelance writer and
publisher of The True Facts. You may comment on his column by clicking here.