Sam Clemens said it best:
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
Mark Twain, a Biography
I don’t mean to give the impression that I think all members of Congress are feeble minded, greedy, conservative imbeciles with a slavering hunger for power and a criminally apathetic disregard for governing.
That would be incorrect and imprecise.
Tempting, yes.
But just a tad too sweeping.
There are a few, (among the elected hundreds sucking up good air in our nation’s capital), who actually believe they have a part to play in the “of, by and for the people” type of governance.
But sadly and undeniably, they are but few. They do what good they can for the common and average American, but their efforts are hindered, blocked and assaulted at every turn by their ultra-inane and petty-minded fellow Representatives and Senators, (and what a surprise, almost all are conservative and Republican), who consider all who do not walk lock-step with them not just opponents, but enemies and traitors. These members of Congress have zero interest in cooperation or compromise. They want what they want and nothing less than what they want, and if they have to destroy the village in order to save the village, bring it on.
We, the citizens of the United States, need a government that will govern. We have entered an age that demands deeds, effort and productive activity simply to safeguard our security as a nation, and the toil must begin with and in Congress.
There are people and nations on this planet who would not only love to witness an American demise, they are actively seeking it. Our transportation infrastructure is in dire need of maintenance and upgrading. Earth’s climate is changing at an alarming rate, and we have GOP governors and members of Congress twaddling, “I’m not a scientist” when asked for their perspectives about how to deal with the effects of rising sea levels, drought, wildfires, hurricanes or anything else related to humankind’s involvement in the problem. Do they honestly believe that burying their heads in the sand, (or up a convenient orifice), will somehow mitigate or ameliorate the impending peril? Or are they, instead, so profoundly corrupt and immoral, they simply don’t care because their personal wealth and connections will provide them protection and the ability to avoid or recover from the effects?
I mean, really, do you think any of those folks are going to buy a big house in New Orleans anytime soon? (If you think so, I want to be your realtor.)
This article in The NYTimes details the crumbling status of our national weather system.
This article shares ever more disturbing news regarding climate change.
And this link tells about something we really, really wanted to do way back in the Sixties, but we couldn’t get our collective, national act together so the idea never got off the ground.
(Insert sound of crickets in the distance.)
Oh, wait . . .
That’s right! We, the Village, actually did send a bunch of guys to the moon. And we didn’t just leave them there, either. They all came home, safe and sound. Just imagine . . . liberals, conservatives, progressives, troglodytes, rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists all agreed and worked together to do something really impressive and, (who knew?), really good for our country.
Folks, do we truly need the Cold War and the threat of swarming hordes of communists in order for Congress to do something good and needful for our country? The “small government”, conservative members of that “august” body, (along with their cohorts in state legislatures and governor’s mansions), continue to turn a willfully blind eye to the vital, urgent and mounting needs of our nation’s infrastructure while they piddle and fuss about Obamacare and do their damndest to wrench basic healthcare from women.
Their wretched scorn and neglect is leaving the Village unprotected and ill-equipped to fend off the natural and man-inspired disasters that loom in the near distance. The nothing they are doing is actually far worse than nothing, because they are purposefully standing in the way of those who wish to govern and help. They have no regard for the better good of all, nor do they want to find a happy medium wherein nobody gets everything they want, but everyone gets something.
Instead, they fiddle about the halls of Congress and within state capitals, devising and enacting spurious, unconstitutional laws to deny the vote to those who will not support them or their policies, in hopes of garnering and concentrating even more power.
And as of late evening, November 4, 2014, the GOP just concentrated a whole bunch of power throughout our nation.
O . . . M . . . G . . .
America . . . you should be more careful about what you wish for.
The idiots just took control.
