Dear America,
While I was on vacation last week I began to feel out of touch, so I picked up the New York Times a few times. Unfortunately, out of touch or not, there wasn't really anything new to be concerned about, although the old matters for concerned remained unresolved. Our national politics are still the shambles they were the week before last, and "Obamacare" continues to be the central point of attach for the Republicans and conservatives in general. The war in the Gaza Strip continues to lumber on killing innocents primarily and destroying property amid which the Hamas Palestinians insist on hiding and caching their ordinance regardless of how many of their own people will be bombed as a consequence, and the Israelis continue to occupy West Bank settlements in violation of international law, albeit no one dies directly as a consequence of their misfeasance. In Ukraine, impartial experts are now at the crash site of the plane that the Ukrainian rebels shot down and they are finding more grisly artifacts from the crash...artifacts that will be shipped home to people who can only grieve over the senseless deaths of their loved ones and friends, leaning how to tolerate their bereavement as best they can. The Russians continue to complain about western sanctions imposed in response to their meddling in Ukrainian affairs, which incidentally seems clearly to have enabled the destruction of a passenger jet and all aboard in consequence of the Russians providing the method of bringing the plane down to a purported rebel militia that looks for all the world like a bunch of masked thugs and gangsters on television news. There are some stories of local impact in the papers...some tragedies and some political farce like that on the national scene...but overall, each day's news is just a repeat of that from the day before while the problems that need to be dealt with continue unabated. Mudslides kill poor Indians because poverty is rampant in that country, which none-the-less has managed to become one of the largest emerging economic giants on earth, though the disparity between rich and poor is being baked into that pie even at this stage of nascency. China continues to hunt witches in its never ending, but never too vigorous, quest to stamp out official corruption, and here at home, conservatives continue to complain about the poor and working poor as if they are stealing something and about our lack of foreign policy direction under President Obama, all the while obstructing every effort to do anything about it. They complain when The President takes foreign policy initiatives because they are his, but they refuse to take their own. And when it comes to the problem of refugees at our southern back door, they want him to send them home but won't approve the funding to expedite the process. What's a voter to do?
It may be hard to make suggestions based on specific issues; we all have our own political interests and preferences. Besides, the dogmatism of American politics at this point, causing dysfunction in tandem with naked partisanship at the expense of the country as a whole has created a partisan line down the middle of our political landscape and inspiring people to cross it seems to be all but impossible. So what I propose is that instead of looking at candidates' positions on issues we look at their roles in the current political circus. Put simply, I think we should stop voting for clowns and start voting for acrobats. What we need are people who can bend with relative ease rather than people who perform these broad political farces on television as if the people find them entertaining. John Boehner ends every explanation of why he can't get a bill passed by the House of Representatives, which his own party controls, by claiming that the American people don't trust President Obama and that Obamacare is killing jobs. The problem at issue isn't his concern. He just wants to make us laugh. So I say, fire him. He's a clown. Mitch McConnell takes the same tack with regard to everything. Clown. Fire him. Ted Cruz, something of a pariah in The Senate, where he is a member, invites a bunch of representatives from The House to his office for pizza where he talks them out of supporting a compromise on the bill to fund the process of dealing with the central American refugees about which they complain incessantly. Why can't he mind his own business. Clown. Vote for anyone who runs against him. Harry Reid, despite his leadership position in The Senate with all its powers to create change in the rules over the past three congresses, has refused to organize a change in the filibuster rules in that body, even by reducing the number of votes required for cloture, and thus allowing a vote, from 60 to 55, or better yet, 50. As a consequence, The Senate is nothing but a dog and pony show. Classic clown. Vote against him.
In my opinion, as electors of our political leaders, we should now be voting for people who want to make the political process work democratically, that is, as we want it to. We should be looking for representatives in what the Republicans call "The People's House" when they are doing something that the American people don't want, who will change the rules so that anyone can bring a bill to the floor for a vote, and precluding The Speaker from preventing it with a "special rule" by which he designates one of his cronies as his surrogate and then precludes calling that bill to a vote unless he or his surrogate chooses to do so. The majority party can resort to that on any issue over which there is public sentiment that they don't like, and indeed, Boehner has done used that tactic. To be fair, Harry Reid has done the equivalent in The Senate, and as I proposed the last time he faced reelection, if he isn't willing to change the rules so as to require The Senate to vote on issues without contaminating them with poisonous amendments, he should be voted out of office too. No more Boehner. No more Reid. And if your congressman and senators aren't willing to bring about change...now...cut them loose. As always, the fate of the nation is in our hands.
Your friend,
Mike
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