I have just watched another great Charlie Rose program with seven very intelligent historians, academics, and others taking apart the Obama presidency through the lens of the State of the Union Address. As I listened to parallels of Jefferson, Eisenhower, Roosevelt, Johnson another Presidents. Doris Kearns Goodwin, a learned presidential historian, made a point that struck home with me.
I believe we can all agree that Washington politically is broken. We can lash the Administration, deservedly, we can slash the Congress, rightly and we can, as I have, attack the entire landscape of what we call government in our nation. Ms Goodwin brought some real, very real, reality to me with her remark that Washington has been broken many times through our history meaning dysfunctional and impedance was the norm; voila, today. Her point was that in those times, it was external issues and the ensuing pressures that created the environment in Washington that literally forced presidents and Congress to meld into a cohesive instrument of effective change. Wow, think about that for a minute!
The slavery and states' rights forged via the Civil War for the government to begin to Constitutionally function in the mid 19th century. The union movements in the early 20th century led to powerful legislation; actually good powerful that had to be throttled back but still, the external force cause real work to get done in Washington. The civil rights movement in the mid 20th century led to the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act; all forced from outside Washington. So here we are in the early 21st century and the dysfunctionality of the Administration and the Congress, there for We the People, seems incapable of doing nothing more than naming a post office.
So looking at the landscape of our nation and our world and assuming what I have written is more right than wrong, and it is, then what "movements" are afoot that could cause real productivity to become a reality in Washington? Is it terrorism in its many, too many, forms with strange sounding names? Is it the 21st century version of the 20th century civil right actions? For if that is it, then the entire prism of civil rights has shift broadly for now, instead of simply blacks, aberrant lifestyles of LGBT are now celebrated from the White House all of which clamoring for their equal rights under the Constitution .. is the argument and justification. So is that the movement that will propel our nation to productive leadership. Or perhaps it is the China aggressive growth and influence on the global economy?
My point is that I do believe Ms Kearns nailed it which turned my light of reality on. We can whine and get angry with POTUS and Congress, and I am, but what does that accomplish? It causes only a few more gray hairs to sprout in all truthfulness. I personally have never been one to see movements of any sort as game changers but perhaps, for me, that has been a paradigm shift for me as my mind processes our world, my continuing angst with this President and this Congress and the chest beating of the speech earlier this week that frankly left me soured even more on this President. That is okay for I am just one but if one times ten million of me decided to actively do something about it, the statistics for change escalate to my view of things, right?
So as our new, less new now, century unfolds, my heart aches at the possibilities across the horizon of our landscape. There is just too much money controlling and influencing too many legislators and presidents meaning We the People have become only a sideshow to what is being done I believe. THAT angers me greatly. I personally believe on major thing our legislators could do, but will not, is scrap the IRS systemically moving to taxing consumption instead of income and eliminating ALL LOOPHOLES. I believe that would aid in the funding of our nation but that has to be linked with a defined, measurable plan to pay down our national debt; the cancer of my grand kids generation.
So it is about movements that create the foundation for real change in the political machinery. I find that very, very interesting!
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