Maybe We're Asking Too Much Of Our Politicians

In the face of globalization, the new modern identity crises are rapidly taking shape, but whilst much of the world was locked into tribal, civil, social and martial combat, these United States spent the first half of the last 234 years as an isolationist state - expanding its borders and eradicating tribalism at home. When the founding fathers established the interim government with the Articles of Confederation they were forming a unified voice with which to speak to European power but they were confronted with a reality of strong states who were very much concerned with their autonomy. Today, States are suffering while the federal Government - though deeply in debt - is practically bleeding money. It is actively funding the occupation of two, non-contiguous countries on the other side of the world and with regard to the billion dollar bailouts of yesteryear while simultaneously catering to a failed economic strategy and the courting the extraordinarily wealthy by seeking to maintain the Bush era tax breaks for the 250k plus crowd. And now for a rash overgeneralization, Rich people don't pay their taxes anyway because they can afford the best accountants and lawyers with all the money they save by not paying their taxes [RE (but not limited to): John Kerry].

As I was reading the Articles, Article Five really stood out to me, resonating. I could be dead wrong on this, but I like my interpretation of it: representatives are elected to a six year term; each state being represented by not more than seven or less than two representatives; each representatives not being able to spend more than three of the six as the state's representative to the federal government. In Washington's day, he complained the delegates weren't showing up. I wonder if that's, at least one reason, why we have a permanent representative base in the nation's capitol. But, tell me, what do you think would change if we didn't? If instead, our state representatives rotated in and out of the Federal representative seat?

The grass is always greener on the other side isn't it?

I want to know more about why the states are starving and the federal government has the money to burn - and so should you. It's a separate line item, but at least in my little Capitol city, the lobbyists are self motivated, extra-curricular lobbyists. I'm wondering how and if the current federally minded lobbying apparatus could maintain it's current power if forced to manage at the state level. The founding fathers saw the threat of external (as in not "by the people") influence on the democracy and they made many a law to combat this threat, but now we have similar threats from dissimilar places, from within the country but innately external to the system - some are human beings, as in individual people, many of who represent interested groups or incorporated interests, some aren't human beings at all, though still legally people, corporations.

But maybe we're asking too much of our representatives. Asking them to listen to people, to their constituents who - all too often - either can't bring themselves to say anything, or are so passionate that they can't find a way to the bargaining table through their partisan talking points. Asking them to say no to millions of dollars, some for them and theirs, some for "friends" and whatever passes for "family" these days, most in the interests of those who do have (an unfortunate monopoly on) their ear. Asking them to balance the needs of an individual State vs. the looming deficits of the Federal budget. Asking them to balance their appearance, like valiant bastions of morality - but when one giant falls no one says, dear god, not him; instead, the cry comes up, finally, with his checkered past...

Maybe we're asking too much when we ask them to stick to party platforms, masking both their views and the nuance of their constituents. Maybe we're asking too much and they're just giving us a little lip-service demagoguery in return - run another poll of our district Ted, let's see what we're going to talk to the people about today. Maybe we're asking too much of our suitors (the politicians), we're dying to get married, we've only got their word - do we take them at face value? Something old (power corrupts; money talks), something new (lobbyists and corporate personhood; money as free speech), something borrowed (the money draining out of the Federal government; bankrupt borrowers and too-big to fail lenders), something blue (the idea of a freedom sucking, left leaning, ethnic majority hating, big government - the tribulation styled secular humanism of Christian eschatology, when the majority becomes the persecuted and the anti-Christ reigns supreme; echoed in an Islamic perspective here and then in more exclusively secular terms, here, as well. And never forget that behind all of this lies the power of symbolism, from our capitol city to our home town; from marketing and advertising that saturates our living-rooms and wardrobes, to the churches that dot the countryside.)

But seriously, as we face the increasingly global future, Jihad vs. McWorld comes back into scope. It's unfortunate that the meme (jihad vs. mcworld) is easily misunderstood within the inspired nationalistic ignorance and ethnocentricity of the post 9/11 American milieu. The author may explain the metaphorical and rhetorical use of the Arabic term "jihad" as well defining it by loosely associating it with the "struggle" of righteousness against the profane, but this nuance is lost as the voices of the mostly unrelated, Islam (as representative of "the other," proxy for terrorism and all that is backwards and wrong in the world) vs. America (as representative of uninformed individuality bordering on the ignorantly, selfish, proxy for westernization, globalization, secularization, corporatization and exploitation) debate escalates at home and engages violently abroad. I digress, as we face the global future, the struggle of identity comes to the forefront.

Who are we if we're not human? what are we? What is a politician if not a man (or a woman for that matter)?

Our American fore fathers built a Government infrastructure that was designed to balance the the power of the state against the power of the nation, the national identity and military unity a check to the powers of the state; the individual pieces against the government's parts and whole. Yet something has slipped away. The people are as they have always been - perhaps with greater options today, a prison of a different type - some make choices to be some combination of active, informed and the converse of each, while others still, will, choose or quietly become contextually ignorant but constantly involved - not so much even pawns but the board upon which the game is played.

What if our freedom of speech has been translated, and as happens in translation has been weakened for it, into freedom to spend as much as you want on whatever you want. A corner stone of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, has been co-opted by advertisement dollars, the deeper and more consistent the journalistic sensibility (ie, the bastion of the informed, what a gentleman reads two of a day, aka, the newspaper, the investigative report) the greater the failure. More effort in, more effort out, less money in, more money out - a recipe for failure but perhaps some things must operate at a loss, like Government. This is the democracy of the market, this is democracy overwhelmed by group-think and mob-rule, the market is Darwinian not democratic. They are not incompatible, but they are not completely compatible either. Think of it this way, you can view the internet from different browsers on different platforms, either way you're seeing the internet. You can even run the same browser on different platforms. But you cannot run Windows coded copy of Firefox on a Mac OSX system (without some serious interpretative software, which in turn has to run Windows anyway). We can live in a Darwinian society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the government exists (primarily, if not completely) to make life easier and more profitable for the corporations - which in turn is supposed to 'trickle down' to the little pieces, the individual peoples, the cogs and pawns of the system itself; it does too, unfortunately it doesn't seem to penetrate beyond the surface, shining on the prepared, the lucky and the elite while missing the needy, unfortunate and incapable. The majority is left without, glossed over and enduring the low grade exploitation of life in an open air debtors prison. It's not impossible to get out, and work within the system to great success. It's not impossible to move up, drop out, slip through or otherwise achieve a dream but there's no escape from the reality of the economic prison. You're either in it, working for it, running it or working against it.

This is the set up for a revolution. This is the prison our forefathers were trying to keep us from falling into. A demeaning set of serfdom. They never knew it would be so couched in the freedoms they were so resolute in providing. Perhaps an Ataturk would be more deserving our modern state than the (racially exclusive, social) altruism of a Franklin, Hancock, Jefferson or a Washington. This prison of borderline serfdom and neglected, marginalized and overtaxed existence was the set up for Marx, for Lenin, for Hitler, for America. Perhaps we're asking our politicians to do too much, because we're asking them to be unamerican. To stand against absolute freedom, as a bulwark not just against the storm of nations and assaults against borders, but against the market, the global as well as the local economy, to shield us from the shifting tides of international politics, violence and resource management while balancing the needs of the increasingly failing state. Perhaps these burdens increase and be far too great for mere local politicians to handle on a rotating schedule of federal service, but I know what the answer is not. the answer is not an increasingly consolidated power structure, culminating in a cult of national security headed by autocratic Presidency and his cabinet of selected advisors. It's not in the status quo. It's not in a Congress and a Senate increasingly out of touch with - or at least distracted from - local constituents and more importantly good personal judgement, the most integral piece of representative government. Wisdom over demagoguery, but that might not get you re-elected, or even elected in the first place

Maybe we're asking too much of our politicians, but we're still not asking enough. Maybe we should be asking for more, not of our politicians, but of our system. Trying to get along in the twenty first century without diligently and intelligently reinterpreting our foundation - to repair the cracks of expansion, growth and the ever changing world, to remove therot and corruption from within, and heal the damage of abuse - we're cursed to regression, to wandering aimlessly into obscurity. If we don't learn to adapt and change and get involved, we're going to lose more than freedom or identity and many lives will be lost.

Americans like to poke fun at Islamic Shariah systems, the backwardness of stoning adulterers, veiling women, male dominance and other parochial and patriarchal aspects to the system. A system that dates back to the 7th century but is held to be sacred and beyond reproach by its followers. Yet, here in America, we love a document from the 18th century and hold it to be sacred and byond reproach. How long will it be before we're the relic - or will we make sure that's never the case with our military might and our conspicuous consumption; with the global reach of the corporate culture that we've molded and been molded by, sugar, salt, fat and opportunity - everything you could ever want. Maybe we're asking our politicians to do too much, but if we are, we're not doing enough ourselves.

It's not all about voting (though it is in part), it's about voting with every dollar. It's not all about changing the political guard (though it is in part), but about reforming the systems of government and the regulation of what goes on between political participants, activists, lobbyists and decision makers, and and getting diligent and informed people into the roles played by increasingly self serving, career politicians with too many friends, contacts, debts and debtors. It's not about FEMA and prison planet and satanic conspiracies, it's about taking the reigns of the future. It's about dissent, debate and disagreement as much as it's about community, solidarity and open-minded reform. Don't eschew the government for the corporate prison, there is nothing holding the people back but the people themselves. It's not about facebook, politics, groupthink, or anything else, it's about ourselves. If we value freedom of choice, we have to become aware of the prison of too-many-options, of over-extension, of over-consumption. A culture of disposable permanence (plastic - from bottles to wrappers) and permanent disposability (social darwinism, market economics, fashion, media and social trends), trapped in a self destructive cycle positing elitist interests against majority numbers - why that's the very concept of modern America itself against the world. Some day we, whatever we are, we're just going have to admit to being outnumbered - though we may never be outgunned as the ghost of the cold war doctrine of mutual destruction rears its ugly head.

We may be asking too much of our politicians. We may be asking too much of the world. We may be asked to give up too much, but on a long enough timeline, every lie becomes truth, every truth becomes lie and the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.