What is Congress and the Senate doing so the Millenniums and Generation-Z will have a future in America? Nothing!
James Lyman BSAE, BSEE, MSSM
Every evening I watch the news, only to see a ‘Jane Goodall documentary’ being played out. Congressmen and Senators, both Republican and Democrats . . . liberals, conservatives, moderates and radicals- all are busy monkey fighting seemingly 24/7. Fighting and squabbling with gay abandonment, not a care, in the world, not a worry or concern for the troubles of their constituents. And apparently doing very little else, such as addressing the multitude of problems facing John Doe and Jane Plain of America who are struggling each day to keep their nose above the water.
Paramount of these problems is their continual displacement by technology, their replacement by machines that are more and more able to perform the critical parts of their jobs, thereby allowing people with lesser skills and abilities to replace them at significantly lower wages . . . if not completely replace some hapless human.
However, the abandonment of decorum and civility has laid bare the true essence of their core being, their true intellectual, analytical and problem solving skills for all to see. The eye of the TV camera shows what’s really at the heart of those we’ve elected to govern us. Naked and bare before the world, for all to see exactly what they are and what they have, lacking even the horse and long flowing blond hair of Lady Godiva for some small mediocrum of shielding. We are left with the question, ‘Why all the monkey fighting? Why can’t they do anything about all the real problems we have?’.
Maybe it’s because they lack the ability to do anything else!
As Speaker Tip O’Neill forecast years ago, what he called the ‘sound biters’, have come to dominate the federal government. People who have little skills beyond using the mass media and mass marketing technologies to get and stay elected. People skilled only in creating and maintaining images . . . and images don’t solve real world problems. Therefore, the answers to those questions is ‘It’s because they don’t know how to do anything else but monkey fight!’. So critical problems go unanswered, with candidates parroting what the polls say their focus groups want to hear. They know they’ll never have to actually do anything, they’ll just ply more media imaginary, and continue their monkey fighting which makes the American political process look like some cheap UFC entertainment event.
So nothing gets done, and people lives are slowly subverted by technology displacement.
Add to this . . . a large portion of the representatives are lawyers or political science majors. Reading the law is the education of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century. It’s the education of the likes of John Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. An education that gives you little real understanding of the twenty-first century world. These are not people who know and understand the world Americans are trying to living in, trying to survive and thrive in. These are not people who can lead you and your family into the twenty-first century!
The next questions is ‘How to reform the government and make it into something that’s a real help and benefit to the man on the street?’. The widespread application of the mass media and mass marketing technologies to our political system has resulted in the delicate system of checks and balances, so essential for a modern government to function, being thrown out of skew. This unbalance is what must be restored to create an environment conducive for attracting the caliber of people necessary to address our problems. The real ‘Draining of the Swamp!’, and getting the money out of the election process. To accomplish this, four things (constitutional amendments) must be acquired- 1) Line item veto 2) Term limiting 3) Forbid participation in elections not qualified to vote in 4) Power of Congress to dismiss Federal employees with cause.
Such changes in the structure of the government would create an environment less inviting to the ‘sound biters’, having substantially less monies for re-elections and not getting the long terms in office to amass personal fortunes. And with an environment where only those individuals who can qualify to vote can make contributions in coin or kind, the special interest groups and corporations are barred from buying influence. Emptying the sound biters out of the system opens the way for qualified people to come and serve their country, and in the process address those real problems that will shape the economic future of the Millenniums and Generation-Z.
One thing is for sure . . . both houses should be throughly ashamed of themselves.
Monkey fighting! Americans deserved better- much better than that!