Another Link - A Snave

We can cuss. We can beat on it with a hammer. Or, sometimes, with a scapel maybe, or a screwdriver, or photo, or stick, someone will dissect the pain and provide us a little understanding of the problem or ourselves or both. A thoughtful observer with a sense of humor. If you haven't yet, give Snave a look. heh.

Lobbying & Representation

I have started redoing the laundry room. Painting. New linoleum. Moving water heater, washer, dryer. I continue to work half time. It is why we have representative government. It allows me to get work done in two places at once. Or does it? I could call my representative my lobbyist. I expect him/her to lobby on my behalf. My tax money pays his/her salary. But I don't pay for the election process. My lobbyist must spend a lot of time scrounging around, pandering, begging for money for re-election. It takes time away from what and why I elected them in the first place. Pure lobbyists are on payroll. They don't have to worry about being re-elected. They only have to worry about achieving their agenda. Seems a lobbyist on payroll is a more efficient way to achieve an agenda. There are many, many more lobbyists on payroll than are elected. Lobbyists on payroll are not my lobbyists; they do not represent me or even my section of the nation. Clearly their way of life is attractive to representative, like mine, because so many representatives when they leave office go into different sorts of lobbying. Lobbyists live in capitols like representatives and they therefore are closer to my representatives than I am. Not only that, but they like to visit my representatives. They go to lunch together. Not only that but they offer free services -- like drafts of legislation. And clearly, also, offer job opportunities. The outfits that hire lobbyists also are big donors to representatives wishing re-election. Their donations are bigger than mine. I see where I am placing my representatives in a situation where they clearly have conflicts of interest. I would like to see a situation where politicians begged for my vote and not for someone else's money. They only way that will happen is if the electorate (all of us) also covers the costs of election.

Were You There? Part II

November 12, 2007

The greatest and most glorious democratic movement I have seen this year was by lawyers. Not totally surprising because their profession is law. They were marching in their suits and ties, confronted by police, beaten, arrested and carted off. Marching. They were marching for the rule of law. They were marching against a president who arbitrarily was above the law. It was glorious. It was great. It revived my faith in mankind, democracy, the rule of law. In a second I would have marched with them. However, I was in the United States of America and they were in Pakistan.

More Recommendations

Tonight I have three: Al Gore's book, The Assault on Reason. For the United States it is maybe more important than An Inconvenient Truth. I've read a critique by a guy who said he didn't think much of Gore because he should have said these things when he was in Congress and shouldn't have waited. Frankly, I appreciate the truth and I don't appreciate disparagement. Makes one wonder how many more books are unwritten and says tons about the problems of this nation.

The second is War on the Middle Class by Lou Dobbs. It is good. It is not much different from Gore's book. It does get at why it is so crazy now as opposed to fifty years ago. The critique on Dobb's book was that he was "nativistic," which meant he was born and raised in Idaho and that somehow trumped a college education at Harvard with a degree in economics.

The third is Impeachment of a President, Bill Moyers Journal, broadcast on Public Television 7/13/2007 and since rebroadcast by popular demand. On the show he interviews Bruce Fein, the constitutional scholar who wrote the first article of impeachment against President Clinton and John Nichols, author of The Genius of Impeachment: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Both strongly recommend impeachment of President Bush for many reasons. Both fault Congress for not initiating the process, suggesting to them that Congress is deficient in knowledge of the Constitution.