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Who’s Representin’?
By Nancy Greggs
Let me start off by saying it’s been quite a number of years since I sat in civics class back in high school. So I may be remembering things differently in hindsight, and I stand to be corrected.
But as I recall it, the United States is a representative democracy, whereby people like yourselves (congressmen, senators) are elected by We The People to represent our views, our desires, and our best interests.
Now, I think I have that part right – but in view of what has been happening in the last few years, I’m beginning to doubt the accuracy of my memory.
Let’s start with a few of the things you people have supported and drafted into law in the recent past, shall we?
The Bankruptcy Bill comes to mind right off the top. If your support of this policy is reflective of the wishes of the people you represent, then I have to assume your offices were flooded with postcards, letters, faxes and emails from constituents begging you to put this law into effect. “Please, whatever you do, make sure that if I am bankrupted due to my job being outsourced, or because medical bills wiped me out, I will still be on the hook for my credit card debt until the day I die.”
That IS what happened, right? You got thousands of such communications, no doubt. Let’s leave out the pleas that came in from banks, credit card companies and their shareholders. Now how many such phone calls jammed your office lines for days on end? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
You see, it’s stuff like this that really has my head turned around on this ‘representation’ thing. But hey, you probably know your constituents better than I do, right?
The one that really gets to me is this whole outsourcing of American jobs coupled with tax breaks for the companies that do it. I just KNOW there’s some reasonable explanation for your support of that kind of thing, and I guess I’m just too stupid to understand what it is. If you could enlighten me as to how this is GOOD for the economy and my fellow Americans, I would really like to hear it, because I am totally BAFFLED on this one.
And then there’s those environmental bills; more arsenic allowed in the water, mercury in fish, toxins in our water sources, that kind of thing. Now, call me crazy, but I’m thinking that most of your supporters aren’t too happy with that, especially the ones with children and grandchildren who will inherit these pesky problems. But as I say, I could be totally off-base on this stuff. Who would know better than YOU what’s good for future generations, right?
Touchy subject, I know, but – yeah, the deficit. Again my memory may be faulty, but I could swear I learned something back in the day about not spending what you don’t have, that whole thing where the interest rates on borrowed money start exceeding the revenue you’re able to generate to service the debt – you get my drift. Was this another thing your constituents goaded you into supporting, against your better judgment? Damn the citizenry – they can be so dumb sometimes, can’t they?
But let’s not dwell on the past; let’s let bygones be bygones, and look at the present state of the nation.
We have a sitting president who has admitted to breaking the law (or choosing to ignore the law, if you want to couch such things in more politically correct terms). Now, I’ve got to figure that the majority of the people you represent aren’t happy with that. After all, those 60% disapproval ratings don’t make themselves up. The last time I checked, 60% was a majority – but then, I was never schooled in this Fuzzy Math thing that’s all the rage these days.
Now, I don’t pretend to know the inner workings of D.C. politics; I’m just one of those dumb American citizens who employs you. But don’t you think a president admitting that he sidesteps the law every chance he gets should prompt you into action? Not for nothin’, but I honestly believe your constituents kind of expect that kind of thing from you. Just sayin’.
I hate to bring it up, but someone has to say it. This whole torture thing has a lot of us a bit riled. We were raised with this ‘Land of the Free, Home of the Brave’ kind of mindset, so you can see where detention without charge or access to legal representation – oops, there’s THAT word again! – kind of rankles.
Those of us of a certain age clearly remember when secret prisons and torture were what the enemy did to foreign military personnel and home-grown dissenters. That was the kind of thing Americans went to war to fight AGAINST, as I recall it. Maybe I’m just being old-fashioned – ‘quaint’, I think was the word applied to the Geneva Conventions in recent years. That’s always a possibility. But a lot of you are my age or older, so I know you grew up with the same concepts. Did you have to check those ideals at the door when you were elected to office? Maybe I should read the Elected Officials Handbook, because that seems to be the only possibility here.
I was brought up to believe that the government has no right to listen-in on my phone calls without a warrant, search my house, read my mail, and such like. Now, don’t get me wrong. If the Al Qa’eda area code shows up on my identi-phone, hey, feel free to pass the head-set around to all and sundry (I’m assuming they have their own area code, or how else would the government actually KNOW?) I mean, fair’s fair. If I’ve got incoming email from ALQA’EDA.com or something, I’m expecting you to get curious.
But the fact that this is being done outside of the laws set up to define such monitoring – well, again, you have to think that your constituents are a bit peeved. Especially when you do nothing about it, other than nod your head in agreement before you take yet another “fact-finding trip” (i.e. vacation) at the taxpayers’ expense – or some lobbyist’s expense, as the case may be.
That brings us to the present problem facing your constituents these days – yeah, the price of gas at the pump, the price of heating oil for the home. We know that the oil companies have been given tax-breaks and subsidies, so I’m just wondering how that happened. Were there protestors lining the streets in your home state last time you visited, carrying signs with slogans like, “Hell, no, we REFUSE to pay less than $10 a gallon!” Judging by your action – or inaction – on this issue, I am going to have to assume that’s exactly what happened. Man, who’da thunk it? I must be totally out of touch with my fellow citizens, while you can obviously read their thoughts like Kreskin. (Have you considered a TV special, by the way? I just KNOW your voter base would be DAZZLED!)
Same deal with this prescription drug plan – that’s the one where the pharmaceutical companies get even richer, while people get sick, maybe even die, because they can’t afford their meds. I have no doubt you know best, but some of those people who won’t make it to the polls this November might have actually voted for you, if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re deceased. Hmmm, puts your support in a whole different light, doesn’t it?
Now, I have been ranting here a bit, but I have to give credit where credit is due. The one area where most of you have really stood up to this president is this idea of investigations into things like illegal wire-tapping, 9/11, the lead-up to the war in Iraq, no-bid contracts to Halliburton – the list goes on and on, so I won’t bore you with the details (what with your short attention span and all). But as the president has said time and again, “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.” And when it comes to having nothing to hide, no one has more nothing to hide than George W. Bush and his appointees.
So why are you constantly blocking his opportunity to clear up these issues, once and for all? The president, and his administration, would like nothing more than full and transparent investigations into these baseless allegations, and a chance to clear the air. I’m sure your constituents are in full agreement with that. So why are you standing in the road, blocking the way? Just wonderin’.
Being as this is 2006, an election year (oh, I see I may have SURRPISED some of you), those electronic voting machines will be rearing their hackable little heads again in a few months. Now, I honestly thought this issue would have been number one on your ‘Things To Do’ list, because it actually affects YOU, personally.
Maybe there’s a pile of unread newspapers on the porch back home, but you really should be paying attention to this. If you’re not worried about the people you hope will be voting for you, you should at least be worried about your own rear-ends. So do YOURSELVES a favour and skip the next “Let’s Vote Ourselves Another Raise” meeting and give this topic a look-see, why don’t you? Believe me, if you want to keep your present cushy job, you’ll thank me for the head’s-up.
Well, I have rattled on long enough, and I apologize for taking up so much of your valuable time. I realize that representin’ is hard work, and you all have recesses to plan for, vacations to schedule, fund-raisers to organize for your upcoming re-election campaigns.
But if you could try to slip some actual ‘representation’ into your workday, We The People would really appreciate it. After all, that is what you’re getting paid to do – isn’t it?
But like I said, I stand to be corrected …
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