Blaming Congress

CHARLIE REESE has been a newspaper writer in Florida for half a century, and, if his final article is any indication, was quite a sparkplug of a writer. He is retiring,and his final column was nothing less than a precise identification of the party responsible for America's current dismal state of affairs. And that party is? Congress. All five hundred and thirty five members, one hundred in the Senate, and four hundred and thirty five in the House of Representatives. They are to blame for our problems, all of them. Those dirty filthy politicians! And, interesting enough, Mr. Reese did not specify whether the current congress was the culprit, or the one two years ago, or the one before that, or...but, leave no doubt, congress is the source of all America's myriad problems and disasters. Why? Why, because they have all the power, is why. WE the people do not make the laws, the policies, nor do we the people create the problems then pretend to solve them, congress does. Lobbyists, special interest groups, corporation campaign contributions; none of this is to blame; congress members do not have to listen to them. The law requires that congres govern the country, and congress does not do it. Its that simple, according to the retiring Charley Reese. And really, it sounds good. Why not? But, not trying to make trouble or anything, or disagree with the obvious, there might be two problems with this assertion. One, congress is elected by we the people. And two, America has always been beset by huge problems, and if congress has always been to blame, then that means tens of thousands of people, not five hundred and thirty five, are complicit. Reese does not, as I recall, spend much, or indeed any time talking aobut how members of congress are elected, or who elects them. In order to get elected to congress,now,or two hundred years ago, you have to be a politician, play the olitical game. That means promising enough to enough people to be popular enough to get elected. If elected, I promise to help you, so vote for me. And, in order to get reelected, congresspeople have to keep at least some of their promises, and keep making more. IN short, we the people force members of congress to do the supid things that they do, by making them promise to do these stupid things as a condition of getting elected. IAny candidate for congress who doesn't do this doesn't get elected, and those who get elected do this, all of them. They must. We force them to promise us the moon, and when they give it to us, in the form of a sixteen trillion dollar debt, we might think twice before blaming them, to the exclusion of everyone else. Members of congres come from among the ranks of we the people. It almost seems that any person in America who gets elected, no matter who, has gotten elected by making big promises, and thus, no matter who you are, no matter how different you think you would be if elected to congress - you really woundn't be. Your ideas would mess up America as much as anyone's! Throw all five hundred and thirty five of them out, and get five hundred and thrity five new congresspeople, and it would be the same, no matter who among the three hudnred million Americans we chose, under the present political system. Use a super computer to pick the best people for the job, using logic, or have God do it, and maybe there's hope. But, it does not look ike we are going to change the political system anytime soon. And you can count on that. Wouldn't it be great, at least emotionally, if we could, with all due honesty, assign blame for all our problems, individually and nationally, to such a small specific easily blamable group as congress? How comforting. How divested of responsibility we thus become! Somehow, though, doing so leaves something missing, some vague feeling of something missing, some indefinable something, like, maybe, reality.