Washington is an island drowning in its own self-interest, surrounded by a hurting and unhappy nation of deeply patriotic citizens who hunger for shared national purpose but find our politics to be sickening, insulting and corrupted.
Today huge numbers of the workers of our nation are jobless. The finances of our nation are sinking to banana-republic incompetence. The unity of our nation is being shredded by squabbling factions masquerading as leaders.
The people of our nation view the bastions of power, from Washington to Wall Street, with contempt because they believe, correctly, that those bastions are contemptuous of them, and that those bastions are citadels of selfishness and corruption.
Mr. President, you might pretend you don't care what is said about you on television or written about you in The Hill newspaper, but you know, and I know, you do. Mr. Speaker, did you rise to the second-most-powerful post in America only to face the prospect that someday you might deeply regret that when you were given the gavel, you became another player in a poisonous kabuki drama that our people despise and history will condemn?
I believe the greatest columnist in history was Walter Lippmann. He sought to put real-time events in context and shed some light on who we are as a people and what we stand for as a nation.
In this spirit, Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, members of Congress and dear readers, I recommend a book written by Roy Spence, one of America's leading advertising executives, titled It's Not What You Sell, It's What You Stand For.
Spence says that once our economic Armageddon ends, the organizations that survive will be those that stand for a higher sense of purpose, based on the truth that our lives can be made better with a shared commitment to a common good.
What is missing in politics and business is any courageous attempt to inspire a unity of national purpose.
The president talks a good game but combines Sputnik-moment rhetoric with school uniform-magnitude policies. He falsely believes that demeaning the most faithful members of his party brings bipartisan agreements when all it achieves is lower voter turnout for his party, a weakened negotiating position with opponents and results that bring mediocrity or surrender.
The Speaker falsely believes that the road to success is for him to capitulate to the most extreme faction of his party in the hope the president will surrender to him, when the result is gridlock on great matters and rising odds his Speakership ends after the next election.
It is un-American for the greatest nation on Earth to debate whether the U.S. should act like a bankrupt debtor. Even a mediocre agreement could trigger a rating-agency downgrade, market crash or spiraling recession.
Surely our "leaders" can agree on a modest $500 billion of revenue from wealthy Americans or giant firms that pay no taxes. Surely they can accept a modestly greater contribution to Social Security and Medicare from those with incomes higher than $500,000 or net worth of more than $1 million.
American workers are enduring a lost generation of joblessness. Americans hunger for new jobs programs. Yet neither the president nor Congress offers any jobs program of significance.
Americans hunger for programs to reduce foreclosures while a Grapes of Wrath-style disaster engulfs the nation. Yet neither the president nor Congress offers anything to help.
Let's address all these big issues with a shared spirit of national purpose. Let's try the best ideas from all sides.
The people with the pitchforks -- a vast a majority of the nation -- are surrounding the capital. In the epic battle of our age -- the war of the worlds between America and Washington -- America will win.
How many crashes must we endure, and how many "change" elections must we have, before the ship of state returns to the home port of America: One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all?
This column was originally published at The Hill.
Thank you; that needed to be said. Those in his own party that try to hold Obama's feet to the fire are more ostracized than Republicans among our more centrist brethren. And unless that changes, and those who don't currently expect more are effectively able to move our president toward worthy goals, I will be voting Green in 2012.
If we survive this mess, we need to focus on campaign finance reform.
Charlie
They will raise the debt limit as surely as their wallstreet masters think they are masters of the universe.
This is all for show. To terrorize the citizens of the country to accept the will of their principle backers, like Kochs and Peterson, to privitize ss and medicare and education, so they can continue to get taxpayers dollars to flow into their companies.
Why have a government middleman?
Why not tax people and have the money go directly into their pockets?
It was wonderful to read. Thanks!
The US has already lost precious international credit worthiness reputation, it will take years to recover. The stock market has only just begun to accept the beyond the comprehension possibility of a real default, we may be close to a head popping freefall in the market and, once again, in our national wealth. Where does it end. Once again, for the upteenth time, I say to the politicos, it is time to MAN-UP, to STAND-UP, to SPEAK-UP, and to DO THE RIGHT THING-NOW, BEFORE A FINANCIAL ARMAGEDDON IS BEFORE US ALL.