Oops. Our bad! No hard feelings black people! That’s the message that the U.S. Senate sent out today, apologizing for wrongs done to blacks through slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws. This isn’t the first time our Senate has apologized either. They’ve issued mea culpa to people of Japanese descent who were interred during World War II, to Hawaiians for overthrowing their kingdom so that we could have a nice vacation spot and to Native Americans for the whole stealing and raping of the land and killing them off with smallpox thing.
And that’s nice. I remember when I was four years old and my mom taught me that you should try to never hurt people, but if you do, that you should always say you’re sorry. Then I got to have ice cream.
So, I can’t help but wonder why it takes Congress almost 150 years to do something that I mastered at the age of four. Do they not serve ice cream in the Senate cafeteria? Did all of our Senators grow up without mothers?
What troubles me most is why now? I mean no disrespect but everyone who was once a slave is now dead, the apology, in addition to being long overdue, is falling on ears that are listening from heaven, so I can’t help but wonder why our elected officials are finally apologizing to dead people when those of us who are still alive are in such desperate times.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that dead people vote more religiously than the living do?
I can’t help but wonder if in 150 years, our Congress will get together and formally apologize to the descendants of slaves who were alive in 2009 and didn’t have health care, who were unemployed, whose mortgages were in foreclosure because instead of actually doing something about the problems of the day, in a dire and serious time, they chose to pander and prance on camera, posing for pictures, slapping each other on the back for doing something a child could and would have done in less than five minutes back when the people we were apologizing to were still around?
I wonder if they’ll apologize to the rest of us who face the same circumstances? I wonder if they’ll admit that their predecessors, so completely incompetent that they wanted no part in solving the issues of the day, chose instead to make news splashes with issues that were important, but in no way time sensitive?
I wonder how alone President Obama must feel? I wonder if he shakes his head and questions exactly how he’s supposed to affect change in a country that desperately needs it when an entire third of the government is actively working on apologizing for things that happened 150 years ago. Even as a black man, I wonder if our President is just rolling his eyes and asking God, how can he possibly be surrounded by so much ineptitude? What a lonely feeling it must be to try to solve a financial crisis, out of control unemployment, financial institution collapse, a couple of wars, lack of a coherent and effective healthcare, energy crisis and every other problem of the day when the 535 members of the legislative branch of the government are high fiving, smiling and posing for pictures with whatever black people they can find?
Perhaps we should take note. Perhaps, when our Senators and Congressmen are next elected, we should ask them what they were doing with their time when we were hurting? Were they actively seeking solutions to current issues that faced our nation, or were they posturing, taking care of business that children could have accomplished in much less time?
Perhaps the Change We Need involves more than the election of just one man. Perhaps we’ll have to clean the whole damn house and save our ancestors from the idiocy of a too late apology that can only sooth a sting that won’t ever fully heal.
Showing posts with label Senate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Senate. Show all posts
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Monday, October 13, 2008
The One Where I Fix America
It occurs to me that I’m always pointing my finger and rarely providing answers, so I thought I might take a few moments of time and go ahead and fix America. So, sit back, relax and enjoy ultimate solution to all of our problems.
Our problems aren’t really anything more than problems of perception. You see, we still think we’re a country that our founding fathers could take pride in, but the truth is that we haven’t been that in quite a long time. So, the first step in my solution is to give up the notion that we’re somehow above anything or anyone. We’re really not that good at all.
Problem number 1 is a problem of leadership and that is actually a fairly easy problem to solve. Al McGuire, the famous basketball coach once stated that world is run by C students and he’s absolutely right. The problem is that the pay for our leadership positions in this country can’t attract any of the really smart people. This is one of the perceptions you’ll have to overcome. The most intelligent of our countrymen are not making the noble sacrifice to spend their entire lives serving the better good. They’re busy making more money than they could ever use. We get stuck with leaders for whom the salary is one they aspire to earning.
Patriotism is a nice concept and all and sure, we all claim to be patriotic, but when just a miniscule portion of the population turns out to vote, that whole idea of patriotism goes out the window. We aren’t a country of patriots—unless you count a 2 week period of time after a war starts or a terrorist attack occurs. We’re a country of opportunists. Unless there is a specific benefit to us, we don’t do a damn thing.
So, the key is to pay our leaders such a ridiculous amount of money that the smartest among us would be crazy not to be involved in getting into politics. Let’s get rid of the C students we have running the country and get some damn scholars running the show! It seems kind of foolish to put someone only making $400,000 dollars a year in charge of a budget that’s in the billions. Let’s put someone who’s making millions of dollars a year in charge of things.
And not just the President, because you typically have to put in some time in the Senate or as a governor before you can become president, we should boost those salaries up too.
We can’t ignore that we’re a capitalist nation, and we can’t expect the kind of people who make millions of dollars a year to take a huge pay cut just so that our country can function properly. We’ve created this monster, now we have to pay it. That’s how things work around here. I’m not saying that capitalism is a bad thing, quite the opposite actually, but if we want to attract candidates who are actually intelligent, competent and motivated, we need to pay them their fair market value. And on top of a ridiculous salary, there should be an even more ridiculous bonus system in place. Reach a goal, keep a campaign promise, fix something that’s broken like health care and your salary just keeps going up, up, up.
Make the office of President one attractive to the people who really run the country, the captains of big business. Sure, they’ll have the interests of big business foremost in their minds, but this is another area where we have to give up our delusions because the fact of the matter is that our government already caters to big business more than it does to us. Let’s just stop pretending otherwise huh?
The other major change that needs to be made is that we have to make our government profitable. The only way we’ll ever see significant tax deductions and actually get to spend the money we earn is if the government—led now by A students—is able to earn it’s own money.
How will the government earn money you ask? Simple. Naming rights. We are nothing if not sheep that are easily manipulated by marketing and branding. Our stadiums, our sports teams, our television shows, it’s all brought to you by someone. The government is talked about on nightly news shows, on the internet, in the newspapers. The exposure of our government is huge! So why not make some money on that popularity?
Imagine the possibilities! Every time the president is mentioned, instead of just saying, President Washington, you’d have to say, President Washington, brought to you by Budweiser. Imagine the Coca-cola Senate and the Gillette House of Representatives. Imagine the revenue generated in war time if we changed the name of the Third Infantry Division to the Pepsi Infantry Division? The war would fund itself—and our soldiers could actually have the equipment they need!
And it doesn’t have to stop there! Think of all the federal holidays! Take a day off when General Electric presents Martin Luther King Jr Day! Take another day off when Chevy presents Christmas! Boeing presents Labor Day! Visa presents Independence Day! We have a ton of money available to us in advertising rights that we aren’t tapping into here! Sure, it’s true, it doesn’t look good when the politicians have corporate sponsorship, but again this is a matter of perception. They already have corporate sponsorship, we just choose not to acknowledge it and therefore we don’t get paid for it.
So, let’s stop pretending and start dressing our politicians like they’re NASCAR drivers! There’s money in it for us!
The way I figure it, once we have money and have smart people managing it, all the rest will fall into line. When the United States Marines as Presented by Blue Cross-Blue Shield invade some country, don’t fret over the rights and wrongs of war. Be happy that your country just made a mint that they can turn around and use to make healthcare affordable to everyone!
Look, the ideal isn’t to have a completely unethical nation, but to think that we’re anything other than that is just ignoring the obvious. So, let’s get off our high horse and truly embrace the way we’ve sold out. Let’s acknowledge that cash is king and put this country to work for ourselves. Here you go. This is a way to get smart people running the show and a way, to pay them and to make our government work without dipping into our own pockets.
It’s simple. It’s genius. You’re welcome. That is all.
Our problems aren’t really anything more than problems of perception. You see, we still think we’re a country that our founding fathers could take pride in, but the truth is that we haven’t been that in quite a long time. So, the first step in my solution is to give up the notion that we’re somehow above anything or anyone. We’re really not that good at all.
Problem number 1 is a problem of leadership and that is actually a fairly easy problem to solve. Al McGuire, the famous basketball coach once stated that world is run by C students and he’s absolutely right. The problem is that the pay for our leadership positions in this country can’t attract any of the really smart people. This is one of the perceptions you’ll have to overcome. The most intelligent of our countrymen are not making the noble sacrifice to spend their entire lives serving the better good. They’re busy making more money than they could ever use. We get stuck with leaders for whom the salary is one they aspire to earning.
Patriotism is a nice concept and all and sure, we all claim to be patriotic, but when just a miniscule portion of the population turns out to vote, that whole idea of patriotism goes out the window. We aren’t a country of patriots—unless you count a 2 week period of time after a war starts or a terrorist attack occurs. We’re a country of opportunists. Unless there is a specific benefit to us, we don’t do a damn thing.
So, the key is to pay our leaders such a ridiculous amount of money that the smartest among us would be crazy not to be involved in getting into politics. Let’s get rid of the C students we have running the country and get some damn scholars running the show! It seems kind of foolish to put someone only making $400,000 dollars a year in charge of a budget that’s in the billions. Let’s put someone who’s making millions of dollars a year in charge of things.
And not just the President, because you typically have to put in some time in the Senate or as a governor before you can become president, we should boost those salaries up too.
We can’t ignore that we’re a capitalist nation, and we can’t expect the kind of people who make millions of dollars a year to take a huge pay cut just so that our country can function properly. We’ve created this monster, now we have to pay it. That’s how things work around here. I’m not saying that capitalism is a bad thing, quite the opposite actually, but if we want to attract candidates who are actually intelligent, competent and motivated, we need to pay them their fair market value. And on top of a ridiculous salary, there should be an even more ridiculous bonus system in place. Reach a goal, keep a campaign promise, fix something that’s broken like health care and your salary just keeps going up, up, up.
Make the office of President one attractive to the people who really run the country, the captains of big business. Sure, they’ll have the interests of big business foremost in their minds, but this is another area where we have to give up our delusions because the fact of the matter is that our government already caters to big business more than it does to us. Let’s just stop pretending otherwise huh?
The other major change that needs to be made is that we have to make our government profitable. The only way we’ll ever see significant tax deductions and actually get to spend the money we earn is if the government—led now by A students—is able to earn it’s own money.
How will the government earn money you ask? Simple. Naming rights. We are nothing if not sheep that are easily manipulated by marketing and branding. Our stadiums, our sports teams, our television shows, it’s all brought to you by someone. The government is talked about on nightly news shows, on the internet, in the newspapers. The exposure of our government is huge! So why not make some money on that popularity?
Imagine the possibilities! Every time the president is mentioned, instead of just saying, President Washington, you’d have to say, President Washington, brought to you by Budweiser. Imagine the Coca-cola Senate and the Gillette House of Representatives. Imagine the revenue generated in war time if we changed the name of the Third Infantry Division to the Pepsi Infantry Division? The war would fund itself—and our soldiers could actually have the equipment they need!
And it doesn’t have to stop there! Think of all the federal holidays! Take a day off when General Electric presents Martin Luther King Jr Day! Take another day off when Chevy presents Christmas! Boeing presents Labor Day! Visa presents Independence Day! We have a ton of money available to us in advertising rights that we aren’t tapping into here! Sure, it’s true, it doesn’t look good when the politicians have corporate sponsorship, but again this is a matter of perception. They already have corporate sponsorship, we just choose not to acknowledge it and therefore we don’t get paid for it.
So, let’s stop pretending and start dressing our politicians like they’re NASCAR drivers! There’s money in it for us!
The way I figure it, once we have money and have smart people managing it, all the rest will fall into line. When the United States Marines as Presented by Blue Cross-Blue Shield invade some country, don’t fret over the rights and wrongs of war. Be happy that your country just made a mint that they can turn around and use to make healthcare affordable to everyone!
Look, the ideal isn’t to have a completely unethical nation, but to think that we’re anything other than that is just ignoring the obvious. So, let’s get off our high horse and truly embrace the way we’ve sold out. Let’s acknowledge that cash is king and put this country to work for ourselves. Here you go. This is a way to get smart people running the show and a way, to pay them and to make our government work without dipping into our own pockets.
It’s simple. It’s genius. You’re welcome. That is all.
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