The Bogeymen, The Used Car Salesmen Or The Government: Which One Should We Fear?

Beware Of What's Being Sold As Reform

Critical floor fights are looming in the Senate that will show whether Congress will ever find the courage to rein in its scandalous quid pro quo dependence on the powerful lobbying industry. Pending legislation has already been watered down in committee, most seriously with the rejection of a proposal for an independent office to investigate ethics abuses. Defenders of the Senate's status quo clubbiness insist that they are up to the task of reform through existing committees. But continuing revelations about the money-driven symbiosis of lawmaker and lobbyist make it clear that any law stripped of credible enforcement is an election-year charade.

These days it is hard to tell which branch of government is more out of control. Certainly we can see that the Bush administration is out of control. Even the conservative entertainment media has caught wind of this fact. A Lou Dobbs poll asked the question, "Do you believe that the United States is exceeding its limits as a superpower militarily, economically and geopolitically?" The results, however unscientific or unreliable, indicated that 95% (8312) of 8731 people indicated that indeed the Bush administration was out of control. Now, I don't watch Lou Dobbs that often because I feel he is only slightly more reliable than Coulter when it comes to his opinions. I find his writings on American policy to be extreme and almost exclusively ideological. However, his audience is primarily ultra-conservative in nature; perhaps not as ultra-conservative as those that watch the "700 Club," "Jimmy Swaggart Ministries," "Benny Hinn Ministries," or die for the opportunity to listen to the drivel that Ann Coulter offers, but ultra-conservative none-the-less. His e-mails that get broadcast attention reveal the nature of his audience, much in the manner that Bill O'Reilly's e-mail reveals his audience.

But even from a public relations perspective, what does it say when 95% of over 8000 people see the executive branch as being so far out of control?

But Congress is equally out of order and out of control. Senator Bill Frist has announced that he is going to maneuver the senate so that any attempt to quash the Dubai Ports World deal to control operations of six major ports (22 port operations in total). President Bush has vowed to veto any bill, regardless of its other content, that would attempt to quash the deal as well. On top of that, even the harshest Republican critics of the House and Senate are talking about giving the administration a walk out of the illegal warrantless spying by passing an "ex post facto" bill that would authorize the previous activities but put all future actions under the review of a new subcommittee that would essentially be a rubber stamp because the congress critters are getting stonewalled left and right.

The Attorney General has lied and admittedly misled congress in terms of the spying activities. Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are bold faced fascists and are more secretive than any of our various intelligence agencies, except when it is to their political advantage. Apparently, Cheney actually believes the crap that Dubya has asserted and began asserting that he can classify or declassify at will when our laws provide a specific criteria for classification and a specific process for declassifying government information. The legal criteria for classifying any information possessed by the government remains a compelling national interest, not the whim of those holding office.

On top of these controversies, the congress has essentially rubber stamped the USA Patriot Act after thumping their chests to make it appear that they were really going to look at the inherent violations of the Constitution embodied in that law. Not only did thay not take the concerns of American citizens seriously, but the made the law permanent unless it is actually repealed.

Then we have the so-called reform efforts regarding campaign finance, lobbyists and undue influences, as well as outright bribes. It seems that the entrenched Republican leadership opposes the reform efforts (just as the Democrats have done before when they were in power) and won't allow the issues to come to an actual vote. We can safely assume that the reason for not allowing such issues to be heard is purely so that no one in the House or Senate has to go back to their constituency and explain why they voted such a bill down.

Then we have the Supreme Court. Some of the justices have reported that the new leadership offered by Chief Justice Roberts allows more freedom to discuss the issues than did the late Chief Justice Rhenquist, but that new freedom doesn't change the entrenched ideology sitting on the bench. Scalia has commented as of late that anyone that believes the Constitution is a "living document" that allows expansion and contraction to suit the changes in our society is an idiot. He has gotten head nods from other members of that august body, especially from Thomas and Kennedy. However, Scalia and Thomas are among those members of SCOTUS that have accepted "lucrative gifts" for almost phony speaking engagements and "educational activities" where they went to "present" but spent more time on the golf course or receiving gifts than actually speaking.

It would appear that the government is telling us stories of bogeymen hiding everywhere in our nation so that unethical, unconstitutional and unprecedented actions can be taken to further entrench the leadership of all three branches. Then, using the tactics and ethics of various and sundry used car salesmen, these same entrenched leaders are telling us stories to make us believe that which just isn't so. So now I ask the question, "Who should we fear the most: the bogeymen, the used car salesmen or our government?" The answer is self-evident.

On a personal level, senators should be ashamed that committee leaders dared to delete from proposed legislation a long-overdue ban on the virtually free use of corporate jets for unlimited political travel — a velvet freebie that often comes complete with a lobbyist riding along for the flight.

The problem is that no one in our government has a sense of shame anymore? There was a time when a person involved in a scandal would resign in shame and retire from public service because of the shame. Honor is gone from public service. It has been stolen from us right under our watchful eyes. The leaders of our nation have become flim-flam con artists extraordinaire. They have learned to sell water to a drowning man, ice to Eskimos living on a glacier, and window screens to the captains of our submarine fleet... all at inflated and gouging prices!

With power lobbyists opposing the bill, a floor assault is certain on a worthy provision to force lobbyists to disclose their so-called grass-roots operations beyond Washington, their spending campaigns in lawmakers' home districts. On the subject of disclosure, the Senate should abandon its suspiciously Dickensian preference for slow, paper-driven methods of filing campaign finance records. What are the great deliberators afraid of? Join the electronic age and file more quickly and publicly, just as House members already do.

Isn't it rather strange that the power lobbyists even have a say on how we want our congress to reform itself and get out from under the influence of the power lobbyists? If I had my magic wand available I would arrange it so that everyone currently holding elected office or high appointment would lose their position and only "unknowns" were voted in for the next 10 elections.

Perhaps we should be taking a page from Brewster's Millions and vote for "NONE OF THE ABOVE." Seriously folks, next time you're in the voting booth consider writing in NONE OF THE ABOVE.

The pity of the lobbying reform effort thus far is that the Senate, for all its current hesitation and evasions, may produce the stronger proposal. So far House Republican leaders have not mustered the resolve to proceed toward their promised reforms — notably the proposed ban on the scandalous junkets financed by special interests. Rather, the lobbying debate is already being used as a smoke screen to begin House consideration of an egregious attempt to legitimize the use of unlimited soft-money donations from corporations and labor to finance campaign ads on the Internet.

Some many years ago I worked for the Massachusetts Department of Social Services as a Social Worker for family and child case management. When I was first hired I was required to attend "Orientation Training." During this training the Commissioner of DSS came to speak to us as a group. She touted the efficacy of the department by stating that the federal government had rated Massachusetts' DSS as the 11th most effective family and child welfare department in the country. Having worked with the department in my past positions and been on DSS staff for almost four months at the time, I knew that the department was anything but efficient, effective or even close to being organized. I raised the issue with the Commissioner and the head trainer with the following hypothetical question:

If we take two pieces of dog excrement and place them in the palms of our hands, one piece in the right hand and the other in the left hand, but one piece of dog excrement is sculptured to look like the Taj Mahal and the other is just in a pile, what is the difference between the two piles of dog excrement?

The answer was obvious. I was also not the most liked person in the room after that question. The Commissioner asked to speak to me after the class was over. I was not afraid of losing my job because I was already rated as the best social worker in my team and they needed good people. But I also was tired of coming to work for a department that was more concerned with public perception than genuine effectiveness and needed to say that aloud.

I am now tired of having the same issues raised in congress time after time. Our congress is filled with crooks, as are the hallways* where the lobbyists wait in ambush, as is the West Wing of the White House and the chambers of SCOTUS.

* These hallways are also called "Gucci Gulch":

Gucci Gulch -- The Capitol corridors where well-paid lobbyists wearing fancy, Italian-styled, Gucci shoes, mingle with members of Congress. Term from the book Showdown at Gucci Gulch -- Lawmakers, Lobbyists, and the Unlikely Triumph of Tax Reform, by Jeffrey Birnbaum and Allen Murray.

Whom shall we fear, terrorists that can kill a few thousand people in a day or our government that can erode away our liberty and way of life with the passing of a bill, an executive order, or a ruling based on ideology? The answer is that we need to fear them both, but more so the government than the terrorists.