I've read a lot recently about how the president and our representatives in congress have turned a deaf ear to the plight of the middle class and the poor. While they seem to fall all over themselves to insure the wealthy are thrown bone after bone, there often isn't even a meager amount of gristle to give to the rest of us.
I certainly won't dispute such contentions, but, if you think about it for more than one-half second, how could it be otherwise?
Our national leaders live in another world. Most of them are independently wealthy and, even if their ONLY source of income was their pay as elected leaders, this still puts them in elite company. The base pay for senators and representatives currently is $174,000 and $400,00 for the president. Add in all the other perks that come with the job and we're talking about serious money.
Consequently, even if they wanted to, they simply can't understand the worries and stress that goes into living on $50,000, $25,000 or $15,000 per year. Anxiety caused by choosing between paying the rent or feeding your family simply doesn't compute. We expect them to feel a pain that many have NEVER experienced.
I understand that, every now and then, a non-wealthy person is able to crack the club. But even these individuals lose their sympathy for the common man, woman and child in short order. Their newfound wealth inoculates them from identifying with their roots. The status, influence, power and money sets them on a new course, one that leaves the old course far behind.
For a political junkie like myself, I am more and more coming to see that electoral politics is not the answer to the problems of our species. For years, I thought the answer was to get some common folks elected so that they could be the voice for the silenced voices. I have come to the conclusion, however, that once we send them off to the nation's capitol or each state's legislature, their entry into a world so unlike our own erects a barrier that immediately separates them from the rest of us.
I'm not suggesting that I think politics is unimportant, but we will accomplish more in the streets and workplace (real or virtual) than we can ever hope to accomplish in the halls of so-called power.
I certainly won't dispute such contentions, but, if you think about it for more than one-half second, how could it be otherwise?
Our national leaders live in another world. Most of them are independently wealthy and, even if their ONLY source of income was their pay as elected leaders, this still puts them in elite company. The base pay for senators and representatives currently is $174,000 and $400,00 for the president. Add in all the other perks that come with the job and we're talking about serious money.
Consequently, even if they wanted to, they simply can't understand the worries and stress that goes into living on $50,000, $25,000 or $15,000 per year. Anxiety caused by choosing between paying the rent or feeding your family simply doesn't compute. We expect them to feel a pain that many have NEVER experienced.
I understand that, every now and then, a non-wealthy person is able to crack the club. But even these individuals lose their sympathy for the common man, woman and child in short order. Their newfound wealth inoculates them from identifying with their roots. The status, influence, power and money sets them on a new course, one that leaves the old course far behind.
For a political junkie like myself, I am more and more coming to see that electoral politics is not the answer to the problems of our species. For years, I thought the answer was to get some common folks elected so that they could be the voice for the silenced voices. I have come to the conclusion, however, that once we send them off to the nation's capitol or each state's legislature, their entry into a world so unlike our own erects a barrier that immediately separates them from the rest of us.
I'm not suggesting that I think politics is unimportant, but we will accomplish more in the streets and workplace (real or virtual) than we can ever hope to accomplish in the halls of so-called power.
glad a few people like you finally realize the folly of trusting gov't to begin with. (i'm a libertarian, and have been since about 1986 or so.)
ReplyDeletealas, the power that's been given to the gov't over the last 50+ years will not be relinquished by them soon, or easily.
--sgl