Change You Can Believe In

I watched a bunch of political movies this weekend. I have also been watching the HBO mini-series John Adams based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography by David McCullough. And as you all know, I can’t seem to keep away from Slate or Salon.com to monitor what’s going on in the current presidential campaigns. (Did you read about John McCain’s gas-tax holiday and the fact that he wants the people to vote on a new tax system? Honestly, this is why I loved this man in 2000. If only he were pro-choice. Sigh.) Needless to say, I’ve been digesting a lot of politics lately and something occurred to me that had never occurred before and I feel I have to share it.

As I’ve said more than once in my previous blogs, I’m leery of Obama’s message of change. Plenty of past presidential hopefuls have gotten elected off of the promise of altering the way things are done in D.C., only to get there and realize that there’s really not much they can do, and – hey! – if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, since it’s the only way to get things through Congress. But it wasn’t until I was watching Birth of a Nation this weekend that 2 + 2 started making 4 for me. Birth of a Nation is a silent movie made in 1919 based on an awful pro-KKK book that basically says that after the Civil War, former slaves over ran the joint and the Klan had to come in and save the day. The director/writer was D.W. Griffith whose father was a colonel in the Confederate Army. Needless to say, he was sympathetic to the south’s plight. This is an anathema to me as I’m from the north and everyone knows that slavery was bad. This movie did not change my mind (though after watching it and reading Gone With the Wind, I have some serious questions about the north’s handling of Reconstruction after the assassination of Lincoln, and I have an idea that it’s much like Reconstruction in Iraq – FUBAR, you know what I’m saying?). Anyway, I don’t suggest watching this movie under any circumstances at all (not that many of you would run out to rent a 3-hour silent film), but there was one placard that bothered me, not only in context to the movie’s message but also in regards to the American political system. Basically, the card read that Lincoln’s proclamation to free the slaves was the end of state governance, and the beginning of Washington D.C. telling people how to live.

Brief history lesson: We were 13 colonies ruled by the British empire, correct? (Hint: The answer is “yes.”) However, we were not united. I never really thought about this before John Adams, but intuitively it makes sense: The states were all discovered separately and had different functions. It’s sort of like the EU now. Different countries, with different systems of government, united only in their proximity and ultimate goal – to make money. In the colonies’ case, to make money for England. We were 13 individual municipalities, all with our own Constitutions and charters and forms of government, that all paid over to England in import/exports and taxes. We were British royal subjects. Kinda like if you moved to England now. You would be an American, but under Bristish rule. Anyway. England basically treated us like serfs. They taxed and taxed and taxed us, and never listened when we sent over letters saying, “Hey, do you mind? We’re trying to make a living here.” Then finally people had had it and started dumping tea into harbors and screaming, “Taxation with no representation.” At which point King George got pissed off and said, “You’ll pay and you’ll like it, now shut up,” and started barracking armies in our homes and sending warships into New York harbor. That’s when each colony sent a few smart guys off to the Continental Congress and one colony representative said to another, “I don’t know about you, but we’ve about had it,” and everyone said, “Yeah, this sucks! How about a war?” And they all argued over it until finally, they agreed, and we had that little thing called the Revolution. Now, here’s where it gets interesting – for me, and obviously for those of you who are still reading – they had to decide on a new form of government. No one wanted a monarchy because they had just got rid of one despot king, and the last thing they wanted was another, so they said, “Keep the power in the hands of the people” and chose a Republic. Right away, there were the ones who said, “I think we should continue to be 13 individual municipalities and continue to do what we’re currently doing” (they were the Anti-Federalists) and there were the people who said, “We need to be taken seriously on the world stage or who is to stop Spain from attacking us from the south or France attacking us from the north? We have to have some bite to us. And the only way to do that is to combine forces.” (These were the Federalists). See? Right from the beginning we were bickering about where the concentration of power should be. Except now, we call them Republicans, who say that we should have a weak central power (Anti-Federalists), and the Democrats, who say that we should have a strong central power (Federalists).

I registered as a Republican at 17 and held on tight until I moved to California. And even though I’m now a Democrat, I believe that the power should reside in the states. Why? Because it’s very hard getting ten people all from the same family to agree on one thing, let alone an entire nation of – what are we up to? – 300,000,000 people. Does this mean that I don’t believe in Social Security or that Lincoln shouldn’t have freed the slaves? No. Of course not. I’m a human being who is mostly a compassionate individual. I would love it if people would stop being their greedy selves out of their own free will and decided to help one another in the spirit of mankind. But that ain’t happening no matter how hard and loud we scream that we are a Christian nation, so every once in awhile we need someone to stand up and say, “HEY! BE NICE!” People have no sense of personal honor any more. But I digress. My point is: my governor and my local representatives know what my state needs, and we seem to do okay in our little corner of the United States sandbox. We then send off two Senators and X Representatives to Congress to address our local needs at a national level. We hope that we send the right individuals for the job. I mean, we do our best with what’s given, right? Now, this is what I realized this weekend: If every state is sending their best two Senators and X Representatives, and each state has different needs, then of course we’re going to be at loggerheads all the time and no state is going to get exactly what they want. They can’t. Therefore, how is it that one man – a presidential contender – can make a promise to 300,000,000 people that he’s going to be the one to go in and straighten them out? Them who? The people we elected to go in there and do right by us? The people we get the opportunity to vote out every few years? Those people? Or are we hoping that he’s going to take other Congressmen to task? Congressmen from some other state than my own? The people I didn’t vote for, but the people that my fellow countrymen voted for to look after their needs? And exactly what is he going to do to set them on the straight and narrow course? Get rid of the lobbyists who are bribing all of our Congressman? Tell the guy from Nebraska that his corn can wait another year while the girl from Rhode Island gets her new seaport, because, hey, it’s only fair, she’s waited three years? I mean, really, he can’t kick out bad Congressmen. He can’t go and tattle. “Hey, California, Nancy Pelosi sold you out to Iowa!” What exactly can this person do? Don’t get me wrong, I love the theory. I want Daddy (or Mommy) to go in and scold everyone into submission, but to what end?

Think about this: In the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush ran under the promise of being a “uniter, not a divider.” This is an excerpt from an interview that I read on Salon.com back in May 1999. I almost voted for Bush based on this article.

Salon: Ronald Reagan had the only successful two-term presidency since Dwight Eisenhower. Part of the secret seems to be that he focused his attention on two important goals -- lowering taxes and winning the Cold War. What are your priorities?

Bush: One is prosperity: to make sure that we continue to be prosperous by lowering taxes and by fighting off isolationist and protectionist policies and politics. A second priority is to make sure that we educate children. A third priority is to promote the peace. America must be strong enough and willing to promote peace. One way to do so is to bring certainty into an uncertain world, and I support the development of anti-ballistic missile systems to do so. These are three priorities.

Sounds great, right? Ahh, but hindsight is 20/20. Here we are eight years later. Bush kept taxes low and gave us two economic stimulus packages. We are now in a trillion-dollar debt and in the grips of a recession. No Child Left Behind was declared a disaster, and education specialists are already talking about how to dismantle it after the 2008 election. And we are fighting two wars based on the theory that we were bringing strong democratic government to people who lived under duress and military dictatorship. (The anti-ballistic missile system was brought up during the 9/11 hey-day of fear, but quickly discarded.) Bush’s approval rating in March 2008 was 31%. Does that mean that 31% of the people got exactly what they voted for?

Let me just end that if you really want to see change in Washington D.C., don’t look to the president. Look to your Representative and to your Senators. If you don’t like the way the government is working, they are the ones that need to taken to task. By you. Because they are accountable to you, not the president. And no one is asking you to know what all 100 Senators and 435 Representatives are doing, and what exactly is happening in Congress at all points in time. That’s way too overwhelming. But it’s not that hard to keep track of two Senators and one representative once every year around November and make sure they are addressing the issues that are important to you. Education. Social Security. War. Whatever they might be. Those people come from your state, know your issues, and have to worry about your vote. Not 300,000,000 others.