Friday, December 25, 2009

I woke up this morning and checked in on Huffington Post to find Christoper Dodd's rant reported by the Hill in which Dodd ripped into the Senate's newest members for "ruining the civility" of the Senate.
"Civility" of the Senate? Unless his definition of "civility" means endless bloviating by a bunch of gasbags I don't see much civility. Our government ceases to function when these guys start talking. He obviously did not like Al Franken shutting up his buddy Lie-berman when he did. I didn't hear Dodd shooting his mouth off several years ago when his other buddy McCain did the same thing during the Iraqi War "debate".

What Chris Dodd seems to forget is that the Senators and the Representatives are elected by citizens to do the business of the people; NOT to showboat in their private club. There are people hurting out here and the Senators (especially members of the GOP) don't seem to care. The GOP shut up when they wanted to go home for Christmas. They could have shut up a month ago and gone on to other business.

It appears to me that the U.S. Senate has given us nothing but endless war through the years. Our form of government, though it has seemingly worked ok through a couple of centuries, is designed basically to do nothing. Any one Senator is able to throw a screeching halt to business. I only wish that our founders had put in place a Parliamentary form of government.

If we had that form, when a party such as the Democrats, is elected with a mandate for change, change can almost immediately happen because they hold a majority in the governing body. What happened with the Democratic majority? Very little. The Democrats do not have the killer instinct that the Republican Party has developed. Do I want the Democrats to do exactly what the Republicans did for almost eight years under Bush? No, but I do believe that the Republicans need to be kicked while they are down so they don't get up again for a long, long time.

The lies the Republicans have told for over a year now are echoed by Faux News so loudly that the gullible in this country have started believing them. What happened to Truth, Justice, and the American Way? Was that just a lead in to a fifties television show, or is it what our Constitution stands for?

It is truly time for the elected Democratic officials to forget the buddy-buddy attitudes of the past and work towards helping the people of this country. Remember the old saying "you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette"? Well I is say it is time for the Democrats to start breaking some eggs and bring this country the change it voted for:
  • health care for all
  • worker's right to organize
  • curtail influence of lobbyists
  • re-regulate all financial services
So called "civility" in the Senate has failed to bring us any of this.

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