I’m always trying to get a grasp on my own thoughts as I “ponder” what’s going on back in Washington DC.  Often times I’m not too happy with the way I express myself – thinking I could be much clearer.  I’ve been trying to find a balance to my sense that “blind loyalty” to any political candidate is TOTALLY WRONG – I mean, that seems to me to be the way the Nazi’s took power in the thirties in Germany.  I couldn’t stomach the Republicans and their blind loyalty to the administration of GW Bush and Dick Cheney.  I better understood why some of them were “staying in line” after reading “Angler” by Barton Gellman – Cheney got the “goods” on many of them while “vetting” potential VP’s prior to appointing himself as Vice President after GW was nominated in 2000 – but, I continue to watch in amazement as Republicans everywhere seem to cower from the potential rath of Rush (Limbaugh for those of you with your head in the sand) and support what seems to me to be very un-Republicanlike policy.  In fact, to me, the Republicans have become a bad joke – with leadership the likes of Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, and a slew of others who spend every waking hour hiding their personal behavior from their politcal self-righteous clamoring to a “base” which seems to be continually shrinking – the Republicans stand for nothing anymore accept maybe NOTHING (a better way, maybe to put it is that they ARE AGAINST EVERYTHING – as long as Obama “fails”).

So, faced with that as the opposition, things should be mighty EASY for the Democrats, right???  Well, not so fast – if you’ve been following the so-called health reform debate – you’ve seen the American political system as it’s seemed to have evolved into almost a total embarrassment of special interest bribery.  I don’t know any other way to put it.  “We the people” spent an enormous amount of energy during the last election putting the first African American (we all thought he was a “true progressive”) into the White House signalling a supposed “break” from the past.  The promise:  “The change we can believe in.”  The chant:  “Yes we can” – presumably meaning “yes we can” have “the change we can believe in.”  Additionally, we worked double time to put a supposedly “filibuster proof” majority into the Senate on top of a huge majority of Democrats in the House.  It was all in place: health care reform, energy reform, the cleaning up of the Justice Department, the clean-up of the mess left behind by Bush/Cheney in all areas – including investigations of the illegal activity ensuring that their “stuff” would NEVER  again happen in America, and a “New” New Deal to jump start the economy which had been laid to waist in true “Herber Hoover style” by the previous Republican administration.

Funny thing happened on the way to the Legislative session:  Lobbyists!  Yes, Lobbyists were one of the “issues” we were “promised” would be cleaned up.  Well, at $1.5 MILLION PER DAY to defeat the health care legislation – the lobbyist cleanup is evidently on hold.  The result: well, the so-called health care reform (while evidently doing some reforming) will – unless changed drastically in the Senate-House conference (which isn’t even guaranteed to happen) – provide 30+ MILLION NEW CUSTOMERS to the very companies who are supposed to be reformed.  As the bill has moved closer to passage, the stocks of the companies who supposedly “oppose” this “reform” have increased over 30% in just the past couple of months!  That tells you how much they and their shareholders fear the “reform.”  Additionally, and I don’t believe many working “stiffs” in America understand this “benefit” – but, if you’re getting employer based health benefits, they are soon to be taxed to pay for this “reform.”  (the Senate and our “progressive” President just cant’ bring themselves to reverse the “Bush Taxcuts” on the “rich”)  I’m guessing my “benefit” from this “reform” will be a net increase of around $100/month over the $1300/month I’m already paying for insurance for myself and my wife.  So much for the “public option” which was going to give me the opportunity to “choose” a government run health plan which would be similar to medicare and have 30% less administrative costs compared to the private plans on the market – our congressional leaders couldn’t allow that to happen because this “public option” might REALLY COMPETE with the private insurers who are ripping Americans off to the tune of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS PER YEAR – and paying out the above mentioned $1.5 MILLION PER DAY – and, it shouldn’t take a brain scientist to figure out who’s benefitting from all the money!

In fact, that gets me back to my original thought.  My brother in law lives in Pittsburgh – I live on the West Coast – and he shared a thought from one of his friends with me that really put all my “searching” for the “grasp” on my thoughts I mentioned above into some clarity.  I really wish I could take credit for this – BUT I THINK IT IS RIGHT ON AND SHOULD BE MANDATORY  POLICY IN DC!  Congresspersons (both in the House and the Senate) should have to wear jackets or blazers when they are in ANY PUBLIC SETTING that have logos/labels sewn/ironed on them showing their “sponsors.”  That is, when they accept money from corporations they would have to put an acknowledgement of that on their jacket/blazer and wear it to work – therefore looking somewhat like outerwear NASCAR drivers perform in during races.  For example, Joe Lieberman would need a large moniker of Aetna on the back (or front – his or their? choice) of his jacket showing that they are one of his “sponsors.”  Max Baucus would have to have small monikers in order for all of them to fit on one jacket.  I suppose if they had too many “sponsors” they could be allowed to wear hats while Congress was in session.  Therefore, there would be no misunderstanding where their allegiances would lie during the legislative process.

Wouldn’t it be great to see a bunch of Republicans walking around with NRA stickers all over their coats, Tobacco company stickers, stickers for the corporations who have received all the no-bid contracts in Iraq and Afganistan, and stickers for the Wall Street banks they keep complaining about getting “bailed out.”  And, of course, the Democrats would have a lot less to lie about as they were explaining how the “Senate rules” were keeping them from passing this vital legislation in a way that actually benefitted the American people.  Somehow, I have the feeling that many of the members of the White House (yes, they’d be included in this plan) would have a lot of stickers representing “sponsorship” from Wall Street bankers along with big “Pharma,” and many of the large health insurance companies who are going to be “forced” to take on all these new customers.  And, what a contrast it would be to see both the Republican members of Congress and the Democratic members of Congress wearing the same stickers.  Maybe the size of the sticker could tell how “big” a “sponsor” each company was for each different Congressperson.

This would sure make for a colorful sight back in DC, wouldn’t it?  I wonder if there would be anyone without any stickers?  That would be really interesting.  When President Obama won the White House he promised, among other things, transparency.  I’ve been feeling that was “just another broken promise,” but, wouldn’t this be the perfect way to fix that problem?  To be honest, I’m really getting tired of trying to figure out why different representatives of the people continue to vote against the interests of the people.  I suppose most of them would say that “we the people” don’t know what’s best for us – politics are way too complicated and we need to just trust them to do the “right thing.”  I really wanted to believe that we were on that course when President Obama was elected.  However, right from the start, it’s been clear that “the change we can believe in” really meant more of the same – just a different party in control.  In fact, it almost appears to me that the Democrats would rather be in the minority.  There’s a lot less responsibility in the minority – it’s a lot easier to blame the opponents for everything that’s gone wrong when you’re in the minority.  They probably felt secure when this session started because the Bush administration had screwed things up so bad, that they could continue blaming them almost indefinitely for our problems.

The problem with that is the Democrats have managed to show their true – I don’t know if it’s dysfunctionality or lack of fortitude – colors during a time when America needs strong courageous leadership.  In my view, up to this point, we have seen neither from the Dems.  And, my brother in law’s friend has come up with the best way I’ve heard yet to publicize the problem.  I’ve long ago written off the Republicans.  They’ve continued to marginalize themselves since – well, really since the American public finally showed that they’d had enough with Bush/Cheney in the 2006 Congressional races.  I just haven’t been able to put a finger on why it bothers me so that the Democrats are in “control” – well, let’s take a closer look sequentially from 2006 – they not only didn’t end the war in Iraq, they voted for the “surge” (which many still are claiming was a success – but, I would point out that over 1500 Americans have died in Iraq since the “surge,” we are still “stuck” there while the Iraq’s political problems continue as they had pre-surge – it just put off the inevitable unless we keep a presence there for another 10 – 20 years! ughhh), Nancy Pelosi “took impeachment off the table” inexplicably (I didn’t even know that Congress could do that – either the administration committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” or they didn’t), the Democratic Congress enabled the illegal wiretapping of Bush/Cheney/ATT&T/Verizon by passing a watered down FISA bill, and they didn’t even question the motives of Hank Paulsen (former CEO of Goldman Sachs) as he bailed out Goldman Sachs and his other “buddies” on Wall Street after the Republican induced economic “meltdown of 2008” with $700 BILLION of taxpayer money. (I could go on – but, that should be enough for their first two years “in control”)

That’s before President Obama took over.  Since:  an undersized “stimulus package” which did some good, but didn’t do enough (even close) to stall the massive loss of jobs initiated by the Bush economic fiasco, refusal to investigate (and prosecute where warranted) the heinous illegal activities of the Bush/Cheney reign of terror on our Constitution, still refusing to bring the troops home the voters voted to bring home in 2006 (in fact, Obama is ramping up Afganistan while planning to leave 50-75,000 “non-combat” troops in Iraq WAY PAST THE PROMISED 16 MONTH DEADLINE TO BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME), the Obama Justice department is defending the Bush illegal activities in court (including use of “state’s secrets”) while, as of this writing, still not doing ANYTHING overtly to correct abuses that occurred during the Bush years (ie – the ousted Attorney’s General by Karl Rove for pure political purposes – they (the ousted prosecutors) weren’t willing to abusively go after Democrats for political reasons – or were prosecuting Republicans ie – Carol Lam in San Diego who prosecuted Duke Cunningham and was hot on the trail of Congressman Jerry Lewis when she was dismissed (Lewis was never indicted – he was implicated in massive defense contractor “kickbacks”) – or the obscene prosecution of Alabama’s Democratic governor Donald Siegelman), and I could go on there as well.  (seems like a lot of “I could go on’s these days regarding incompetent governing)

The great success which will be the reason given for all of these “shortcomings” will be the “historic” health care reform.  Personally, I don’t think the American public – which the leaders in Washington DC obviously think are pretty much STUPID (actually, as I’ve recently written, I’ve been indirectly called “stupid” by Randi Rhodes – who is now acting as President Obama’s “mouthpiece” to the so-called “progressive base” – she is claiming that “we the people” don’t understand how the process works.  Well, my response to that is I think I do understand how the process works – AND THAT IS WHAT I/WE THOUGHT WAS GOING TO BE CHANGED when we voted for the “change we could believe in.”)  I know that I didn’t consider doing the same things the same way as the “change I could believe in.”  President Obama (and Rhodes) would have me – and the other “stupid” progressives – believe that there was no other alternative but to accept this WATERED DOWN health care reform bill which will make the insurance companies that much more powerful in the future.  I sincerely hope they’re right when they claim that this is just a “first step” and that it will all come together in the next 5 – 10 – maybe 20 years – but, I’m not too confident about the immediate future and, if this all backfires on them, I think they will be the ones who are considered “stupid.”  If they’re wrong we could conceivably end up reliving the “Bush years” which will be more than I can tolerate.  My brother in law’s friend has the best idea I’ve heard yet for the “change I could believe in” and that would be: Let’s put monikers on the outerwear of all Congresspeople advertising their “sponsors” to help us better understand their voting records!  That would give “we the people” a much better idea of why we are “stupid” when we want legislation which actually solves problems.  My guess is that our Congressional leaders would have to have different jackets for each bill, because there wouldn’t be enough room for all the “sponsors” on one garment! (ie – health care “sponsors for health care legislation, energy sponsors for energy legislation, etc.)

CLARIFICATION: Actually, my brother in law heard Robin Williams on an HBO broadcast make the suggestion about the “sponsors” – no matter where it came from, I thought it was a great idea!