Congress

I’m tired of Congress, which doesn’t deserve to be capitalized. What a bunch of weasels. Jeebus. I want to cut Congress’s budget in half. I don’t care who makes the cuts. One half.

What people in Congress do seldom affects them directly, and sometimes not at all. I want to change that. The discussion about health care will be authentic only when it affects all of us, not just ordinary people, but specifically all public employees, including first and foremost all present and former members of Congress and all present and former federal elected officials at all levels. If they get free health care, I want it to be the same as yours. No more sweet deals. They’re no better than anybody else. That’s what I want.

And since Congress is obviously incompetent, let’s start over with a fresh batch. Anybody who’s been a member of Congress more than two years is fired. Go home. I want to start with people who just might have a new idea, and maybe they haven’t been paid for yet.

So I was riffing on Congress when I got a whiff of jasmine calling me out in the sun for a break. Risky move.

Outside, I don’t care about Congress. I’m completely local outside, even if I’m online. Online inside, I’m in cyberspace. Online outside, I’m in the back yard. Outside, the sun is real, and Congress is a story and not a very good one at that. Being in the sun with birdsong and breeze is much more engaging for me than a story with Congress in it.

Years ago, I suggested to my boss that we have our next staff meeting outside. He laughed and said, “Oh, no! We’d never get anything done.” Could be, and I’m starting to think that whatever we can’t do outside, maybe we oughtn’t do anyway.

We pretty much evolved outside. All our buildings are fairly recent, and I think we may make better decisions outside. I do. Maybe Congress should meet outside.

Even if every registered voter in this great nation of theirs wanted the very same thing, it wouldn’t matter, because the United States is a pretend democracy. There’s a case to be made for its being a republic, a corporatocracy, an oligarchy, a plutocracy, and probably some more things I’ve never heard of, but the one thing it ain’t is a democracy.

There’s too much distance between our vote and what actually happens. Our vote is the popular vote, not the meaningful vote. You and I hardly ever vote on issues, and some people never do. We vote for a politician or the brand and hope for the best.

I want all of us to vote on everything, and if we don’t want to support something—say, the military or the state of Israel—we earmark our taxes for something else. That’s what I want, that and sunny weather; mostly sunny weather.