Lou Dobbs said it succinctly about a week ago (and I paraphrase):

I can’t take anyone seriously who calls themselves a Republican or a Democrat.

And then two or three days ago Jack Cafferty anchored a special segment on CNN called “Broken Government”.  Near the end of the broadcast he suggested a different sort of voting strategy for the 2006 mid-term elections.  Essentially, he said we should all go to the polls and vote against every single incumbent who appears on the ballot, regardless of party affiliation.

I like the idea.  Kick ‘em out—every damn one of them—and send a message to the 68 senators who are fortunate enough not to be up for reelection this year.  The message would be clear: Get your shit straight!  You’ve got the rest of your term to prove yourselves worthy or you’re out, too!  It would send a similar message to the newcomers who manage to get into office by default: We didn’t vote for you.  We voted against the other guy.  You, too, have only one term to prove yourself or you’re gone just like the rest of the bums.

Some folks might fear what would happen with so many newbies in congress.  But I ask you this: Can a bunch of new congressmen possibly do any less than the members of the 109th Congress did?  Let’s be frank here; a group of kindergartners could have done as much as this congress did.  Matt Taibbi, in a recent article in Rolling Stone magazine entitled “Inside the Worst Congress Ever,” made the following observations:

In the Sixties and Seventies, Congress met an average of 162 days a year. In the Eighties and Nineties, the average went down to 139 days. This year, the second session of the 109th Congress will set the all-time record for fewest days worked by a U.S. Congress: ninety-three. That means that House members will collect their $165,000 paychecks for only three months of actual work.  …What this means is that the current Congress will not only beat but shatter the record for laziness set by the notorious “Do-Nothing” Congress of 1948, which met for a combined 252 days between the House and the Senate. This Congress—the Do-Even-Less Congress—met for 218 days, just over half a year, between the House and the Senate combined.  (Emphasis added by the author.  Read the article here, it’s well-written, funny and, at times, profane.)

Some of the issues that went completely, or nearly completely, untouched during this past session are immigration reform, the minimum wage, universal health insurance, the trade deficit, the budget deficit, gas prices, social security, education, the outsourcing of American jobs, and retirement security.  I ask you: If you exclude all of the above, what in God’s name is left that everyday Americans give a shit about?

Oh, yeah.  The “Torture Bill” (Military Commissions Act of 2006).  I forgot that one.  Taibbi describes it as:

[A] law even Stalin would admire, one that throws habeas corpus in the trash, legalizes a vast array of savage interrogation techniques and generally turns the president of the United States into a kind of turbocharged Yoruba witch doctor, with nearly unlimited snatching powers.  The bill is a fall-from-Eden moment in American history, a potentially disastrous step toward authoritarianism…

Now I, for one, am not terribly worried about suspending habeas corpus in the case of known terrorists, especially ones who have killed innocent Americans.  But like John McCain, I see some wisdom in sticking with our long, honored American tradition of treating wartime detainees with a certain amount of discretion and self-restraint (the old “do unto others” notion, as it were).

At any rate, the Military Commissions Act is an example of the type of legislative fare this Republican-controlled rubberstamp congress seems more than eager to sink its teeth into.  (A type of legislation that bears virtually no relevance to the lives of ordinary working Americans.)  But before you think I’m picking on the GOP alone, you should note that the Military Commissions Act passed by a vote of 253-168 in the House, which means that a number of Democrats broke ranks on the vote (34 of them to be exact).  12 Democrats crossed lines in the senate vote, too.  So….

So back to the topic at hand.  I think it’s time for normal Americans to take their government back.  I think we should all register as independents and refuse to associate ourselves with any party that has taken the time—and spent the money—to build a formal organizational structure and formulate any sort of lock-step, loony tune political agenda.  I think we should act like adults and read newspapers, magazines and books.  We should watch the news as much as possible to learn as much as we can about domestic and world events.  We should form our own opinions about political issues instead of lazily aligning ourselves with some prepackaged tripe that spews forth from a partisan propaganda machine…or that spews forth from the mouths of our fathers.  In 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to a certain Colonel Edward Carrington.  In the letter he said:

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.  But I should mean that every man should receive those papers, and be capable of reading them.

I agree with Lou Dobbs.

Technorati Tags: Jack Cafferty, CNN, Broken Government, mid-term elections, 109th Congress, Matt Taibbi, immigration reform, minimum wage, universal health insurance, trade deficit, budget deficit, gas prices, social security, education, outsourcing, retirement security, Military Commissions Act, habeas corpus, John McCain, rubberstamp, GOP, Lou Dobbs

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