In defense of Congress
In his Sunday column, Leonard Pitts Jr. reminds us that Congress did nothing while blacks in America were being lynched, Congress did nothing while Japanese-Americans were sent to detention camps in World War II, and Congress did nothing when Senator Joseph McCarthy ruined the lives of dozens of innocent Americans and their families.
Put in perspective, doing nothing about an illegal war or illegal White House eavesdropping is merely business as usual for the United States Congress. And why shouldn't it be? Congress is not an organism that sprung from the ground of Washington, but an organization that represents the American people. And the American people do not care about much of anything. The average American does not know who is in power, where the states are located, what is in the Constitution, or who is an Arab.
The average American is not concerned with the fact that he and his children are eating poisoned food and drinking poisoned water, that his daughter is not likely to earn the same amount of money as a man doing a comparable job, or that American soldiers are sexually assaulting American soldiers. The average American does not care that the toys she buys for her children were quite possibly made by people tortured for their religious beliefs, or that by ordering scrambled eggs or a hamburger, she is participating in unrelenting animal cruelty.
If Americans do not care, why should their representatives care? I say Congress is doing exactly what it was elected to do--very little of anything.
Put in perspective, doing nothing about an illegal war or illegal White House eavesdropping is merely business as usual for the United States Congress. And why shouldn't it be? Congress is not an organism that sprung from the ground of Washington, but an organization that represents the American people. And the American people do not care about much of anything. The average American does not know who is in power, where the states are located, what is in the Constitution, or who is an Arab.
The average American is not concerned with the fact that he and his children are eating poisoned food and drinking poisoned water, that his daughter is not likely to earn the same amount of money as a man doing a comparable job, or that American soldiers are sexually assaulting American soldiers. The average American does not care that the toys she buys for her children were quite possibly made by people tortured for their religious beliefs, or that by ordering scrambled eggs or a hamburger, she is participating in unrelenting animal cruelty.
If Americans do not care, why should their representatives care? I say Congress is doing exactly what it was elected to do--very little of anything.
posted by Diane at 12:20 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Diane, I despair that the Murkan Sheeple are ever going to get it en masse, because the institutions and safeguards in place to educate and inform us -- the Fairness Doctrine, the 4th Estate, a robust educational system -- have all been roundly weakened by a well-orchestrated right-wing attack, and we are only now seeing the very real effect of our complacency. The lag time is a killer. I just can't stand that so many books are going to come out in 10, 15, 20 years saying how criminal these folks were and what a loss for Murka, etc., and we're watching the ship go down now.
By
Anonymous, at
12:00 AM
The problem, as I see it, ae, is that the American people had little awareness before information was withheld from them. Theoretically, the situtation is worse, but historically, I cannot see that much difference.
By
Diane, at
10:06 AM
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