A couple of action-packed weeks ago, I sat, enthralled, following every power-to-the- people moment of the protesting that eventually led to the stepping down of now former Egyptian President Mubarak. I would toggle between political commentaries, personal accounts, uninformative White House press releases and Al Jazeera’s live feed and comment aloud to my husband, or whoever else was in the mood for one of my soapbox rants.
I had never really devoted any thought to international politics, really, ever in my life. I just supposed I was a small working class gal living in a small working class town with my small, cozy working class family. Surely, I had my own life about which to worry. Plus, it seemed rather burdensome to keep straight in my head all the names of all the countries and all their respective leaders and geographical locations in the midst of formulating my own grocery lists other such critical factoids that kept my family fed and healthy and happy. Then, the economy tanked and it was like I woke up and discovered that neither my own little world, or the great big global society was ever or will ever be flat. It’s round and we are connected!
For the longest time, I lived in a happy, little isolationist world where as long as I focused on my little problems and ignored the big problems of elsewhere, they could not possibly affect me. Why worry about there when we have so many problems here? And then, like a flash of lighting, the protests in Egypt happened by way of an impressive use of the modern technology of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. The protests were organized and unceasing, massive and determined. For what were they fighting?
I had grown rather accustomed to religious battles in the Middle East and surrounding regions, which was actually probably the source of my apathy, but this unrest was different. It was the middle class, the middle class that had actually become poor because of the government and their lack of empathy for the plight of the proletariat- for their own constituents. This fight, however, was against an elected “President” that had been in office for thirty odd years. It was against a government that had, for thirty years, made little progress in anything economically, but making the poor poorer and the small percentage of the wealthy, wealthier.
Of course we, in the United States, elect our President every four years. It’s done through a democratic republic process where we cast a confidential ballot in order to choose the person best qualified for the job. At least, that’s how it is on paper. Can someone working in a blue collar job, making $30K/ year and supporting a family of four run for President? Absolutely. Anyone, barring felonies and the like, can run for office (well, the President has to be at least 35 years old.) The Kevin Kline movie, Dave is categorized as a comedy about a Presidential doppelganger who finds himself in the most powerful seat in the most powerful office in the United States. He normally runs a temp agency, in other words, he actually finds sustainable employment for those that don’t have jobs. In, arguably, the best part of the movie, he gets together with his regular Joe best friend, a run of the mill accountant, and trims the budget to find a way to save a children’s homeless shelter. The movie reminds us that regular people built this government and there’s nothing wrong with a regular person running it. We don’t need to belong to a special club with special rules (like the Democrats or Republicans or Tea Partiers.) Those clubs, with their players, have not helped anyone other than themselves.
Has any candidate in the last 30 years balanced the budget? Has any candidate in the last 30 years fixed our environmental woes, increased the effectiveness of our educational system or our healthcare system or product/ drug safety? Has anyone of our “honorable” representatives, the representatives that are supposed to work for us, really done anything aside from pushing papers, dressing in fancy suits and crying while reading the Constitution? Has anything gotten better?
I am really starting to think that the last United States President that actually cared about the working/ middle class was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And that, folks, puts us WAY past the thirty year mark with which Egypt is dealing. Maybe he only cared to get re-elected, maybe not, but he did CARE and he took actions to acknowledge that fact.
From the time FDR left office, we have been inching towards the very lack of representation in government that caused a revolution for the colonists in the 1700’s. Take a walk down the street. Ask passersby. Or simply reflect on your own. When is the last time you actually felt represented by someone who actually understood your plight in the middle class? When’s the last time we elected someone to represent us that really was from the middle class. When’s the last time we had someone in office that knew what it meant to put off buying a new pair of jeans so that a utilities bill could be paid?
So then, the real question is, how do we, the common folk, take back our government? Is there a way to do it without violence? The Egyptians have been tying for peaceful change for 30 years. They have been working hard, trying to make the best of what choices their President had made for them. And where are they now?
Monday, February 28, 2011
Saturday, February 5, 2011
A Government for the (Middle Class) People
As I write this, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has finally decided, after thirty years in office, he no longer “wants” to president. This declaration was made after more than a week of protests, riots and all around civil unrest. He is not stepping down just yet, however, because he thinks that, if he does, Eqypt will erupt into chaos. Dictionary.com’s number one definition of chaos is: a state of utter confusion or disorder; a total lack of organization or order. One would imagine that twelve days, and counting, of thousands of protesters, amassing in the streets, eluding both police and military forces, fighting, starting fires, with an economy at a standstill, would qualify as chaos.
When the founding fathers of the United States’ Constitution established what was basically a list of rules defining this experiment in a democratic republic and the people governing themselves, they did their best to establish a system by which a regular, middle class person had as much representation in government as the richest person in the country and also the poorest person in the country.
So, Farmer Joe gets elected to represent his district in Congress. While he is gone on his trip to Washington D.C., the rest of his farmer neighbors pitch in to take care of his farm. Farmer (Representative) Joe’s travel expenses are paid for by the people he represents. When he is done with all the meetings and the voting, he comes back home and resumes making his living as a farmer. What’s interesting, is that he doesn’t draw a salary from being a representative and he doesn’t have a healthcare plan. He doesn’t have a special vehicle that is used only for government work, he doesn’t have a second home that’s paid for by the people that voted for him. His constituents- the grocer, the apothecary, the baker, the blacksmith- they would never vote for someone who would cost them a salary plus a home plus a car plus a pension plus a healthcare plan because they know that they, first of all, can’t afford those luxuries for themselves, and secondly, cannot afford to buy them for anyone else. How can anyone adequately empathize with their constituents if they haven’t fought the same fight and overcome similar struggles?
How do our representatives today empathize with our plights when , according to MyBudget360.com, the average median household income in the United States is $46, 326 and the median salary for a United States Congressional representative is $174, 000, according to Payscale.com? In 2008, the amount of Americans without healthcare rose to 47 million, while everyone in Congress that has been chosen to represent these Americans has top notch coverage.
A Congressional representative can expect to be in session roughly 130 days per year (Yahoo) or maybe about three days per week, while the average American who can still afford to live on paychecks from only one job, works five days per week and, according to recent studies, and an average of 50 hours per week.
Congressional representatives must be in office 5 years to receive a pension, yet, in order for the average worker to receive a pension, if there is even one available, means that they must work for 25 years, which is pretty difficult when, in this economy, the average worker is expected to change, not just jobs, but full fledged industries an average of eight times in the course of their lives.
Now, as per the Constitution, with minimal restrictions, any citizen can run for political office. In reality however, since a typical successful bid for a seat in Congress CAN cost as much as $2million dollars, the odds clearly favor an incumbent who has been making at least $174,000 and not the average worker making twenty six percent of that amount. So, if YOU make $174k every year, you will most certainly have adequate representation in Congress that’s gung ho on protecting your interests. If not? Certainly since they promised to make the best choices for you, you should just sit back and believe them.
OR- What IF we leveled the playing field a bit? What if the representation of the people STOPPED being about second vehicles and posh DC apartments nestled in gate communities into which homeless beggars fear to tread and started being about serving the people?
Well, there’s always campaign finance reform. Yes, lets give Congress something else over which to fight. In fact, if we are lucky, maybe they can discuss it so whole-heartedly that they wriggle some over-time pay out of it. Is anyone that’s already spent $2 million (Washington Post) on a campaign to GET their seat going to make it possible for someone else to usurp their power for less than that price tag? Not likely, but they’re sure to put on a good show about it.
A feasible alternative? Term limits and limit the amount of terms to, drum roll….ONE! I am actually “borrowing” this idea from a friend who ran against a long time incumbent in the Congressional Primaries in North Eastern PA. Mr. Brian W. Kelly ran on working class principles and told voters that, IF he was elected, he would remain in office for one, and only one, term. He would work to the best of his ability, for the length of that term and then retire from office.
Had Mr. Kelly actually been elected to represent the people of North Eastern Pennsylvania for one term in the House of Representatives, he most likely would not have caused any HARM to the people, but, as good as his intentions may have been, he would certainly not do much good either. He would have been a “freshman” representative, with little clout and he would have had to play with the big boys and girls or, for all intents and purposes, stand by and watch the action. That does not mean it’s not a good idea.
What if EVERY politician was magically changed into a PUBLIC SERVANT? What if each person that ran for office had ONE term to get their agendas accomplished before returning to the private sector? As far as private sector jobs go, we could treat it similar to a military deployment in that employers could not replace the newly elected representative while they were in office, so as to not eliminate a legitimate way of earning money. How could we possibly transition from a society of career politicians to a society with a bunch of government newbies? Well, the current ones in office could always agree to it (pausing here for a moment of uproarious laughter, allowing you, the reader, to reclaim the seat off of which you fell,) OR we could unite as a country, ignore all the hype of the political advertisements, and simply vote anti-incumbent enough so that all the incumbents are removed from office. This transition would take slightly less than six years to complete, but in reality, when’s the last time any initiative that is good for the common person has taken LESS than six years to actually enact?
What good can COME from a whole Congress full of freshmen (and woman?) What good has come of the current Congress, honestly? A Congress full of representatives that are quite aware that they only have a limited time with which to exact change is a Congress that is going to be more motivated to actually WORK at resolving conflicts. Do we want representatives in office that only care about their own paycheck, healthcare and managing to achieve that 5 year mark for a government pension? Or, do we want to know that the people that take the Oath of Office do so because they actually WANT a better tomorrow for the people the represent?
Ensuring that every representative in Congress only gets one term would mean that no one would be getting a government pension. Imagine trying to quantify THOSE savings: http://www.fa-ir.org/alabama/corrupt/Congressional%20Retirement%20Benefits.htm. Robert Walker’s $4.2 million could feed over 450 families of four, moderately, for a full year (771.10 multiplied by 12=9,253.30, THEN 4.2 million divided by 9253.30= 453.89) (USDA 2008 Data) to put it all into perspective.
Not only THAT, but certainly, people running for a single term in office are not going to want to spend so much money on getting a temp job like serving the public. Police officers serve the public, you don’t see them advertising their abilities for the position. And since they don’t want to go all hog wild on elaborate campaign schemes, they probably aren’t really going to care about any bribes from big business or power plays by lobbyists.
So in essence, aside from retrieving a salary that should be commensurate with the median salary of their constituents, these representatives would be representing out of obligation to and pride for their fellow countrymen (and women.)
Wow! What a concept! Sure wish someone came up with THAT idea a loooong time ago!
When the founding fathers of the United States’ Constitution established what was basically a list of rules defining this experiment in a democratic republic and the people governing themselves, they did their best to establish a system by which a regular, middle class person had as much representation in government as the richest person in the country and also the poorest person in the country.
So, Farmer Joe gets elected to represent his district in Congress. While he is gone on his trip to Washington D.C., the rest of his farmer neighbors pitch in to take care of his farm. Farmer (Representative) Joe’s travel expenses are paid for by the people he represents. When he is done with all the meetings and the voting, he comes back home and resumes making his living as a farmer. What’s interesting, is that he doesn’t draw a salary from being a representative and he doesn’t have a healthcare plan. He doesn’t have a special vehicle that is used only for government work, he doesn’t have a second home that’s paid for by the people that voted for him. His constituents- the grocer, the apothecary, the baker, the blacksmith- they would never vote for someone who would cost them a salary plus a home plus a car plus a pension plus a healthcare plan because they know that they, first of all, can’t afford those luxuries for themselves, and secondly, cannot afford to buy them for anyone else. How can anyone adequately empathize with their constituents if they haven’t fought the same fight and overcome similar struggles?
How do our representatives today empathize with our plights when , according to MyBudget360.com, the average median household income in the United States is $46, 326 and the median salary for a United States Congressional representative is $174, 000, according to Payscale.com? In 2008, the amount of Americans without healthcare rose to 47 million, while everyone in Congress that has been chosen to represent these Americans has top notch coverage.
A Congressional representative can expect to be in session roughly 130 days per year (Yahoo) or maybe about three days per week, while the average American who can still afford to live on paychecks from only one job, works five days per week and, according to recent studies, and an average of 50 hours per week.
Congressional representatives must be in office 5 years to receive a pension, yet, in order for the average worker to receive a pension, if there is even one available, means that they must work for 25 years, which is pretty difficult when, in this economy, the average worker is expected to change, not just jobs, but full fledged industries an average of eight times in the course of their lives.
Now, as per the Constitution, with minimal restrictions, any citizen can run for political office. In reality however, since a typical successful bid for a seat in Congress CAN cost as much as $2million dollars, the odds clearly favor an incumbent who has been making at least $174,000 and not the average worker making twenty six percent of that amount. So, if YOU make $174k every year, you will most certainly have adequate representation in Congress that’s gung ho on protecting your interests. If not? Certainly since they promised to make the best choices for you, you should just sit back and believe them.
OR- What IF we leveled the playing field a bit? What if the representation of the people STOPPED being about second vehicles and posh DC apartments nestled in gate communities into which homeless beggars fear to tread and started being about serving the people?
Well, there’s always campaign finance reform. Yes, lets give Congress something else over which to fight. In fact, if we are lucky, maybe they can discuss it so whole-heartedly that they wriggle some over-time pay out of it. Is anyone that’s already spent $2 million (Washington Post) on a campaign to GET their seat going to make it possible for someone else to usurp their power for less than that price tag? Not likely, but they’re sure to put on a good show about it.
A feasible alternative? Term limits and limit the amount of terms to, drum roll….ONE! I am actually “borrowing” this idea from a friend who ran against a long time incumbent in the Congressional Primaries in North Eastern PA. Mr. Brian W. Kelly ran on working class principles and told voters that, IF he was elected, he would remain in office for one, and only one, term. He would work to the best of his ability, for the length of that term and then retire from office.
Had Mr. Kelly actually been elected to represent the people of North Eastern Pennsylvania for one term in the House of Representatives, he most likely would not have caused any HARM to the people, but, as good as his intentions may have been, he would certainly not do much good either. He would have been a “freshman” representative, with little clout and he would have had to play with the big boys and girls or, for all intents and purposes, stand by and watch the action. That does not mean it’s not a good idea.
What if EVERY politician was magically changed into a PUBLIC SERVANT? What if each person that ran for office had ONE term to get their agendas accomplished before returning to the private sector? As far as private sector jobs go, we could treat it similar to a military deployment in that employers could not replace the newly elected representative while they were in office, so as to not eliminate a legitimate way of earning money. How could we possibly transition from a society of career politicians to a society with a bunch of government newbies? Well, the current ones in office could always agree to it (pausing here for a moment of uproarious laughter, allowing you, the reader, to reclaim the seat off of which you fell,) OR we could unite as a country, ignore all the hype of the political advertisements, and simply vote anti-incumbent enough so that all the incumbents are removed from office. This transition would take slightly less than six years to complete, but in reality, when’s the last time any initiative that is good for the common person has taken LESS than six years to actually enact?
What good can COME from a whole Congress full of freshmen (and woman?) What good has come of the current Congress, honestly? A Congress full of representatives that are quite aware that they only have a limited time with which to exact change is a Congress that is going to be more motivated to actually WORK at resolving conflicts. Do we want representatives in office that only care about their own paycheck, healthcare and managing to achieve that 5 year mark for a government pension? Or, do we want to know that the people that take the Oath of Office do so because they actually WANT a better tomorrow for the people the represent?
Ensuring that every representative in Congress only gets one term would mean that no one would be getting a government pension. Imagine trying to quantify THOSE savings: http://www.fa-ir.org/alabama/corrupt/Congressional%20Retirement%20Benefits.htm. Robert Walker’s $4.2 million could feed over 450 families of four, moderately, for a full year (771.10 multiplied by 12=9,253.30, THEN 4.2 million divided by 9253.30= 453.89) (USDA 2008 Data) to put it all into perspective.
Not only THAT, but certainly, people running for a single term in office are not going to want to spend so much money on getting a temp job like serving the public. Police officers serve the public, you don’t see them advertising their abilities for the position. And since they don’t want to go all hog wild on elaborate campaign schemes, they probably aren’t really going to care about any bribes from big business or power plays by lobbyists.
So in essence, aside from retrieving a salary that should be commensurate with the median salary of their constituents, these representatives would be representing out of obligation to and pride for their fellow countrymen (and women.)
Wow! What a concept! Sure wish someone came up with THAT idea a loooong time ago!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Egypt- Can We Afford NOT to Pay Attention?
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable."--John F. Kennedy
This is a theme that we have seen throughout history- with the French Revolution, Tiananmen Square in China, and of course the United States was born from an arguably violent revolution.
Simply put, the Egyptians are protesting because they are tired of being poor and they are tired of someone else making bad decisions for them. This certainly isn’t something new or surprising, yet leaders of nations continue to oppress their own people into the point of revolution. The people revolt, a new regime takes control and then the new regime starts to oppress, then the people revolt and so on and so on….
Is this pattern actually breakable? Well, of course it is, the United States did it, in theory anyway. And now, the US can feel superior and righteous while shaking their finger at a leader, Mubarak, for allowing so many of his country’s citizens to work for substandard wages and go to bed hungry. The United States can chastise the Egyptian regime for not allowing citizens to take an active role in the decisions made by the government. The United States can criticize them for not allowing for a fluid economy where someone born into poverty can aspire to one day make millions.
Or can they? While circumstances in the United States are seemingly as far from Egypt as the miles between them, it might just be worth examining just HOW different we really are.
According to an article at TruthOut’s Web site,, “…nearly half of all Egyptians live below the poverty level.” In the United States, that amount is 14.3%, but coupled with an unemployment that has teetered around 9% for month after month after month, are these numbers as comforting as they seem? Come on! The only reason the percentage of people on unemployment doesn’t go higher, is because that’s the percentage of Americans RECEIVING unemployment benefits, not the ones who have exhausted those benefits while searching for a job that hasn’t gone to another country. Try and find any figures on that amount? And how close THEY are to not having money for groceries or heat or housing?
Update 2.04.2011- Huffington Post just published a great article documenting the almost 5 million Americans who are so far out of the work force that they are no longer counted as "unemployed." According to the HuffPost calculations, even only acknowledging HALF of the jobless that have simply given up, a 10.7% "lost jobless" plus the current official unemployment rate of 9.4%, we are looking at a whopping 20.1% (or one fifth of the working aged population in the United States.) Check out the full details at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/missing-workers-44-millio_n_818314.html?fbwall.
And what is the easiest way to ensure that United States citizens never get the idea to rise up and demand a change? Divide and conquer. Make sure that the citizens are blaming the illegal immigrants instead of the companies that sent the jobs overseas. Make sure that citizens are more concerned about the infighting occurring between the Democrats and the Republicans and the Tea Partiers than about the issues affecting them. Make everyone worry about the world ending mass animal casualties. And if all else fails, take some time, on the taxpayer’s dime, to read the Constitution of the United States.
Well, either that, or maybe just fix the problems and get back to a society that actually is for the people.
This is a theme that we have seen throughout history- with the French Revolution, Tiananmen Square in China, and of course the United States was born from an arguably violent revolution.
Simply put, the Egyptians are protesting because they are tired of being poor and they are tired of someone else making bad decisions for them. This certainly isn’t something new or surprising, yet leaders of nations continue to oppress their own people into the point of revolution. The people revolt, a new regime takes control and then the new regime starts to oppress, then the people revolt and so on and so on….
Is this pattern actually breakable? Well, of course it is, the United States did it, in theory anyway. And now, the US can feel superior and righteous while shaking their finger at a leader, Mubarak, for allowing so many of his country’s citizens to work for substandard wages and go to bed hungry. The United States can chastise the Egyptian regime for not allowing citizens to take an active role in the decisions made by the government. The United States can criticize them for not allowing for a fluid economy where someone born into poverty can aspire to one day make millions.
Or can they? While circumstances in the United States are seemingly as far from Egypt as the miles between them, it might just be worth examining just HOW different we really are.
According to an article at TruthOut’s Web site,, “…nearly half of all Egyptians live below the poverty level.” In the United States, that amount is 14.3%, but coupled with an unemployment that has teetered around 9% for month after month after month, are these numbers as comforting as they seem? Come on! The only reason the percentage of people on unemployment doesn’t go higher, is because that’s the percentage of Americans RECEIVING unemployment benefits, not the ones who have exhausted those benefits while searching for a job that hasn’t gone to another country. Try and find any figures on that amount? And how close THEY are to not having money for groceries or heat or housing?
Update 2.04.2011- Huffington Post just published a great article documenting the almost 5 million Americans who are so far out of the work force that they are no longer counted as "unemployed." According to the HuffPost calculations, even only acknowledging HALF of the jobless that have simply given up, a 10.7% "lost jobless" plus the current official unemployment rate of 9.4%, we are looking at a whopping 20.1% (or one fifth of the working aged population in the United States.) Check out the full details at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/missing-workers-44-millio_n_818314.html?fbwall.
And what is the easiest way to ensure that United States citizens never get the idea to rise up and demand a change? Divide and conquer. Make sure that the citizens are blaming the illegal immigrants instead of the companies that sent the jobs overseas. Make sure that citizens are more concerned about the infighting occurring between the Democrats and the Republicans and the Tea Partiers than about the issues affecting them. Make everyone worry about the world ending mass animal casualties. And if all else fails, take some time, on the taxpayer’s dime, to read the Constitution of the United States.
Well, either that, or maybe just fix the problems and get back to a society that actually is for the people.
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