Job One

Congress has a lot on its plate at this particular point in history. Unemployment is at record levels. Financial Reform is pressing to prevent another melt-down due to socialized risk and privatized profit. The "stans" in central Asia are melting down into civil war. Israel is getting ready to attack Iran. Iran is building a nuclear bomb. The economy is trending toward a double dip. Deficits are soaring. The wars are degenerating into quagmires. Turkey is turning away from a secular pro-western democracy into an Islamic anti-western government.

Congress has picked this time to solidify job one--which is to get re-elected for another term. To get reelected, they need money and to get money, they need special deals for themselves.

McCain/Finegold was an ambitious bill to curb campaign contributions from special interests. The Robert's Supreme Court has gutted the bill as unconstitutional. In the recent Citizens United case, it basically announced that Corporations (as well as other special interest groups) have the same rights as citizens to free speech and that money (contributions) are a form of free speech. To counter this court decision, Congress (led in the Senate by the crafty Chuck Schumer) is about to pass a transparency law--basically, if you are going to fund an attack ad during a campaign, you have to identify who paid for the ad. This allows individuals or groups (with their new citizen-like status) to maintain their court-appointed free speech....they just cannot do it anonymously. Sounds good, does it not?

Well, they carved out exceptions for the National Rifle Association, AARP, the Sierra Club and some other very large politically-active special interests. These groups just coincidentally spend a bloody fortune on campaign ads. So, the small voices have to identify themselves while the heavy hitters can remain anonymous. With all the problems facing this country, this is where Congress is putting its legislative effort this week.

Half a century ago, George Orwell wrote a very satirical fantasy novel called Animal Farm which lampooned what occurs under communism (the bogeyman of the cold war era). In this satire, the farm animals (the proletariat) boot the farmers (the bourgeoisie) off the farm and take over. The pigs appoint themselves as leaders and quickly develop an autocratic iron-fisted rule. They boast: "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others."

It seems that the autocratic "pigs" in the Congress have adopted this quote as their own mantra. "All special interest groups are equal but some special interest groups are more equal than others." The irony is that this is happening in what is supposed to be a democratic form of government.

Congress sure is looking out for itself. When will they start looking out for the millions of their constituents who just want a job and a fighting chance at the American way of life? I am not holding my breath.