Monkey In The Middle

I had two brothers who, in general, never came together on anything.  One was a sweet, innately loving soul the other was a vicious sociopathic bully.  The one thing that built the bridge between them was the opportunity to terrorize their three younger sisters.  Their favorite game? Monkey in the middle with anything of value to us.  It's not a game that the person in the middle ever wins.  It normally ends when the two perpetrators get tired and go away to reek havoc somewhere else.  The Monkey never, ever wins because brothers that are 11 and 13 years older than you will always be bigger and stronger than you.  The only hope for revenge is to wait until their children are old enough to have special attachments to dolls, balls, or teddy bears and return the favor.

Why bring this up you ask?  The whole political climate has made me feel as vulnerable as that little girl was being terrorized by the two opposites in the house.  We have the Right and the Left fighting for their values, not for the people they represent.  Instead of getting things done (the teddy bear between them) they are constantly volleying it back and forth to each other in verbal skirmishes so nothing gets done.  The teddy bear goes back and forth while the monkey (middle-of-the-road citizens) are exhausting themselves with trying to make due with their shrinking finances, the fears of loosing their job, the anxiety of trying to find a job while raising the next generation in a pseudo-economic depression. (I know they call it a recession, but that's like calling an iPad a chalk slate....they both record information...sorta).  The political pundents are more concerned with their ratings and will say just about anything to tip the scales in their favor.  Taking words out of context or adding a word to fluff up an image of intelligence, or in most cases, idiocy in order to inflame their more slack-jaw viewers arming them for their personal political rants with their friends of the other political persuasion. The media would have you believe that the majority has voted these idiots into office, but the truth is the majority of the people that vote voted these idiots into office, or they vote like me....the lesser of the evils....and then the lesser evil pulls a Jekyll/Hyde us.

The one thing that really annoys the beegeeses out of me is with all the ranting, all the railing against one another in DC, no one takes the time to suggest a fix.  Each side is cemented in their dogma of, to quote Mr. W "My way or the Highway" position.  I'm not talking just Republicans here, but Democrats as well.  If they take the time to write a comment for the press, couldn't they spend just as much time to make a suggestion for a fix so both sides can be happy....or at least less miserable.  Too much time is spent posturing to each other and the monkeys in the middle are too busy to stand up and tell them to put a sock in it and get back to work.  Which is what literally needs to be done.  If any of us spent more time on office politics than getting their job done we'd be hitting the bricks with the other millions of unemployed.  It's just that simple.  However, when you are in the service of the people, apparently office-politics is all you have to be skilled in.

So, here I am, saying that they need to come up with a solution instead of fighting between each other.  There is no difference between the ordinary (me) person and a politicians so here are my solutions for this situation....

• Every one, no matter what your political interests are, VOTE!  And vote for the ones that aren't in the extremes just because they are they are your party d'jour.  Study out the candidates and then find the one that you feel will best serve your interests.
• Set time limits on bills writing, rebuttals, votes and passings.  For example, if a need arises, a bi/tri/multi party committee is pulled together and given three months to write the best solution to the bill that is possible, taking into account all the parties idyllic ideas and then present it for rebuttal to the heads of each party, who would have six weeks to come up with changes, modifications and deletions.  Then the original committee would have three weeks to fix it, if they feel it should be fixed.  Any time spent denigrating the bill in the media is deducted from the time for that group/committee has for making adjustments.  Then after about six months bills should be able to pass through and we wouldn't have the congressional constipation that seems to keep things from passing.
• All politicians should be required to keep a wiki or a blog that explains why they voted the way they did, especially if it's against the way their constituents want.  Their constituents should have access to a voting application on that site where they can go in and cast a vote or post an opinion.
• No "extra" stuff on bills that have nothing at all to do with the bill itself so their won't be any more bribes for votes any more.  All monies need to be accounted for an posted on-line.  We have the technology people, we should be using it.
• If a politician doesn't show up to vote, they don't get paid.  If I don't work I don't get paid, why should they?  Why can't we hold them to the same work standard as the rest of the US.
• They should have to post every meeting they have with a lobbyist, special interest, the minutes from those meetings and any contributions/junkets/parties that take place.  They should be limited to how many they can see and heavy penalties to their office (their paycheck, I mean) should be levied for every infraction.

There are a few more but this should give you an idea of what can happen if we all get involved in shaping our future.  Yes, we are at almost the very bottom of our economic foundation.  Everything we have always come know and believe in in our government is either gone or in a state of flux.  This is scary, yes, but it is also a blessing.  We have the opportunity to rebuild the United States to our own ideals if we just take a small amount of time to vote, and to email our representatives and tell them what we feel they should be doing.  It's a leap of faith that we will be heard, but by not doing anything at all is only going to guarantee yourself misery.  We, the monkeys, need to rise, step out of the middle and demand what is rightfully ours!