Stick A fork in that frog. . .he's overdone.
Dorothy Hyde's dad was a secular Jew living in Germany and married to a gentile wife. Business took the couple to England for a year. When they returned to Germany, Mr. Hyde could sense that everything had changed. His fellow Jews and decent-minded Germans (and there were such people) could rationalize that Hitler was just another unlikeable politician with a short shelf life--but not Mr. Hyde. The change in the zeitgeist was too obvious and too painful. So the couple left Germany and Dorothy was born here.
Unlike Mr. Hyde, I'm afraid we Americans are like the proverbial frog. Place the creature in a boiling cauldron--and he jumps right out. Place him in lukewarm water that comes to a slow boil, and he becomes the victim of gradualness. Before the creature reckons it's prudent to flee the pot, he be dead.
As for the day or days the music died? What about yesterday, when the senate passed the $87 billion supplemental spending package for rebuilding Iraq without benefit of roll call? How are we supposed to know who voted for or against the measure--and why? Raises a few questions, doesn't it. . .such as:
- When is the last time the senate opted for a voice vote rather than a stand-up-and-be-counted format?
- Is this a common occurrence?
- Under what circumstances does this tend to happen? Has an amount of money this large or a bill this controversial ever before provoked a voice vote? In this case, state specific book, chapter and verse.
- Will the senators' actual votes on the measure be recorded in the congressional record?
- If not, does this mean we should choose our senators strictly on the basis of party affiliation, incumbency or non-incumbency, hunch, eeney-meeney-miney-mo, or just not bother to vote?
- What is the purpose of the Congress? What is the meaning of division of powers? what is the meaning of checks and balances? What is a democracy?
- Assuming the votes won't be registered anywhere--including the Congressional Record, isn't it time for a citizen revolt of some sort?
Inquiring-albeit-uninformed citizens (i.e. me) want to know!
Senator Byrd , the only legislator to stand on the Senate floor and shout his opposition when the vote was taken, had this to say about his colleagues' collective cowardice:
The conference also stripped out my amendment to the Senate bill that would have required the General Accounting Office to conduct ongoing audits of the expenditure of taxpayer dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq. On the Senate floor, my amendment requiring such audits was adopted 97 to 0. In the House-Senate conference, it was defeated by the Senate conferees on a 15 to 14 straight-line party vote.
Senator Byrd reckons that yesterday's stealth vote for the no-strings-attached, no-oversight spending package could turn out to be a pyrrhic victory for our team (the Bush team, alas, is our team/America's team--whether we like it our not):
Moreover, we should not forget that not all victories are created equal. In 280 BC, Pyrrhus, the ruler of Epirus in Northern Greece, took his formidable armies to Italy and defeated the Romans at Heraclea, and again at Asculum in 279 BC, but suffered unbearably heavy losses. "One more such victory and I am lost," he said.
It is to Pyrrhus that we owe the term "pyrrhic victory," to describe a victory so costly as to be ruinous. This supplemental, and the policy which it supports, unfortunately, may prove to be a pyrrhic victory for the Bush administration.
The conference report before the Senate today is a flawed agreement that was produced by political imperative, not by reasoned policy considerations. This is not a good bill for our troops in Iraq. This is not a good bill for American taxpayers. This is not good policy for the United States.
Victory is not always about winning. Sometimes, victory is simply about being right. This conference report does not reflect the right policy for Iraq or the right policy for America. I oppose it and I will vote "no" on final passage.
It's understandable that people decide not to vote and feel like their vote won't make a difference (especially after Nov. 2000 when the votes of thousands of Floridians literally as well as figuratively didn't make a difference!) But it's a copout--and we can do better. We need to go back to school--learn how these institutions work, ask the necessary questions and demand the necessary answers. Then we can vote as informed voters. Dissent could be powerful--provided it's informed dissent.
4:07:53 AM 
|
