The New Captains


“Meet the new Boss
Same as the Old Boss”
-The Who-

If you have followed politics for any length of time then the realization that nothing ever really changes should be smacking your forehead sometime this summer. For all of the recent hoopla of “having the first woman speaker etc” and “a historical change blah blah blah” you, the most seasoned of observers, already knows that power not only corrupts, but that it merely changes who leads the corruption.

When Republicans gained control of the House and Senate in the mid 1990’s they sounded remarkably like the Democrats of this current Congress. This should send up the first red flag. When Conservatives had the ship of state they sailed it creaking leeward and back over the course of a dozen years until they crashed it on the rocks surrounded by a swirling riptide of media bias. Forget the media. Had they kept themselves clean then the stigma of dishonesty would have taken much longer to grab hold to sink them. However, like the drunken sailors that they had become with all of their arrogant glory, they ignored the minority party in a dearth of foul play. They now should castigate themselves. The American people have tossed that captain overboard. Who wants to sail on a ship piloted by Captain Hook? American’s don’t like piracy on the high seas or in their government for that matter.

While all of the fresh squeaky clean faces now occupying chairs on the legislative ship are full of vigor and potential, they should already know, (many of them are old hat at this), that the new sparkle lasts about as long as does “that new car smell” We’re already being fed the line that we’ve heard after every recent election, namely that “we are going to have the most honest majority ever”. Excuse me if I don’t join in the latest chorus of “Happy Days Are Here Again”. We’ve heard this way too many times before from both parties.

When will the American people wake up and realize that third parties and term limits are the best chance to break the stranglehold that corruption has upon the political elite? Probably never! Alas, it’s not just Congress or the government that has veered off course. The entire culture has sold its soul to turn the holy city into Sodom and Gomorrah. The reason is that we’ve taken our eyes off the prize. We have tossed faith out on its ear and replaced it by drowning in our own salivation in hot pursuit of owning things. Don’t believe it? Just check out the lines at Christmas when the next Playstation game system hits the market or chain stores offering $200 stereos for $3 during the first hours of a Black Friday sale. You might save $197 but your true character is displayed when you participate in a riot to grab something before it's sold out and simply for material possesions. What is it costing your soul?

Worse than all of that is the fact that the corruption is not limited, but is everywhere. One movie that sums it up perfectly is All the President’s Men. In the true story Robert Redford’s Character (Bob Woodward) is asked by Jason Robards (Ben Bradlee) how high up in the government the Watergate corruption and cover up goes. Redford’s answer; everyone’s involved. Like that movie’s assessment, we are all participants in the slight of hand and shenanigans threatening to sink this culture. If you partake, have conditions or an agenda then you are to blame. Denying it only suggests that you are a liar too.

New Congress, fresh start and real hope lasts about the first 100 hours! Within a year it will all look the same again. Sadly we are all corrupted.