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Promises, Promises
Holding politicians accountable
By Dorothy Anne Seese
[email protected]
This is all speculation, but it would be interesting to see how much
national conventions and campaign promises, speeches and vows would change if
the candidates had to remain accountable for their words or face indictments for
misleading the public, lying to entice voters and possible impeachments for
failure to make good on their words after taking office.
The reason there are no such accountability factors is that the public in
general has, during my lifetime, always considered such promises as B.S. rather
than a candidate's word of honor, and that's a huge mistake in a nation where
liberty is/was at stake. Just how much liberty remains is very
problematical, since those who challenge the government for liberty's sake are
removed as nuisance factors. Some meet with sudden calamities that aren't easy
to investigate since they are labeled "accidents." Then there
are those who will face up to the government and wind up behind bars on trumped
up charges.
What should be obvious to everyone of every party as well as those who refuse
any party affiliation is this: all the candidates are able to give us the
founders' vision of America as a land of liberty along with a litany of other
things that our nation should be. Then why isn't it? Because
everyone has their own special interests plus all the other special interest
groups to deal with, and no one is going to say something like that in public if
they hope to enjoy a normal longevity. No candidate is going to stand in a
convention hall and state openly that they intend to make America a part of the
global village, or that we're going to continue to play oil games with the Arabs
whether they kick our national behinds or not. We might hear criticism of
how the present administration has alienated our former allies, but nothing
about how our former allies were paid off for being such good allies.
Politics is plain crooked, always has been and always will be. It is
possible to get men and women of wisdom and integrity interested, but seldom
elected, and if elected, they are stonewalled from making any dent in the status
quo or the overall agenda.
America was indeed designed by the founders to be a free country, but once we
ran out of founders for the presidency and other high offices, the scoundrels
marched in, took over, and built themselves little empires in public residences
and offices. Capitol Hill and the White House are monuments to good
intentions and proof that such intentions are indeed the highway to Hell.
Adv:
What
does the government know about you?
The common understanding of the word "progress" doesn't have much
of an application in political arenas. To average people, better homes,
appliances, automobiles and communications are tributes to progress. To
the politician, winning the next election by fooling enough voters into making
the same mistake again is progress. So there is a breach in the lexicon of the
public and that of the politician, one that the politician crosses only long
enough to secure the votes to return to office. Whenever one stands up at
a political convention and brags that they've been in office two to four
decades, we know such person has mastered the art of manipulating the political
machine and fooling the public. That person should be investigated for
misconduct, malfeasance of office and quite probably tossed out on the street
instead of being returned to draw more public funds as a salary for mastering
the art of deception.
Term limits have been proposed as a way of preventing the constant return of
the same old crooks, but the politicians know how to bring up surrogates to
continue the program if they happen to lose an election. New members of Congress
are carefully scrutinized to see if they fit the program, or are free thinkers.
No free thinkers will get into the inner circles and most are dropped at the
next election for having breached the protocol of the brotherhood of the
dishonest. Honesty with the public simply isn't appreciated in high
places.
The only honesty one sees at political conventions is that the candidates
honestly want to get elected. Beyond that, honesty is whatever the traffic
will allow.
The presentation of America as a moral people, twenty-first century Puritans
in modern dress, is absurd beyond belief. The morals of this nation are
splattered all over the media, from Hollywood films to soap operas to reality
television shows. Morals? It would take a catastrophe followed by a
genuine revival to put this nation back on a moral base comparable to the first
hundred and thirty years of national existence, counting from 1789 to 1919.
After World War I, morality plunged as the nation entered the Roaring Twenties,
prohibition, speakeasies, and on into the age of women's liberation, liberal
churches, no-fault divorce, and sexual freedom.
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Please note that at the same time the nation was going to Hell via the fast
track down, government was growing exponentially with social welfare programs
and the family unit was being torn apart by materialism, federal education and
more open political expressions of approval of the one world order, as long as
this order is dictated by major US and European bankers and military/industrial
giants. We only dislike the Germans and the French who grow grapes or make
autos, not the bankers who loan us money. After all, politics shares the same
bed with many harlots of world power.
There's a lot of clever speechwriting presented at these circus conventions,
all of it put together by some writers that the average public never sees or
hears until they get a new job somewhere else, write a book and spill some of
the beans. The speechwriters and the candidates know what the people want
to hear, what stirs their emotions, what draws tears and laughter, so that's
what they present on the great convention stages. Those watching via
television need not get enthused that something has changed. This same
thing has been going on for decades, and the only thing that changes is that the
American people have less true liberty and more license to engage in unseemly
behavior.
Capturing the youth vote is essential to any party, and easier to do by
promises that will never be kept. Youth has an enthusiasm equaled only by
inexperience, so they are eager to change the world and believe that it can be
done though political systems. It's the old people, those of us who once
thought we could make a difference in the world and found out we didn't count at
all, who see through the rhetoric. Then there are the diehard party
faithful whose loyalty is borderline insanity, they'll believe anything.
Every candidate wants to sway the so-called "swing" voters, those who
are apt to be thinking. Sadly, there isn't much left about which to think,
other than how to find a place where one can't be found!
An off-year for presidential elections, which is two years down the road from
the presidential election year, every member of the House of Representatives is
up for election again, and most of their constituents haven't an idea how they
voted or how they represented their district. Nonetheless, that year
would be a good time to hold all persons who made campaign speeches accountable
for their time in office, and how much progress they have made at keeping their
word.
If most of the people really cared, we would have had such an accountability
systems ages ago. Belief in the party overrides the good of the nation in
most instances, and no one likes to vote for a person they have to have
recalled.
By not using their power properly or demanding such reviews, the people
surrendered their power and all they have left is party loyalty.
So the campaign promises go on, and on, and on, and on ...... and on.
It's our national circus, there to amuse the American public and the world at
large.
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