Mondays suck.

Over the weekend we see a dearth of reportable, recordable information occurring because legislators and civic leaders go to the house and start sipping on a cold one. The other problem to consider is this is the day when these nimrods return to work gumming up the process and trying like the dickens to maintain their cushy jobs doing no more than talking to each other, posturing before microphones and in general being of little to no good to the people paying their exorbitant salaries.

We pay $172 Thousand for a Representative or Senator serving their first term! Really? How anybody can earn this amount of money for competing in a “beauty pageant” is beyond me. Oh damn! I remember! They get together and attach their pay to civil servants and military pay raises and inflate their salaries. They legislate their privileges and make them law. They live far and away from their constituencies in many cases. They remain out of touch with those constituencies. They do what they want, when they want and with no caring about what you want.

It’s one thing to be viewed through a jaundiced eye. It’s another to realize the jaundiced eye is the result of a debilitating disease killing a major organism. Local politics is equivalent to the organ filters and purifies the life blood of this American organism. But that organ is sick.

American government is severely stratified. It lies in layer upon layer of ignored responsibilities growing less and less effective in the governance of the people. Instead of people regularly requiring each lower level of government holding the next higher level accountable for its actions; the lower lies ignorant of its power to draw attention to the needs of the people supporting this structure.

Village, town and city government don’t hold state representative’s or senator’s feet to the fire when those representatives and senators sponsor legislation detrimental to the people though beneficial to the state and bureaucracy. Nobody stands in the septic waste and screams: “ENOUGH!”

Throughout history people have placed an inordinate amount of trust in those with honeyed tongues, glib and superficial stances on issues and persuasive rhetoric to gain control of the people may actually control the society by force of arms. Be they tribal leaders or presidents and potentates, they seek control by wresting it from the people with self-serving duplicity and chicanery.

It’s for the individuals closest to the people to draw attention to the problem. It goes beyond developing alliances may help the politician move ahead to bigger and better salaries and benefits; that politician must be the protector and bullhorn screaming the facts affecting the people lower down.

Political activism is essential in this day and age. This present presidential administration showed social media can get the voters to the polls; it can engage and energize their base to the point of electoral victory. It’s a fact a president isn’t elected by the people. He’s elected by the majority of the minority voting. And for that reason, historically the lazy and disaffected not voting are the ones propel scalawags and scurrilous hustlers into prominent office.

The responsibility of developing government and government policy is that of the people: not of those they elect. The politician trips the lever casts a vote. The citizen is the one tells the politician what lever the people want tripped. It’s like having a child. If you leave a child to do as it pleases the child will get into mischief, eat foods not good for its young system and toddle full-bore into jeopardy in the street it seeks to explore.

But, if you take the child’s hand and guide him through life, teaching and leading and influencing them until good habits and civic involvement is a responsibility and duty of service to his/her fellow citizens, you develop a leader worthy of your trust. In that person the people may know good service as opposed to self-service.

County/Parish officials need to demand town hall meetings on at least a quarterly basis to learn the will of the constituencies. The state reps and senators need to do the same. The national representatives need to accomplish greater efforts to learn the will of the people and not that of their political parties. They don’t get paid by the party: they are paid by you.

Don’t ignore them and hope for the best. Command them and lead them.

Thanks for listening.