Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Tom Daschle - So Long We Hardly Knew You

So Tom Daschle leaves before he starts as Obama's Secretary for Health and Human Services. Seems like not only the unpaid taxes from his free use of a buddy's limo/car service, but also some major conflicts of interest were surfacing. Seems like all these folks who have "experience" in Washington D.C. also happen to have conflicts of interest. Is it that the way of doing business is one big conflict of interest? Might be, as Mr. Daschle's wife could probably attest. Linda Hall Daschle is a registered lobbyist with the Washington firm of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz in D.C. While nothing is wrong in and of itself with someone choosing their profession and doing it legally, there seems to be problems with many of these power couple marriages. We are seeing more and more of the "oops I forgot to pay the taxes for my immigrant housekeeper or nanny" issue crop up. I think it points to a level of elitism and privilege that these folks become oblivious to and at some point take for granted. We as constituents have to decide what type of government we want. We can't afford to be lazy and let arrangements that serve the rich and powerful ONLY, be set up on our watch. Democracy is messy and takes effort. It's not enough to just vote once every two or four years. Taking and making the effort to stay informed, to write your elected representative at whatever level you need to and to stay educated on the issues is imperative for all of us. It's much too easy for us to end of with the type of fascist government we just suffered through for the last eight years. We must say "Never Again". Demanding more and better ethical behavior from our elected representatives is a good start.
The bigger task is much harder as it involves overturning a Supreme Court Decision and laws written by Congress. Specifically I am talking about declaring that a Corporation is Person. This is something that was done in the late 1800's if memory serves, and needs to be changed. Corporations and the money they throw around, not to mention the influence that they have in Washington is so out of proportion to what it should be in a representative democracy, that it HAS to change. Please take time to investigate this issue. Here's a good place to start: http://www.thomhartmann.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=196&Itemid=79

Thom Hartmann is a great resource. If you listen to his radio show, he provides alot of useful and necessary information. I'll have more places to look later.

Peace,

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