Monday, August 1, 2011

The Glickman Effect


The Glickman Effect

Giant tortoises live for one hundred plus years, Red Wood Trees live hundreds of years, Cypress Trees the same. Ah, but nothing lives on like a public servant, especially the type found in the Washington D.C. environment.

Take Mr. Dan Glickman for instance. Don't know ole Dan? Well he was a lawyer from Kansas City. Dan started his career as a school board member, finally climbed his way to the US House of Representatives for sixteen years. The voters sobered up in 1995 or so and voted his ass out of office. Did ole Dan join the unemployment line like a good boy? No, next we see him raising his hand swearing to be a good Secretary of Agriculture. Dan hid there until 2001 when a new crowd of insiders took over. His replacement was another empty suit who had to have a job and had the connections to get one.

His replacement is replaced by another empty suit with a different accent but the same desire to avoid going home to get a real job. Just as a infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewriters will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare sooner or later, it is just possible that some one who knows something about Agriculture will be named to the post of Secretary of Agriculture. But don't count on it.

Government, Federal Government is now a birth right, a cozy insiders club with great benefits, insulated from the real world. Once you gain a chair, you can keep it for life, keep it warm for you son or daughter, niece or nephew. Ask Chris Dodd, any of the Kennedy's, the House and Senate are over run with members who "remember playing in the halls as a boy". Once elected, your worries are over. Suckling at the breast of the lobbyist, PAC's or National Party you really don't need those "little people" back home, only every two or six years to rubber stamp your return to Washington. If tragedy should befall you, there will always be a government post to fill while building a Rollodex for the partnership in a lobbyist firm.

I'm not picking on the "Esteemed Mr. Glickman from the great state of Kansas", he is one example of the tenacity with which the rulers cling to power. Life among the masses is a terrible nightmare.

Thus we have groomed a ruling class, the cards are stacked against the outsider unseating an incumbent so they serve on. Robert Byrd had to be pried from his wheelchair before he would give up his position. Still, in retirement, they do not go away, instead they move into other positions of power and act behind the scenes.

One happy note, if you have a neighbor that you wish you would never see again...just help elect him or her to Congress!

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