Fiddling While Rome Burns

I find it amusing (or would if so many real people were not suffering) to watch lawmakers in the United States continue to play the same old partisan games while their country tumbles towards economic disaster (or through economic disaster, more correctly). It would seem that they are all far too interested in their own personal agendas and philosophical obsessions to act in a way that protects the people who elected them (as opposed to the people who pay for them).

And this not just about the current fiasco over the proposed $700 million bailout. It has been obvious for a long time that a collapse like this was inevitable. All of our leaders, however, have been completely obsessed with political manoeuvring in order to gain or retain power. 

(as an aside, I have no better opinion of our government here in Canada – which has acted in such a secretive, cloistered manner that it is really hard to see what, if anything, it has done during its current mandate)

At what point will elected officials in both of our countries realize that they do not work for the lobbyists, corporations, and others who pay them to believe in and vote for what they are told.

They work for us – or should. They are not in office to vote their beliefs. They are not in office to vote the party line. They are not in office to vote their “conscience.” They are there to vote the way their constituents want them to. If they do not do so, they should be thrown the hell out!

(if only there were a viable alternative to the idiots we have now)