You might have tried to call Washington D.C. yesterday but the switchboard was jammed. I guarantee that you won't actually make contact if you call today either, even if they pick up. Is anyone there listening at all?
September 29, 2008. I am trying to call the Capital switchboard over and over but I can't get through. Another minute goes by. Same thing. Can't get through. If I hit redial over and over, I'll get charged 30 cents for each attempt. I have to redial the whole number to my senator's office over and over. Can't get through to my Senator today. Can't get through to my representative today.
There is either a busy signal or the voice on the line says,"sorry, all circuits are busy now." Perhaps this is good. Millions of people are calling. Are they? Or, are all circuits being jammed on purpose? Who knows? We have no reason to trust, and every reason to be suspicious. Things happening lately are enough to make you paranoid. Maybe they have just stopped caring altogether. They're too busy to care -- too busy to talk. Maybe they know they're throwing us all under the bus and are just too chickenshit to admit it.
Do you think Congress wants to hear what We the People really think? Citizens universally do not want to bail out these bastards and Congress is hearing from those constituents today. People are calling, and they're saying, "No 700-Billion-dollar bailout for Paulson's contract on the taxpayers.
Reminds me of election day 2004 when I was a poll worker. In poll-worker training, the instructor was adamant that if we experienced any problems, the ONLY phone we were allowed to use to call the Board of Elections (BOE) was this cell phone they supplied us. In her monotone drone, her assurances seemed meant to satisfy our collective anxiety. We poll-worker trainees were nervous about the busy election day coming up. New voter registrations had swelled the rolls with single mothers, students, religious conservatives and millions of new democratic voters. It was going to be crazy and we knew it. And, as expected, things did go wrong -- wildly wrong.
And, on election day, that cell phone our Franklin County BOE gave us? Turned out, it would only dial 911. We had a machine go down. Hundreds of frustrated voters dove out of the line because they had to get to work. People were voting in the wrong precinct. People were purged from the rolls and forced to vote provisionally.
I couldn't get through even when I broke the rule and tried to call the BOE on my cell phone. To hell with the stupid rule that we use their cell phone and "NO OTHER" to call if there were problems. I just kept calling. I never did get through although I tried to reach someone at the Franklin County BOE ALL DAY LONG. No one would ever wind up on the other end.
We still can't get through. Sorry, there is really no one to help you on the other end, citizen. That poll-worker training staffer from the BOE might as well have said, "Your elections have been privatized and they don't belong to you anymore, so stop trying to make them fair. Why don't you just stop trying?"
Because we can't. We must get through. Yet, there still seems no way to get through to them. They've never studied their history and they never listen to us. They just lie, misinform, deride and obfuscate. They just make us pay for their mistakes over and over.
As I write this in real time, the market is crashing because the Paulson bailout bombed in Congress. It turns out that 66 Republicans voted down the Paulson bailout. There is no doubt this bill was written by and for the very people who got us into this mess, who profited from it and who will skate as continuing attempts are made to save their butts.
The Paulson Heist bill certainly is not written to be by and for the People. The crazy news is that there were 95 democrats who voted for it, perhaps upon Steny Hoyer's prompting. Deborah Pryce (R), my congresswoman, voted for it as expected. She always votes the Bush agenda. She just doesn't get it. She just doesn't care. One can never get through to her. But of course she, like the corporate swine who are still planning to profit from the bailout are alternatively planning their golden parachute.
It is a game of Whack-a-Mole with bad legislation and deregulation. Like the Bush criminals, Pryce's term is up and now she can skate, golden parachute in hand, as she and all her colleagues in Congress rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Any possible threats, bribes or blackmails are behind Pryce. She cares not one lick if I get through to her or not. Will she pick up if I dial 911? No, none of her constituents will get through to her. She's not talking.
