By Edwin Cooney
I like and even admire Joe Biden. He's really and truly "good folks!” Furthermore, I'm glad I voted for him and I'm likely to vote for him again. However, like millions of us "good folks,” Joseph Robinette Biden tends to be delusional at times.
First of all, “Gentleman Joe” (who turns 79 years old next Saturday) ought to be retired, spending time with his family and collecting his hard and well-earned federal pension rather than struggling with all our disagreements and complaints, no matter how legitimate.
Additionally, President Joe appears to be attempting to be a 21st Century Franklin Roosevelt, which is admirable enough, but he lacks both the personality and the political gall to be FDR. He's too straight and honest and, unfortunately, he lacks sufficient charm and that essential deviousness to pull fast moves and thus outfox opponents who think they are smarter than he is. Finally, there is his greatest disillusionment. It's a disillusionment from which millions of us suffer and that includes yours truly. Furthermore, I don't even want to abandon this disillusion. Here it is:
Don't tell Joe, but he's not really President of the United States — he only thinks he is! Despite the fact that he rightfully and lawfully holds the top executive office, there's too little that unites the fifty states. Joseph Biden is thus the “lawful” president, but one must wonder if the states are sufficiently “united” enough to guarantee political, social, and economic well-being.
From the very outset of our 1782 independence, the separate states were reluctant to contribute financially as they had promised for the upkeep of the Continental Army under General George Washington. Even after independence was official, the states quarreled with one another over territory and interstate jurisdiction. After only four years of independence (1782 through 1786), it was clear to the Congress that if the former colonies were to remain united, a stronger central or “federal” government would have to be created. Thus this came to pass in that hot Philadelphia summer of 1787 by passing a federal constitution that would elect a congress, establish an executive and a judiciary that would allow us to grow.(Although created by the Articles of Confederation Congress, the Constitutional Convention met in secret presided over by retired General George Washington who took personal care of all notes following each day's proceedings. These notes and records would remain secret until the close of the convention on September 19th, 1787.) Less than 80 years after George Washington put it all together, Abraham Lincoln had to repair it. Then approximately eighty years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt had to reconstruct our economy. Now, after another eighty years, President Biden appears to be faced with economic, political, social, environmental, and spiritual disruptions that threaten our very existence on this planet. These crises are such that millions of Americans are in denial as to their very existence. Even worse, there are some pretty influential people and organizations that insist that we don't even need government — except, of course, the kind of government that they would be in a position to control. Since the late 1960s, Texans who elected George H. W. and George W. Bush have played with the idea of exercising their right to leave the union since Texas was the only state to come into the union as an already established republic. That is why they are known as "The Lone Star State.”
What's most uncomfortable of all is the resentment as a people which we have established against one another. There are racial differences, religious differences, and political, doctrinaire, and emotional scores to settle with one another.
Sometimes I'm even glad that I'm getting old, especially while I'm listening to the national news every night!
I've always been generally optimistic. I love history and politics, and I have always enjoyed the political process. Lately, however, I feel a lump in my throat by the time each night that the national news is over. If we can't even agree on what causes the weather to do what it does without throwing punches at each other, how can we insist that we're the “United” States of America?
It's all your fault "President Joe," you're too wonderfully naive for us really sophisticated Americans!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
No comments:
Post a Comment