Senate needs a lesson from NASCAR; America needs a new internal watchdog agency

By Bernie Quigley - 09/12/13 12:32 PM ET

We already have such laws, and it is possible that Congress is the bigger problem. Congress must approve such action. But as The Daily Caller reports: “The ten Senate Foreign Relations Committee members who voted to attack Syria received 83 percent more campaign contributions from defense contractors than the seven senators who voted against it, according to analysis from Maplight.org.” Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain led the pack among those in favor, they say, raking in about $176,000 from defense interests over five years.Since 1913 and the passing of the 17th Amendment, Congress has lost its key purpose: representation of the states, making America instead a nation of pseudo-tribes (Irish-Americans, gays, Newyoricans, northern New England Buddhists, vegans, Zoroastrians) each with its own lobby group. Worse, Wall Street groups (“robber barons”), defense contractors, “big New York money” and foreign interests globally. I’ve a suggestion here: Repeal the 17th Amendment. But in the interim, senators will be asked to indicate on their suits with colorful ad patches where they get their money and sponsorship, like NASCAR race car drivers do. That way we know up front what we are getting.
But beyond, it is important for our national health that we consider a new internal form or structure to counter presidential malfeasance abroad and Congress at home. The U.N. and World Court, etc., are all part of the now-receding power cycle stemming from victory in World War II. We should no longer rely on these abstractions. Victory now is almost 70 years old and these things only have an 80-year max life cycle. The world has apparently changed.
Suggested here at Pundit’s Blog on Aug. 7, 2011, America needs a “super committee of governors”:
“Before he died, the great ambassador George Kennan recommended such a group. He called it a Council of Elders. America was never intended to be a world without walls; a world of wandering tribes represented by lobbyists here and abroad with greater power than our current batch of shop-till-you-drop senators. It was intended to be a nation of places with regional representation. And in its earliest awakening, the Senate was intended to be such a watchdog. Particularly since the passing of the 17th Amendment in 1913 it has lost that function.”
We need kind of a board of trustees or a board of visitors for America held outside of Washington (Louisville? Nashville?) to keep an eye on Washington and as an internal guide to counter outmoded post-WW II “world” organizations like the U.N. and World Court. We, as Americans have no natural moral instincts outside our own turf and judge those outside our natural places only in abstractions, usually through the most ephemeral generational themes (Bono as world guide.). It is the same for those outside our borders: They see America as an abstraction, in shadow as “others.”

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/state-a-local-politics/321907-senate-needs-a-lesson-from-nascar-america-needs-a-new-internal-watchdog-agency#ixzz2f1Ejlqje
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