Yes, you’ve heard it. It’s when the King thinks his country is all about him, instead of him being for his country. Our own president, JFK, said the reverse of that in 1960 when he reminded us to ask what we could do for our country. Not for him, per se, for our country.
It should be a big red flag when potential leaders demonstrate that they’re only running for the power and once they get it, they’ll restructure the country so they can stay and impose their will on all. That’s not how democracies work. But just look at Viktor Orban in Hungary, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, Donald Trump right here at home. Orban has, and the other two are trying to take control of the military and justice systems, and the press, to wield power for its own sake.
For years I was a consultant to non-profit organizations. Sometimes they needed me for positive growth, mostly I was there because they had a problem. When that was the case I reached back to their organizational documents, their mission and, if they had one, their vision. Sometimes that required an all-out corporate retreat to determine the root cause of the problem.
I had already identified the problem, and sometimes a few staff and trustees could put their finger on it, but many didn’t know it or couldn’t face it. Getting it out in the open usually set things to right quickly. Why are we here? Are we fulfilling our mission? How can we grow, and do things better?
Sometimes the focus had shifted and they had to get back to their origins, or a certain faction had taken hold and it was distracting from the main purpose. Sometimes it was a personal matter between staff leadership. Sometimes it was wise to revisit the mission. During my tenure a mission was never changed, but visions were. For example, a theater company finds that it’s spending more time on youth activities or wants to focus on fostering new playwrights. Change the vision. As long as it gets majority support, that’s what their vision or portion thereof will be in the future and those who stay will be happy.
When it comes to politics in the good ol’ US of A, we’re in a predicament right now. I believe that the majority of Americans are in the middle and support our Constitution and the right to vote for our elected representatives. Americans have made their preferences clear on hot-button issues such as gun control, abortion and same-sex marriage, it’s just that some representatives aren’t representing us, they’re representing themselves. Some legislators think they’re not here to fix our kitchen table issues and would rather preen for TV news or hits on social media to garner small donations, than do the peoples’ work.
When George Washington was made President, it was said that we have a republic (not a kingdom), if we can keep it. It’s up to us to keep it. It’s time for us to read our well-weathered copy of the Constitution and discuss it at dinner with our kids. Then we have to do the right thing, even if it means leaving our comfortable political silos to do so.
The majority party of the House of Representatives knows what is the right to do, they just choose not to do it out of fear of their voters and of Donald Trump. If they do the right thing they could be heroes, and still may lose their seats in Congress. Small price to pay for our democracy. Plus, those powerful people always land on their feet at a law firm or think tank. They’ll make more money, too. Write a book about how ten (18, 27, whatever) Representatives saved America! Make it a coffee table book and it’ll make a great gift.
They could go out on the road. Years ago, 1984 in fact (after the book of the same name) a trio of us tried to protect the privacy of the people of one state in banking, insurance, cable tv (my area, where “interactive” was expected any day with the power to collect data) and healthcare. We were called The P-Team, for Privacy. All they need is a nifty name and they’ll be on the speaking circuit for years. Ka Ching!
I don’t want to go backwards to the 40’s and 50’s. I want to move forward using our originating documents as a source of strength and fluidity. We can do it if we all work together. Dee
Cooking with Dee 