CBS's Bob Schieffer comments on the "Do Nothing" Congress - 18-Nov-07 - Generational Dynamics

In his weekly commentary on "Face the Nation" on Sunday, CBS news man Bob Schieffer said that Congress could only accomplish one thing, namely, doing nothing:

"Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made a speech the other day in which he bragged that even though Republicans are the minority, they had kept many bad things from happening.

Well, that's just the half of it.

With the help of the Democratic majority, they have managed to keep much of anything from happening, good or bad.

Who says there's nothing that two sides can't accomplish together? Of course there is - doing nothing.

Congress ran to the airport Friday for yet another break - they're taking two weeks this year for Thanksgiving. I wouldn't ask how many days you're taking because that would be a digression.

But my question is this: What do the following have in common?

Legislation to provide health insurance for children, education legislation, energy legislation, the farm bill, funding the Iraq war, and legislation funding all federal agencies except the Pentagon next year.

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The answer is: All of them are stalled in Congress, awaiting final action, tangled in the gridlock that the Republicans blame on the Democrats and the Democrats blame on the Republicans.

Breaking the gridlock won't be easy. After all, once Congress gets back from the Thanksgiving break, Christmas vacation will be just weeks away.

I've heard all the excuses so many times, I've stopped listening. All I know is Congress continues to bring new meaning to that old phrase: Nothing Doing."

I've written about this many times, in articles in the adjacent "Related Articles" bar. America is now being led by Boomers, people who were born after World War II. These people grew up during the 1960s "generation gap," where all they did was argue with and humiliate their parents. They never learned how to do anything but argue -- certainly not how to lead and govern.

In the 1980s, Congress accomplished a lot, because people from the GI Generation and the Silent Generation (people born during the Great Depression and WW II) were in charge.

In the 1980s, the Republicans and the Democrats cooperated with each other to change the Social Security system to make it a sounder system. After that, they cooperated again to specify new rules to control the budget deficit. Compromise was still possible in 1996, when Democratic President Bill Clinton, saying that "the era of big government is over," cooperated with the Republican congress to eliminate the welfare entitlement.

The Democrats are especially paralyzed, because they're hog-tied by the nihilistic folks over at MoveOn.org, who take so-called anti-war positions that are willfully self-destructive and destructive of the country, the party, and the individual Democrats who are forced to do MoveOn.org's bidding.

However, America is not unique in this predicament. Every country that fought WW II as a crisis war is in the same predicament, being led by people in the post-war generations that can't do anything but whine and complain.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, everyone is sitting around waiting for "something" to happen. There's no way to predict what that "something" will be -- it might be a major terrorist attack on American soil or a major military defeat elsewhere in the world, for example -- but it will be something that ends the political bickering and unifies the country. In generational theory it's called the "regeneracy," because it "regenerates" national and societal unity.

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Nov-07
CBS's Bob Schieffer comments on the "Do Nothing" Congress

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Nov-07 CBS's Bob Schieffer comments on the "Do Nothing" Congress

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 18-Nov-07
CBS's Bob Schieffer comments on the "Do Nothing" Congress