State of the Union?
As much as I try not to dig too deep into the happenings around the world, I can’t help myself. The world right now is in a weird place. Currently, the average age of the Senate is 62.9; the Congress is 57.6, making it the oldest in the history of the United States. And more and more, it feels like a new type of Great Gatsby era, and that scares me.
Reading about the Pandora Papers is not shocking but undoubtedly disturbing. LIving through a few treacherous storms in NYC and realizing that FEMA is set up to give the “FEMA backed insurance companies” (that is most of them) 25 cents on the dollar makes me so angry. It was set up that way before there was even a storm. Watching stories where we (our Government) screw our armed forces over their college debt is beyond. Seeing politics play out in the public eye over and over is painful. My cynicism radar is so high right now, and it makes me sad.
At one point, I believed in Government. It isn’t that I don’t believe that we shouldn’t pay taxes or that we shouldn’t have one larger organization overseeing our country. I want to see more innovation, including a desire to let go of the past and move into the future. That is not easy when there are a bunch of older people running the country.
The truth is, that is one of the reasons I am a huge fan of cryptocurrencies. I fully believe that the world is going down a new path. We are globally connected. Cryptocurrencies will force financial marketplaces allowing people to get rid of banks, oligarchs and put more in the hands of the world’s citizens.
My brother told me an old Jewish adage I had never heard before this past weekend. I can’t get it out of my head and keep telling it to others. Here goes.
At Rosh Hashanah, the mother cuts of both ends of the brisket before putting it in the oven to roast. Her daughter asks, “why do you cut off both ends”? Her mother says, “that is how we always do it.” Ask your Grandmother over there. The girl asks her Grandmother, “why do you cut off the brisket at both ends before roasting it in the oven”? The Grandmother says, “because that is how we have always done it.” I learned this from your Great-Grandmother. Ask her. She asks the Great-Grandmother the same question, “why do you cut off the brisket at both ends before roasting it?” She says, “When we came here during the war, we didn’t have an oven big enough to fit the brisket, so we cut it off at both ends to fit in.”
This story makes me think about the old Senate and Congress. We are living in different times, and it is time to move into the future. That means passing the spending bill that will put money back into our economy and jobs. That means getting rid of coal and oil and putting money into solar, wind, and nuclear energy. That means having EV cars. That means building homes that are carbon neutral. That means rethinking the food system and what we eat, which also impacts the world we live in. That means taking a deep dive to look at how things are done, including the voting system. Pretty sure our forefathers didn’t see the Internet coming. Representation should be equal to the population it represents.
Nothing is standard, and we can’t continue doing what we have always done. Our ovens are more significant and the times have changed.