This is an odd exercise, but Gimme Shelter and stick with it; things will start to make sense shortly…
While it is uncertain whether or not the Speaker of the House in the age of Tea Partiers Walking On The Moon actually owns a music device that plays “those MP3 things” (odds are 5 to 1 against it)… I Can’t Help But Wonder what sort of music John Boehner truly enjoys.
Music he enjoys, mind you, is very different than music he listens to – sometimes circumstances mandate he Stir It Up and attend what some coastal and urban dwellers would refer to as a “Simple Man” concert (city folk just don’t get it, I’m told), but we’re fairly certain he doesn’t dust off such vinyl selections on weekends… nor does he on any of the Countless Days Congress is on Vacation.
The music of our politicians matters, because if your elected official picks up their iPod and skips over Freddie Freeloader to start playing No Shelter … well… that shows us a thing or two about his State of Mind. We don’t have to Bend Down Low to see into that darkest minds of politicians – if we know the details of their playlists (well… how low we need to bend depends on the politician – best stay out of NYC for awhile). Understanding the music of the politician is Enough For You to understand what motivates how they might vote. My Joy would be that before being permitted inside Congress, all our politicians have mandatory music history and appreciation classes; singing and instrument lessons (right and left brain dominate instruments)… It’s Not So Far To Go from having our politicians appreciating good music to their finally having a little soul. Unfortunately, having taken some time to look at republican policy positions on government spending, job creation, infrastructure, and war… I Can See Clearly Now that republicans Don’t Know Much About History.
John Boehner’s personal playlist seems to be an awkward 80’s flashback mash-up of Kenny G. (… no… we ain’t linking to Kenny G, sorry…), up-beat musak, and easy listening boy bands. No wonder he’s having Hard Times getting anything done with his republican majority – it’s like they turn a 360 every week so long as one point in the news cycle they’re against whatever the President supports. Every Morning I wake hoping hoping for more from Congress… but alas… with the current Speaker of the House, we Can’t Stop waking up disappointed Time After Time.
Granted, Mr. John Boehner, we admit that there’s only so much you can do with a Crazy Congress to create meaningful legislation and Bring It On Home To Me, my family, and community. Indeed, not much you can do when you spend at least 1 hour a day, laying down, Comfortably Numb on a tanning bed, listening to The Kings of three chord progressions and single syllable rhymes (those would be the pollsters). You get to Relax knowing you have a packed SuperPAC, while outside of your fake Sunshine booth the Tea Party Rodeo Clowns are Burning Down The House… but you have no reason to make them Leave if the Money they bring in is still good, right?
Now, I’m the first to be compelled to give John Boehner an empathetic nod – once I, too, had to wrangle a large group of Sugar High kindergarteners riding on The Crazy Train with a Ticket To Nowhere; none of them realizing they’re stuck on a Merry Go Round – I gave up after only two hours! I walked right Out The Door and never looked back. It’s one of The Miracles of Washington, DC that this Master of Puppets – this, Cry Like A Man John Boehner – hasn’t cut the puppet strings and begged for Mercy… pleaded to the crowds that he, “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg, so please Carry Me, Ohio back home to the Promised Land!”
Honestly, Mr. Speaker, if I had your job, I would have left town A Long Time Ago… but You Probably Get That A Lot.
A problem we begin to see, however, is that John Boehner’s playlist is limited. The lyrics might change, but his Song Remains The Same – just as is the case with every other bought-and-paid-for politician oozing through the beltway whose only goal is fundraising. Only the catchy Simple Song gets measurable airplay on Top 40 radio stations (especially in locations where young men are prone to put giant flags on the back of the trucks like Pirates), so Boehner needs a lot of simple in order to raise significant capital. The rest of us have to rent a beat up old bus and go on tour… you know, Mr. Speaker, Workin’ For A Living is what the rest of us do all week long while your playlist just goes Turn, Turn, Turn, but never Turn The Page.
Like trickle down economics, John Boehner and the Republican Party are a broken record that promises to Fly Me To The Moon, but then they cut all the funding for our space program, so we can’t even get off the damn launch pad… let alone to Higher Ground to escape the flooding from rising Oceans (… unless you live in North Carolina in which case rising seas are against state law, and therefore magical like unicorns and goblins and Obama secretly creating tornadoes). I very much doubt that in our Golden Years we’ll be able say to our grandchildren that We Built This City. Especially without any Pennies From Heaven with which to do it… nor infrastructure funding from the government that built all our roads in the first place! … Again we should note the one constant characteristic of the GOP: they’re not so keen on learning from history – Everybody’s Changing and republicans only try to Stop The World from turning, rather than learn and improve. What does John Boehner’s playlist give the United States? Promises, Promises, but Money For Nothing to get anything built to improve the country. All we get is money for War. Good gawd, y’all.
Politics has become a game of ratios: dollars to promises – raise the most money by making the smallest number of political commitments. John Boehner is wicked good at The Game. Yet, How Bizarre that in Republican Party politics, the fewer commitments made for improvement, the more money small donors seem to give them (only big business requires results by means of military contracts, deregulation, and The Loophole). They make money by promising to take the country Back In Time by obstructing everything they see.
On John Boehner’s leadership political playlist we find Unbreakable stubbornness, Oppression of civil rights, and Reeling In The Years of progress made by this country since it was decided that more people should have the right to vote than just Old White Men. Let us hope democrats can win back the House in 2014 and republicans won’t Turn Back The Hands of Time.
