The current issue of TIME Magazine features a cover story on Senator Barak Obama (D-Illinois). I couldn’t help but pick out a paragraph in the story that has to do with our discussion of powers in class:
“About halfway through the hour-long meeting, a middle-aged man stands up and says what seems to be on everyone’s mind, with appropriate passion: ‘Congress hasn’t done a damn thing this year. I’m tired of the politicians blaming each other. We should throw them all out and start over!’
‘Including me?’ the Senator asks.
A chorus of n-o-o-o-s. ‘Not you,’ the man says. ‘You’re brand new.’
The mans sentiments on what would effect change in our political system struck me. When did we become a nation when the only way to achieve something better is to find something new? I’m not trying to make any comments one way or the other about the good senator from Illinois. But I’m not sure if it is good reasoning to assume he should stay simply because he’s new. Political elections occur every two years – there are plenty of new people in Congress. But after our discussion of the powers in Wink (echoed in Linthicum’s book), I’d say there’s still an “archai” and a “thronos,” a human office or a position that holds its own seperate power. No Senator, not even Barak Obama can get away from that, no matter how good their intentions. Perhaps our goals should shift; instead of filtering in new person after new person into the same seat of power, which will render some sort of control over them, maybe we should work toward confronting the power of the system that seems to so easily take them captive.
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