The Games People Play or Sandbox Wars

Posted on October 17, 2013 Updated on October 17, 2013

So our elected officials – those who claim to represent us – seemed to have been playing games the entire length of the partial government shutdown while countless U.S. citizens were out of work and the economy lost $24 billion amid a cloud of uncertainty and unease.  Here are a few quotes from late in the day, October 16, 2013:

Jay Carney, White House press secretary: “There are no winners here.”  John Boehner, speaker of the House: “We fought the good fight.  We just didn’t win.”

Those comments reminded me of a Joe South song.  What follow are some snippets of the lyrics:

Oh the games people play now. Every night and every day now. Never meaning what they say now. Never saying what they mean…

And they wile away the hours in their ivory towers, till they’re covered up with flowers, in the back of a black limousine…

People walking up to you singing glory halleluiah, and they’re tryin to sock it to you, in the name of the Lord…

Look around tell me what you see.  What’s happening to you and me.  God grant me the serenity to remember who I am.  Because you’ve given up your sanity, for your pride and your vanity.  Turns you sad on humanity, and you don’t give a damn.

The biggest loss for Americans is their respect for their lawmakers.  Senator Chuck Schumer of New York agrees, “It was not America’s finest moment.”

Within a half hour of the finalization of the U.S. government deal, I received a phone call from one of the political parties, asking for a monetary donation to assure that there will be better representation of that party in Congress during the next election cycle.  I abruptly stopped the caller, “You’re asking me today of all days to give money to one of the U.S. political parties?  I’m disgusted with both parties right now, so for you to ask for my money within minutes of the U.S. funding agreement being finalized, is extremely bad timing.”  Then I hung up.

I’m ashamed of these knuckle heads for simply kicking the can down the road, instead of working together to come up with a lasting solution that will benefit their constituents – constituents who can not afford to play their silly games.

“Oh we make one another cry, break a heart then we say goodbye.  Cross our hearts and we hope to die, that the other was to blame.”  The Games People Play, by Joe South.