" D.C. is Real"

I watch news broadcasts from Washingtton D.C. and the place seems unreal. A place as strange to me as seeing Haiti destroyed by an earthquake or the tsunami in Japan. I live in San Diego where things like this don't happen. I know these places exist because I went to school and video usually doesn't lie. But I can't really wrap my mind around it. A congressman on the steps of the Capitol is just another suit on the steps of some building talking into a camera. The President walking around the White House lawn is just another rich man cavorting in a rich man's compound. In other words I am usually disconnected from what I am seeing.

But I write this while in Washington D.C. I walked past the White House today about the same time Obama was due to be driven back into the grounds after doing a press conference. People were lined up across the street, a street-preacher was imploring Obama to not go to Hell, and tourists were jostling to get a picture of his black limo going into the driveway. I was thinking as I stood there for a minute or two, in that this place is real. That white house over there is real, Starbucks across the street is real too. There is the Capitol Building right there. I see lights burning in the windows, someone is still working in the building. Probably just the custodians. Nevertheless, "D.C. is Real".

That leads me to this, if this place is not just some celluloid disneyland I see on t.v., if it is real why can't the people who have come here to work (Congressmen and Presidents) really use this time to get things done? Why even come to the Capitol building if you aren't going to do anything constructive. Are you there to just BS with fellow congressman, plot in an anteroom some new divisive strategy or payback for some perceived sleight? Why do that? Why not think, I came here to accomplish legislation that will help all americans and those in my district especially. Why the drama? Why the roadblocks, Why the childishness? It is especially hurtful because so many americans can honestly say their lives are worse off than 6-7 years ago and they believe they will not be getting better anytime soon.

I worry that just like I never realized that Washingtton D.C. was real, I don't think the politicians fully grasp that people outside their "D.C." world really exist. The common man is just a video clip on TV to these people. The woman evicted from her home is just an image from some far off non-existent place. I had to come here to see that this city, this government is real, and they need to leave this cocooned world and go see that people are hurting, talk to the small business owner that lost his/her business, and the family on food stamps. They have to stop being disconnected.

If they did that, if they really did, went to the streets and cities of this country they would see that economic pain is real pain; then maybe they would want to come back here and get to work to help Americans out. I hope so.