Wasting Time on the Dock of the Bay  

If there were a teenager who knew the song to which the title alluded, I would be impressed, maybe even offer him or her a job.  

The March 13, 2008, Montebello Comet ran an article about the walkouts of the Sixties in East Los Angeles .  I felt it important to point out that any solution these days would need a very different approach, lest people waste their time.  Here is my letter to the editor, printed in the March 27 edition:  

Your feature article “Walkouts:  40 Years Later, Not Much Has Changed, Students Say” points to a problem which nobody is discussing, neither grassroots activists nor Presidential candidates.  

In 1789, according to staff at the US Capitol, we had four million Americans and one hundred fifty Members of Congress.  That was a ratio of 27,000 to 1.  The ratio is now about 680,000 to 1. 

That is emblematic of a huge problem, from Congress on down to our city council.  A democracy set up in the late eighteenth century has been unable, even with a number of amendments, to keep pace with the increase in population, the decrease in available land and resources, and the ascent of corporations.  Remember when, about fifteen years ago, the argument was being made that our education system was structured for an agrarian society which no longer prevailed?  Ditto our democracy.  

Is it a wonder why former Secretary of Labor Richard Reich, in Supercapitalism, says that our democracy must be kept separate from American corporations?  

Trying to win the good fight on the playing field of today is fighting with one hand tied behind one’s back.  It is time to change the rules of play so that they be fair.  

If you answer the multiple-choice questions below and e-mail to lessonanswers@mymontebello.com with “Lesson answers” in the subject field, you will be credited toward a “certificate of recognition in community affairs” to be awarded in 2008 by a local nonprofit organization. 

1. A Member of Congress in 1789 represented how many people compared to how many today?

(a) Four million then compared to three hundred million now.

(b) About twenty-seven thousand then compared to about six hundred eighty thousand now.  

2. What is the significance of this stark difference?

(a) Elected officials have too much to do, meaning that ideas for change, even if supported by such officials, bottleneck in Congress or the state legislature or the county board of supervisors or the city council or the school board.

(b) We spend less money on government now than we did over two hundred years ago. 

June 5, 2008