[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 131 (Monday, September 19, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                 THE ENGINE OF DISAFFECTION IN AMERICA

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I wanted to take the floor today to 
speak just for a few moments about something everyone in this Chamber 
understands very well. I have served in the Congress, now, for 14 
years. I do not think I have ever seen the public mood in the country 
quite as sour as it is right now. There are plenty of people rushing to 
the microphone, the megaphone, and the stage to say, ``Things are 
awful. Things are not working. Things are terrible in our country.'' 
And this negativism resonates with a volume that almost drowns out 
everything else.
  We have plenty of problems as a nation. And we do face plenty of 
challenges. It is also true that there are plenty of problems in our 
Congress and in our Government. Each of us confronts those problems 
when we are at home.
  But those who say that everybody who serves in government is a crook 
are wrong. Everyone I know, who serves in this Chamber, is someone who 
believes deeply in making a difference in this country's future through 
public service. Those I serve with in this Chamber are honest, strong, 
smart, articulate, and energetic in fighting for what is important to 
their States and their constituents. That is the reality. That is the 
truth.
  Yet we have developed a self-assessment in this country, about 
ourselves as a country, about our Government--which after all is only 
us, working together--that our Government does not work, that it is 
full of people who are interested only in enriching themselves, who 
advance their own interests, and who do not serve the public interest.
  Nothing could be more wrong.
  John F. Kennedy used to say that every mother kind of hoped that her 
child could grow up to be President--as long as that child did not have 
to get involved in politics. But, of course, the political system is 
the system in which we make public decisions.
  The reason I speak about this disaffection today, the engine of 
disaffection in America, is that I think representative government is a 
very fragile system. This is true because what we believe and accept in 
our own minds and hearts is much more important than the Constitution 
of the United States. That is the framework. But that framework works 
because we believe it. Many countries have constitutions with words 
just as eloquent, describing freedoms just as broad. But our 
Constitution works, as the fabric for our Government and for our 
decisionmaking, because we believe it and we respect it and we have 
faith in it.
  With the stretching and tearing in this country, I worry about what 
is happening to faith and trust. Is it hard to have faith and trust in 
government? Yes, it is. I understand that. And I understand why. 
Because the problems we face are not simple problems and not to be 
solved by simple solutions or to be answered with simple answers. They 
are deep, wrenching, gripping problems that require new, innovative, 
creative, and often very controversial solutions.
  A colleague of mine said the other day, ``I have watched for years 
the public mood swing, and it will swing in a month or 6 weeks. I know 
which way the mood is going now, but it will change.''
  I said, you do not understand the engine of disaffection in our 
country today and how relentless that engine of disaffection is. The 
engine of disaffection, given volume in the dozens of different ways by 
which we entertain ourselves, on television or on radio or in the print 
press, can hold up the flaw, any flaw in any public institutions--not 
just government, but any institution in our country--can hold it up to 
the light and ask, ``Isn't this ugly? Take a look at this. Come and 
look. This is awful. This is grotesque.''
  There is an industry, a cottage disaffection industry, developed to 
do that in this country. It is magazine shows, it is radio. It would 
suggest that these imperfections are the rule. And they are not. They 
are the exception.
  We have a country today in which we entertain ourselves with the 
negatives. I have mentioned it before on this floor. Everybody will 
recognize the word ``Bobbitt,'' or ``Buttafuoco,'' or ``Harding-
Kerrigan,'' or a whole range of things that signify some enormously 
controversial thing that we immediately gravitate to and entertain 
ourselves with.
  We want not just to be entertained; we want instantly to be 
gratified. It is the way we are. This is a country of instant pudding, 
instant Jello, Jiffy-Lube, fast food. We want things done and we want 
them now. We want the same from public policy. Is there a problem? Fix 
it right now, and fix it in a way that is simple, and fix it in a way 
that does not inconvenience me. That is the way the mood is in our 
country. And of course it simply cannot work that way.
  This country has increasingly decided to measure our progress and our 
future, and gauge who we are and where we are going, by what we consume 
rather than what we produce. If we continue to measure by that, we are 
certainly destined to injure our ability to create the jobs and 
opportunities that our people need. It is what we produce that is the 
measure of economic success and long-term economic strength, not what 
we consume. We are a people who will buy shoes made in Indonesia, 
shirts made in China, television sets made in Japan, and then we will 
wonder why we do not have any jobs for people in our neighborhoods. The 
answer would seem to me to be pretty clear.
  We do not have enough jobs because we are making other choices about 
where jobs should be located. We are saying it is fine to make trade 
agreements with people who are willing to produce shoes in another 
country for 14 cents an hour; where a pair of shoes selling for 80 
cents will be sent to the shelves in America to be bought by an 
American consumer for $80, and there is 1\1/4\ hours labor in the shoe 
that amounts to 20 cents labor in an $80 pair of shoes. The job used to 
be here, but now it is there. We wonder, where is the opportunity for 
those of us who live here.
  We prefer to borrow rather than save. That is certainly true of the 
Congress. But it is also true of the American family. It is true of the 
American corporation. Look at the rates of borrowing: Personal debt, 
corporate debt and, yes, especially public debt, Federal debt.
  We are too willing to allow a disconnection between effort and 
reward.
  What is one of the growth industries in America today? Gambling. 
Gaming, gambling, $300 billion and rising like a meteor. Gambling is a 
growth industry in America. I am not saying gambling is always wrong or 
gambling is wrong, period. I am not saying that. I am saying, however, 
when gambling becomes a growth industry and the disconnection between 
effort and reward exists, it is not just in the casinos that are 
spreading across our country, but gambling in the 1980's with junk 
bonds in the corporate suites, a disconnection between effort and 
reward; the disconnection between effort and reward on the city streets 
in America selling drugs which, interestingly enough, are called, at 
least on the streets, junk. And in the suites they were selling junk 
bonds, and on the streets they are selling junk called drugs--
disconnecting effort and reward, get rich quick. That is the problem.
  People understand the sheer terror of what is happening in this 
country: 23,000 murders; 110,000 rapes in a year; 1 million aggravated 
assaults; kids having children; kids shooting kids in our public 
schools inside the building during the school day.
  If the engine of disaffection were to analyze these things, it would 
say it is so mind-boggling to try to confront problems of this 
magnitude: A million and a half people having babies this year without 
two parents present; 800,000 to 1 million of those babies will never in 
their lifetime know who their father is. I think people start looking 
at that and say, ``I don't know how to begin to confront these issues. 
I know what is wrong. Government is off: limit terms.'' Do other simple 
things and somehow all of these challenges, all of these problems will 
be dealt with.
  But, of course, that will not be the case. These problems will 
remain. We could change all of our government overnight, and it would 
not change any of what I just described. We need, finally, to decide to 
talk to each other about public policy.
  I read on the floor one day some months ago a missive that was sent 
around by one of my colleague's PAC organizations. I will not mention 
his name, although I should. But I will not.
  He said: ``Call your opponent these names because it will help you in 
the election. Use the term sleaze, use the term traitor, use the terms 
pathetic and sick to describe your opponent.'' That is politics by 
some. That is not thoughtful discussion of public policy to try to 
figure out answers to these nagging, gripping problems.
  The reason I wanted to discuss this a bit today is everyone in this 
Chamber understands what is happening out there. People are very, very 
upset about this Government. Some of it is for very real reasons 
because we have not done as well as we should do.
  Other reasons are beyond our control. I started by saying that 
government, self-government, democracy, exists in people's minds and 
hearts. They must be willing to concede that we all cannot vote on 
every issue, so we create a system by which we place some trust and 
faith in others. That is why all of us need to understand that this 
disaffection, this relentless engine of disaffection is more than just 
troubling. We need to find a way to restore the faith of the people in 
their government.
  There was a professor once who had a student in medical school, and 
the student was always chiding the professor about the professor being 
religious. He said to the professor once: ``You know, I did my first 
autopsy on a cadaver. We dissected a cadaver today in med school, and 
you know something; we dissected every section of that cadaver and we 
didn't find a soul. No soul,'' chiding the professor about religion.
  The wise professor said: ``Well, did you dissect the eye?''
  And the student said: ``Yes.''
  The professor asked: ``Well, did you find vision?'' The professor 
asked: ``Did you dissect the brain?''
  The student said: ``Yes.''
  The professor asked: ``Did you find an idea?''
  ``Did you dissect the heart,'' he asked? ``Did you find love?''
  The point of it was, all of the things that are really critically 
important are things you cannot even very easily describe, let alone 
see, feel, or touch. And the notion of democracy, the notion of what it 
is we have in this country that has made it so successful, is something 
that we should care for. Instead, we are stretching and tearing the 
notion that holds us altogether.
  The plain fact is, if all of us as citizens and as people involved in 
government begin to think about this in a thoughtful and serious way, 
as we should, we will understand that there are certain timeless truths 
that can only be dealt with at home, in our neighborhood, in our 
community. The solutions really start with self-responsibility. Some 
things we must do together as a Government. We should not educate our 
own kids in our home. We cannot do that. We cannot each build our own 
road to the supermarket. We do some things together as government, and 
when we do those things, we should do them well and do them well to 
support the public interest in this country.
  But what we must do now, it seems to me, is all of us recognize this 
disaffection that exists, understand why it exists, and begin to see if 
we can, in one way or another, begin to repair this tearing fabric. 
Everyone in this country has a responsibility, from citizens to 
government, and that responsibility, it seems to me, is to begin 
pulling together in the same direction for the common good of this 
country.
  There are certain timeless truths. All of us know what those timeless 
truths are. You have to pay your bills, you have to save for the 
future, you have to be responsible for your own actions, you have to 
try to promote initiative and reward initiative, and you have to 
connect effort to reward. All of those kinds of things are things we 
understand and we need to find a way to embrace in public policy.
  I end as I started. I have been to Haiti. I have been to Haiti on 
hunger missions. What was interesting about going to Haiti is that 
everyone I talked to in the countryside of Haiti--do you know what 
their dream was? Their dream was to come to America. Haiti has lived 
under the yoke of repression for so long, and now they are in the grip 
of such poverty and such hopelessness and helplessness. What they see 
is a country over here that is a beacon of hope and opportunity, and 
they would love to come to America.
  We sit here day after day being so hypercritical of everything that 
is wrong and not understanding there is an enormous reservoir of good 
and wonderful things and an enormous store of opportunity in this 
country in our future. But that's true only if we decide to harness our 
initiative and our interest together and start pulling the oars 
together and getting the boat going in one direction.
  I hope in the next 4, 5 weeks, as we head toward an election, we 
could start, all of us, thinking not about how to silence criticism, 
because criticism is good for us, but how to tell all of those who buy 
into this spectator sport that they should not gravitate toward the 
complainers and the critics. We must tell people to turn from the 
cynics who say everything is wrong and who magnify the ugliness of 
imperfection. We must tell people that there is another side. Yes, let 
us confront our faults, but let us also try to find a way to advance 
our interests, to strengthen and improve what this country is and what 
this country can be.
  Madam President, I yield back my time.
  Mr. SPECTER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania.

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