''In my father's day, you legislated for four years and campaigned for two; now it's full time,'' Bayh said this week. ''It never stops. My bottom line is that there are a lot of really good people trapped in a dysfunctional system desperately in need of reform.'' - Ohio.com
One of the main causes of the political gridlock that is gripping Washington and has brought our federal government to a screeching halt is the phenomenon of the constant campaign. Regardless of whether you win or lose moments after the election it all begins again. The problem with the constant campaign is that you basically invalidate the results of the previous election. You exchange long-term legislative initiatives for short-term political gains. Because you are always running for re-election or election to another office there is little if any incentive for compromise or accomplishing any legislative business. Bringing home pork has replaced solving complex political issues. Instead of running on any legislative record of accomplishments our congressional leaders are now campaigning on how much pork they have delivered to their districts.
As a result of this process we have sessions of congress that continue to kick the can down the road when it comes to solving major issues facing the American people. Issues like campaign reform, entitlement programs, and health-care reform continue to be discussed, debated and left to languish in session after session of congress. There may have been a time when this process was allowable in our nations past, but with the looming crisis's facing our country this attitude is no longer an option. With massive unemployment, thousands of Americans dying each year due to a lack of health-care coverage, and the corporations amassing millions of dollars of profit at the expense of middle America we no longer have the luxury of a dysfunctional government.
The main problem I have with the tea-baggers is that they have allowed themselves to be co-opted by the same interests they claim to be against. If we in America could ever get past the trivial tribal issues that continue to divide us we could remake this country into a greater vision than the founding fathers could ever have had. The problem with going back to 1776 is that we were not a land of freedom for all and so there are many folks who are not willing to go backwards to some false premise of America. There has to be a way of taking what was good with the original visions of the fore fathers and wed it to the inclusion of all Americans. We will never be able to accomplish this if we continue to hold on to the things that divide us and ignore the so many more things that unite us.
If we allow this phenomenon of constant campaigning to continue to invalidate our elections it will only give rise to the lunatic fringe and the anarchists who want to remove all government from America. We have elections for a reason and when you lose an election you do not have the option of preventing the victorious party from governing. You have the right to present your arguments and ideas but you lost for a reason. You can't have it both ways where on the one hand you laud the political process of democracy, but at the same time if the results are not to your liking you can invalidate them through obstructionism and become political opportunists. We have to get rid of this false meme that there is a rational opposition with rational grievances against the Dems and this President. If the bi-partisan commission on the budget is not proof enough of the duplicity of these Republicans then no amount of proof will suffice. It is incumbent upon a free press to expose this duplicity and not allow these obstructionists to have it both ways. This notion of an objective press being one that presents both sides as rational is absurd when one group is not acting rational.
Another problem with the constant campaign is that campaigns are also constantly doing fundraising and putting campaigns into bed with special interests that are now crafting our legislation. The key to election victories has gone from candidate competency to candidate fundraising ability and the two are not the same. Candidates now have to appeal to the baser instincts of the party faithful and cannot be seen as being complicit in the legislative accomplishments of the other side. This has led to obstructionism versus compromise. It becomes almost impossible to work with someone whom you have demonized in getting elected and now must work with once the election is over. Of course now the election is never over so where does that leave the American public. What many of today's politicians have forgotten is that in order for democracy to work it must be by the consent of the people and if you contaminate the process then you can very easily remove the consent.
This is the era of the constant campaign – where in order to break through the clutter, first time candidates must start their campaigns two years out and former candidates start campaigning again the day after Election Day. - Joe Garecht
The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy - Charles de Montesquieu
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Next Election Syndrome
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
I Give Up
I support the Weak and Feckless Approach. Trust is based on mutual respect and reciprocity. If, at this moment of rage and cynicism, the ruling class goes even further and snubs popular opinion, then that will set off an ugly, destructive, and yet fully justified popular rebellion. Trust in government will be irrevocably broken. It will decimate policy-making for a generation. – David Brooks, NY Times
I had promised myself that I wasn’t going to blog about the lessons of Massachusetts or the direction the President should take in its wake. But leave it to David Brooks to bring out the worst in me. First let me begin by saying that what happened in Massachusetts was a message but not the one that the talking heads and pundits in the media are determined to sell us.
The election in Massachusetts was about President Obama and it wasn’t about President Obama. What am I saying? Am I trying to have it both ways like many of the talking shirts on television who purport to be journalist? No. Let me explain. The election in Massachusetts and the two governors’ races prior to it was not about the President or his policies. What those voters and future voters are repudiating is how our democracy currently functions or fails to function. What the fight over the health-care bill demonstrated to many Americans is that when it came to how our democracy works they didn’t know Jack. Prior to the health-care fight most Americans believed that our democracy functioned like it was taught in civics class so many years ago by a pleasant slightly overweight elementary school teacher. What they witnessed in the past few months turned their stomachs and rightly so. Many Americans had believed the system was broken and now they have some idea how truly broken it is.
The election in Massachusetts was about the President in the fact that he has not been the President he campaigned to be. He was the candidate of change and yet since his election he has not begun the most important change of all, fixing our broken government. The President like so many other politicians thought that the way to fix Washington was this elusive false narrative of bi-partisanship. The way to fix Washington has nothing to do with bi-partisanship in this toxic atmosphere. The term bi-partisanship supposes that you have two parties that are interested in a greater good, the benefit of the people. We currently do not have two groups who share that belief. What the two groups do share is that the greater good is their re-election and job security. The way we fix Washington is to allow our government to function on the most cherished democratic principle; the majority rules. The history of how we have gotten to this mythical 60 vote plateau is long and tawdry but the truth is as long as we allow it to dictate our politics then people like Ben Nelson and Scott Brown become more important than the will of the people.
When President Obama came into office his advisers mistakenly thought that it was George Bush and the Republicans that the public was repudiating, but it was deeper than that. Poll after poll showed that Congress and the government had historical lows in popularity and trust with the American people. To understand this you have to understand the Republican agenda. The Republicans have for decades sought to limit government and its influence in the lives of Americans. Many people have been blindly led to believe it was for patriotic reasons but the truth is that those who have power and rule over others do not need the same government as average Americans do. They don’t need or want for the government to regulate industries, or provide emergency services, or safety nets. In order to convince the American public that government is unnecessary and ineffective each Republican administration has allowed the government to function ineptly and then said, “See we told you the government can’t solve problems.” What this systematic assault on the government through incompetence has done has convinced a large portion of the American electorate that government is unable to help average people. The most recent example would be the Bush administration response to Hurricane Katrina. Has the federal government ever looked more pathetic?
If I were President Obama my number one priority would be to do a series of weekly fireside chats with the American people. I would begin by saying that I am just as appalled at the democratic process as the rest of the American people and we need to begin the process of changing it. Most Americans voted for dramatic change not in their lives but a dramatic change in how government functioned. President Obama was elected to change how the government worked in the lives of average Americans and that should have been one of his top priorities because without that mandate any changes in policy were doomed by the politics of negativity and incumbency. It is time for the President to side with those who elected him and rally those folks to help repair this broken democracy. Until we address this problem it won’t matter what the policies are or who the President is there will be no change. With the latest opinion of the best Supreme Court corporate money could buy the time for change has never been more critical.
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The One Party System
We often read about leaders and governments “over there” that have elections that involve a single political party and the pundits and talking heads wax on and on about how unfortunate those citizens are. They talk about how much better they would be if they were exposed to our democracy, multiple Parties that provide choices and different philosophies. Unfortunately the truth is that we don’t have a multi-party system either and haven’t had one for awhile. We in the US feign democracy and tell ourselves we live in the most free nation on earth while in reality we in the US have long abdicated our responsibilities as citizens of a free society.
In a nation where barely half of all eligible voters actually vote, with voter disenfranchisement growing with every election cycle, and with new election laws restricting voter participation rather than encouraging it. We have long ago retired from the political process to pursue consumerism. Elections don’t really matter so long as they continue to feed the monster. No sacrifice and no surrender of the American “way of life”. We don’t want to hear about savings, we don’t want to hear about cutting back, and we don’t want to hear about fuel efficiency. In the midst of a thirty year energy crisis rather than cutting back and downsizing we became addicted to the largest vehicles in the history of automobiles.
We complain about the political system and the politicians but we don’t do anything to change it. We no longer have a multi-party system, in stead it has been replaced by a single party system. The single party system we now have is incumbency. Politicians today are concerned with only one thing, to be re-elected. Many of them begin campaigning right after coming to Washington. The founding fathers never conceived of career politicians, the concept was never even considered. They just assumed that our system would promote turn over among our public officials. Somewhere there has been a disconnect between what they had envisioned and what we have today. The political system we have today is a mockery of the original design of the founders of this nation.
When your major concern as a public servant is getting re-elected this prevents you from having any real convictions. It prevents you from making any tough decisions, because your main focus is fund-raising you follow the funding. The main funding is coming from special interests and corporations so all legislation is tilted towards those groups. Public officials today no longer work for the good of the country, today they work for re-election. The truth is that it doesn’t matter whether they are Republican or Democratic, they have all abandoned the people who they are suppose to be protecting. I believe that if the founders of this nation could see the system we have today they would not be able to recognize it. And the sad truth is that we have allowed it to happen through apathy and the pursuit of selfish pleasure.
A perfect example of this modern phenomenon is the case of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. Senator Stevens is a six-term Senator. It is written that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The case of the senator from Alaska is a portrait in corruption and the arrogance of power. Senator Stevens has been a senator for forty years and in that time he has amassed a personal fortune as a public servant. The senator has been at the center of political controversy for many years, he has been a poster child for “pork barrel” spending and questionable donations. He is the builder of the “bridge to nowhere” and the “airport for no one”. Yet despite his obvious disdain for the American people and what is best for them, he has won every election with an average of 66% of the vote. Currently the Senator is under indictment on corruption charges. No public official should ever be allowed to stay in office for this long. It doesn’t matter who it is or what Party they belong to.
Washington is currently broken, it is broken because of this party of incumbency. The election of 2006 is another prime example of this phenomenon. The Democrats campaigned on the issue of ending the war or at least making the White House more accountable with the purse strings. Needless to say because of political pressure and fear of losing they did nothing. They allowed themselves to be bullied by a President with a 30% approval rating, despite the fact that the majority of people wanted the war to end. So rather than doing what is right for the country and standing for one of the most important issues of our time they are more concerned with re-election. Senator Reid and House leader Pelosi are typical of this attitude of appeasement for the sake of political expediency and in the process we all lose.
The list could go on and on. There would be the torture issue, the loss of personal freedoms, and of course the military tribunals in Gitmo. We are now facing a housing crisis, an economy that is tanking, and gas prices that are through the roof. With our country facing these monumental issues what can we expect from our representatives? Absolutely nothing. Unless one Party has an absolute majority no one will have the courage or be able to overcome the politics of obstruction now so prevalent in American politics. The American people have taken a back seat to re-election politics. Unless we begin to demand term limits and remove those who would rather obstruct than to govern, we can expect little to change.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
In Case You Forgot There Is A War
Thank God for the Iraqis, if it were not for them the MSM would have allowed John McCain to put the Iraq War in his pocket and run with it. Fortunately the Iraqis have other thoughts and have reminded the American public that yes there is still a war going on in Iraq. Despite all the hype and the John McCain “Mission Accomplished” banners, any peace in Iraq has very little to do with us and the surge and is dependent on the Iraqi people. It is unfortunate that it takes bodies and bloodshed to get the MSM’s attention, but of course when St. John declares peace is at hand who in the MSM is going to argue.
Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Amman that he continued to be concerned about Iranians “taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.” Asked about that statement, Mr. McCain said: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”[1]
Judging from McCain’s comments during his recent trip to the Middle East, it is pretty evident to see that he has every intention of carrying on the Bush legacy in Iraq and is sure to expand the conflict into Iran. It appears that Bush if given the opportunity will pass the gauntlet to McCain to continue the “Great Crusade” and retake the Holy Land expelling or killing any Muslims who are not willing to convert. They don’t have to convert to Christianity; these people aren’t concerned with religion although that would be a great side benefit they just have to convert to capitalism. They have to be willing to sell off their national treasures and resources to the multi-national corporations, benefiting the ruling class with little or no regard for those high minded democratic principles they espouse in their photo-ops.
It is like these people have been asleep for the past 50 years or they think we have been asleep. They have learned nothing from previous attempts to impose democracy at gun point. I am so tired of all those pundits and writers who dismiss any comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. The only real connection that any of us have to be concerned with is the same arrogance of American Imperialism that has fueled both conflicts. Just as all the high-tech hardware could not defeat a determined insurgency in Vietnam, so it will not defeat the same in Iraq. The MSM talks about the reduction in violence, but what they fail to mention is that those reductions are contingent on payments being made to those who have at best allowed the attacks against our troops or at worst perpetrated them.
The current unrest in Iraq underscores the fact that the surge is not the explanation for the reduction in violence. The surge is a political strategy for the American public’s consumption and for the Beltway crowd. When the Iraqis are questioned about the surge their responses are markedly different than the American response. Given the choice between believing the reports of visiting politicians or those who are suffering daily from the hardships, I am going to believe those living through the reality on the ground. If the American public allows John McCain to run on the Iraq War, it will be one of the biggest travesties in American history. It will once again demonstrate to the world our disregard for facts or our insensitivity to the suffering of others. The Iraq War was bad policy 5 years ago and continues to be bad policy today. Invading another country under false pretences is wrong not because it has failed, but because it is morally wrong. How right and wrong have gotten equated to success or failure demonstrates how askew our moral compasses have become.
We must disengage from the Iraq occupation as quickly as possible whether or not the surge is working is not the issue. The issue is will we continue to support a policy that we know was based on lies or will we acknowledge our mistakes and move forward with the international community to help Iraq recover from those mistakes? The Iraq War will never be a success because it was morally wrong from the outset. Short of killing all the Iraqis and replacing them with American surrogates there will be no happy ending. Those peddling the elixir of victory are only continuing to sell a false hope like their carnival counterparts. It has been said that winning covers a multitude of stinky details, the truth is that after the incense goes out you are still left with a pile of crap. We may like to pretend that the war is over, but unfortunately the Iraqis can’t share in our world of make-believe.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/us/politics/19mccain.html?scp=2&sq=john+mccain%27s+visit+to+iraq&st=nyt
Thursday, January 10, 2008
When Does The Average American Worker Get a Raise?
Who says wages are flat-lining? They maybe if you are working in the private sector, but if you happen to be lucky enough to work for the Federal government, happy days are here again. President Bush signed an executive order authorizing the increases that affects 1.8 million workers. While I would never begrudge any worker their pay or any increase they can get, I can’t help but notice that those groups of workers who are organized continue to receive pay raises while those who are not organized do not. I wonder if this is a coincidence or if dark forces are at work here conspiring against the average worker?
President Bush today signed an executive order that provides nearly 1.8 million federal employees with an average 3.5 percent pay raise and also increases salaries by smaller percentages for the armed forces, members of Congress, federal judges, diplomats and others.
Under the order, the vice president will receive a $5,400 salary increase, to $221,100. The speaker of the House will receive a $5,300 increase, to $217,400, and the majority leader of the Senate will get a boost of $4,600, to $188,100.
In 2008, members of the House, senators and U.S. District Court judges will be paid $169,300. The chief justice of the United States will be paid $217,400, and Supreme Court justices will receive $208,100.
Members of the Cabinet, usually heads of large departments, will be paid $191,300 this year. Deputy secretaries of departments and heads of major agencies will receive $172,200.
Members of the Senior Executive Service, the government's career senior officials, will be paid from $114,468 to $172,200, according to the order.[1]
Now granted a 3.5% pay increase is not a lot, it does however underscore the disconnect between the Beltway and the rest of middle-America. When most other workers will be scrambling to hopefully this year get the increases that have eluded them in the past few years, it is nice to know that our Federal brethren will be taken care of. According to my crack research staff, there have only been two years since 1969 that Federal workers have not received an annual increase 1983 and 1986. I wonder how many of the other average wage earners in America can make that same claim.
Despite reports to the contrary, there are struggles going on in America. There is the struggle to return democracy to the people and away from corporate lobbyists and career politicians, there is the struggle to gain equal protection and opportunities for all Americans, and there is the struggle to balance the threat of terrorists with the freedom of democracy. There is also the struggle of closing the gap between the wealth and incomes of the wealthy with the average American, a gap that has grown larger in the last few years than at any time in our history. In this struggle I believe and agree with John Edwards that it is naive to believe those wealthy people will redistribute their wealth easily or happily. No my friends there will be an epic struggle. It is unfortunate that doing the right thing doesn’t come naturally to these folks, but I guess that’s how many of them got into their positions of affluence. There are those who would have us believe that everything is well in America, but that is a lie. In their usual fashion the MSM is failing to report the concern and in many cases the downright anger of many people with the disparity that continues to grow between the corporate interests and their interests.
People no longer believe the old mantra that what is good for General Motors is good for America. Corporate America has proven time and time again that their interests do not mirror the interests of the average American. The days of blind loyalty and trust of the American people to corporate America are coming to a close. The curtain is being pulled back and Mr. Edwards is exposing the greed for what it is. It is a shame that only one mainstream candidate is trumpeting the cause of the downtrodden and he is being marginalized and ignored. What many people have failed to understand is that as the middle-class goes, so goes America. With so many of our middle-class citizens finding it harder to make ends meet, drowning in debt and stagnant wages the very fabric of America is being unraveled. The sleeping giant is about to awaken and the silent majority will speak.
If the next President does not begin to address these issues there will be large scale restlessness in America unlike any we have seen in decades. The media would have you believe that Mr. Edwards and those calling for change are anti-wealthy, that is false. They are not anti-wealthy, they are anti-greed. Americans have always accepted the tenets of capitalism that some will be wealthy and some will not, but the level of greed that is occurring today is unprecedented. Not only is there great disparity in wealth, but also in the democratic process. Our democracy has been hijacked by the greedy and their tentacles are reaching into every aspect of our lives.
No, there will be no surrender of the lobbyists, corporate interests, or the ruling-class. The change will only come with a fight. Many pundits and talking heads refer to John Edwards as the angry candidate, I for one am glad that he is angry. I know I sure am.
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010402402.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Monday, December 31, 2007
Democracy – Pakistani Style
It has always amazed me how the media, politicians, and pundits will elevate someone in death to a place they wouldn’t give them in life. I am often reminded of the eulogy given by Ted Kennedy (probably his greatest moment in public life) for his brother Robert where he said, “My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life.” The recent tragic death of Benazir Bhutto and its subsequent media frenzy reminds me of those words. Many of those who are idealizing her today were aware of the lit fuse that followed her arrival in Pakistan and refused to respond to it. They were aware of the constant threat of death that all of the opposition candidates in Pakistan were under and yet this government continued to fund Mr. Musharraf and play the terrorist card while he created the atmosphere for political assassination and crushed the seeds of democracy.
Ms. Bhutto will be chalked up as another casualty of extremists or al Qaeda, another casualty of the war on terror. The truth of course is anything but, Ms. Bhutto was a casualty of democracy in Pakistan. You see democracy in Pakistan has its own rules and procedures for campaigning. There are no candidate debates, instead there is candidate assassinations and attempted assassinations. There are no Party platforms to discuss, there is intimidation and suicide bombings. To those who are advocating the war on terror, democracy is part of the collateral damage. They create these copious photo-ops espousing the need for democracy, while continuing to funnel money to the tyrants and dictators. Ms Bhutto was no more a casualty of the war on terror as she was a casualty to business as usual, the US does not want democracy, they want stability.
The truth of the matter was that Ms. Bhutto was sacrificed by the US, her return to Pakistan was orchestrated by the US. Despite the MSM, she was brought to Pakistan not to win, but to lose. Her presence was to give legitimacy to a corrupt system that we didn’t want fixed, we just wanted it legitimized. The goal of the State Department was to parade her and the other opposition candidates around before the elections to give the appearance of free and fair elections, when in truth they were never going to be allowed to assume power. The problem was that Mr. Musharraf became nervous, he knew his stock in the US was falling and he was not willing to take the US at its word. Maybe he remembered Saddam or the Shah who knows, but one thing is certain he wanted to ensure that there would be no Election Day coup. There was not going to be any Orange Revolution in Pakistan.
"The U.S. came to understand that Bhutto was not a threat to stability, but was instead the only possible way that we could guarantee stability and keep the presidency of Musharraf intact," said Mark Siegel, who lobbied for Bhutto in Washington and witnessed much of the behind-the-scenes diplomacy.
But the diplomacy that ended abruptly with Bhutto's assassination yesterday was always an enormous gamble, according to current and former U.S. policymakers, intelligence officials and outside analysts. By entering into the legendary "Great Game" of South Asia, the United States also made its goals and allies more vulnerable -- in a country in which more than 70 percent of the population already looked unfavorably upon Washington.[1]
For those who need convincing consider this, if al Qaeda killed Bhutto why is the only one with something to gain from it is Musharraf? If Musharraf is so hated by al Qaeda and the Taliban why would they do something to benefit him just two weeks before an election? Also, consider how the Bush administration is not calling for postponement of the election, they are calling for it to continue. The country is in a state turmoil with violence breaking out in every major city. Both opposition party leaders were targeted for assassination and their Parties are in disarray. I wonder who is going to prevail in this election. The real trick will be how fast the Neo-cons spin this into a mandate to continue the heavy-handed policies of Musharraf. This thing was a powder keg and all of our years of support for this man, the military, and his tactics came to fruition in the death of Ms. Bhutto.
Do I believe the US was complicit in the death of Ms. Bhutto? No, but do I believe they set the ball in motion that created an atmosphere for her to be murdered? Yes, I do. I believe they underestimated Musharraf and his desire to cling to power by any means necessary. I believe they thought they could play both sides against each other and the plan backfired horribly. The problem is when you are dealing with dictators and megalomaniacs it is kind of hard to know what they are capable of. Once again the arrogance of the Neo-con intelligence prevented them from seeing the very real possibility of this assassination taking place. There was a deep hatred between the two and to not foresee this is inexcusable. Especially after the “state of emergency” recently enacted and only through international pressure finally removed by Musharraf.
The turning point to get Musharraf on board was a September trip by Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte to Islamabad. "He basically delivered a message to Musharraf that we would stand by him, but he needed a democratic facade on the government, and we thought Benazir was the right choice for that face," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and National Security Council staff member now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
"Musharraf still detested her, and he came around reluctantly as he began to recognize this fall that his position was untenable," Riedel said. The Pakistani leader had two choices: Bhutto or former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf had overthrown in a 1999 military coup. "Musharraf took what he thought was the lesser of two evils," Riedel said.[2]
[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/27/AR2007122701481.html?hpid=topnews
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/27/AR2007122701481.html?hpid=topnews
Thursday, November 29, 2007
No One Really Wants Change
I have unfortunately come to the frightening conclusion that no one in America really wants change. Oh yeah, we want change so long as it effects other people and not us. We want the Iraqis to change and adopt our policies, we want the Pakistanis to change, we want the Sudanese to change, we want the Right to change, we want the politicians to change, we want our spouses to change, we want our bosses to change, we want the media to change. We want everyone to change, but ourselves.
We pretend we want change, we talk about it and we write about it. But when it comes right down to it, we don’t want change. Let’s face it change is difficult, scary, and confusing. Let the other folks change; I am fine like I am. I don’t kill people, I don’t molest children, and I haven’t said the N-word in awhile. Sure I eat too much crap, I don’t exercise enough, and I watch too much television, but that doesn’t make me a bad person. I mean every now and then I give the homeless folks a dollar, I give at work, and I give my old crap to the Salvation Army or Goodwill.
As I am writing this President Bush has just vetoed a spending bill to fund domestic programs, while at the same time he signed a 471 billion defense spending bill, this is not for the wars. This is in addition to the 196 billion he has already asked for and received for the war this year. So, we are spending more money to fight wars that no one can define than we are to provide for the needs of our people here at home and we are not in the streets over this? There are no riots, no storming the White House. No, we just go quietly home and ignore it all. It is our fear of change that allows these things to happen unchallenged.
I read an Op-Ed piece by Bob Herbert in the New York Times and he was talking about one of the young civil rights workers who were killed in 1968. The young man was white and from New York and he was willing to go all the way to Mississippi to fight for the rights of people he didn’t even know. When asked why he didn’t forbid him from going his father said, “I didn’t have the right, to tell him not to go.” This young man did not fear change, he showed what true courage was, and that in spite of his fears he was going to do the right thing, because it was the right thing.
So why do we have such a hard time changing and as a result affecting change around us. For many of us change is uncomfortable because we have all been programmed to a certain degree. We receive programming from our parents, friends, television, and our experiences. Most of us have had to overcome what we consider traumatic experiences, notice I said what “we” consider, no one can determine for another the emotional damage of any experience. We develop coping mechanisms that insulate us from further damage and we become comfortable with the results. The more comfortable we become the more resistant to change we become. For some the idea of change becomes so frightening or undesirable that they would choose death over change.
If we know that change is constant and the only thing that you can count on is change, then why do we resist it so much? Why don’t we embrace it and look forward to its arrival in the hope of lessening its impact. I have never understood why stubbornness and blind loyalty are considered traits to be emulated. Before his reelection Mr. Bush was given positive ratings for being stubborn and not willing to change course in the midst of mounting evidence against him. So there is something in many Americans that believes that change is bad, hence the mantra, “stay the course”. Even when change is discussed or contemplated, it is only presented as piecemeal or change-lite.
We know that the wealthy are siphoning off billions of private and taxpayer dollars, we know that the war in Iraq was unnecessary and based on false premises, we know that our government and its officials are awash in special interest money and influence, we know that the war on drugs is not working, we know that our government is torturing people in our name, we know that people who were sworn to protect it are ignoring or demolishing the Constitution, we know that our country is slowing becoming a police state and we are losing our democracy, yet despite all of these things we continue to spurn change. Anyone who advocates real change is immediately marginalized, depicted as insane, or killed and another brick is added to the wall.
It is hard to believe that we were the generation of change and revolution, we had such high hopes for ourselves and the world. Now many of us hide in our gated communities or suburban enclaves content with the treadmill existence we decried our parents for. Many of us have become stuck in our ruts, living lives of quiet desperation. So we complain and we moan and groan, but we are too afraid or too cynical to change. And as we amuse ourselves with the latest gadgets, reality show, or other distraction our country continues to spiral further away from us.
If we knew back then what we know now, I wonder if we would have done things differently. I don’t know, but this is definitely not what I envisioned.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
You Don’t Have To Be A Millionaire
You don’t have to be a millionaire to run for office, but according to the Republicans, it doesn’t hurt. In an effort to demonstrate the level of desperation and corruption that our political landscape has become, the Republican’s are recruiting wealthy candidates for the upcoming House races. The Republicans need wealthy candidates because of their anemic fundraising the last few years, thanks in great part to their Party leader and President George W. Bush. Because this administration and its policies have been so unpopular, fundraising for the Republicans has slowed to a trickle and it is affecting all levels of the Party.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 — Confronting an enormous fund-raising gap with Democrats, Republican Party officials are aggressively recruiting wealthy candidates who can spend large sums of their own money to finance their Congressional races, party officials say.
At this point, strategists for the National Republican Congressional Committee have enlisted wealthy candidates to run in at least a dozen competitive Congressional districts nationwide, particularly those where Democrats are finishing their first term and are thus considered most vulnerable. They say more are on the way.[1]
The Republican strategy has two major flaws; the first is that just because a candidate has a lot of money it doesn’t guarantee their election to office. In fact in most cases it is just the opposite the candidate spending the most of his own personal wealthy is usually defeated. It seems the voters can usually tell an asshole, no matter how much money he has. The second flaw is that it is immoral; by using this strategy the Republicans are skirting the campaign finance laws. Let me explain, by having these millionaires running for elected office bankrolling their own campaigns they are not subject to any limits on funding. Whereas, if these same “candidates” were just making campaign contributions, their donations would be subject to the current campaign finance laws.
This Republican and others argued that ready access to large sums of money was no substitute for a candidate with the personal qualities and political assets needed to meet the demands of a modern campaign, from an unflappable manner on the trail to an established network of allies and supporters.
In fact, past elections show that candidates who spend large sums of their own money frequently end up losing. In 2006, for example, only 2 of the 10 candidates who spent the most of their own money on their own races for House seats won the elections, according to an analysis of finance records and election results.[2]
The Republicans are well aware of the data concerning the dismal election record of candidates who spend large sums of their own money. Having that information it calls into question this whole strategy except that the goal is not to get these candidates elected. Oh sure if they happen to get elected that would be great, but that is not expected or likely. So then what is the real strategy behind this? It is simply to force the Democrats to spend money on races they normally would not have to spend money on. The goal is to try to take money away from races that are truly competitive to spend on races that are not. Because no candidate can afford to have an opponent spending unlimited amounts of cash without a similar outlay of cash on their part, the Democrats will shift money to the race where the wealthy candidate is recklessly spending away from say a closely contested race.
It is a sad day when you are so desperate that you are not even trying to win, you just want to bloody your opponents. The Republicans have resorted to the scorched earth philosophy, due to their unpopularity and their bankruptcy of new ideas. We can’t win, but we will corrupt the system by dumping enormous amounts of cash for no other reason than we can.
It is precisely this type of strategy that has caused so many Americans to lose faith in our entire political process. Our political landscape is no longer a war of ideas, it has become a war for the sake of war. These two political parties are so entrenched in the warfare mentality, that it is no longer about what is best for the country it is about winning at all costs; give no ground and take no prisoners. If we continue to proceed down this road not only will we have a government that doesn’t function, we will have a society so divided it cannot be governed. It seems that each year we are becoming more and more separate, with each group becoming more defined, isolated, and cut off from debate or diversity. We no longer present our ideas for review in the community square, instead we only present them to those who are likeminded further reinforcing the logic of our argument. If that logic is flawed it never gets to be debated and debunked, at that point it becomes fact.
Today, too many false arguments are being presented as fact on both sides. Rather than investigate and study problems, they have been reduced to sound bites and talk show analysis. Complex problems have been condensed to little more than talking point solutions. Each side fills the crowd with only people who share their worldview, we no longer have the spontaneity of hearing a candidate’s true feelings and values with the give and take of an evenly divided audience. Now we see candidates being spoon fed questions by supporters or even worse “planted questionnaires”, it has all become so choreographed who can tell who truly stands for what. In the absence of debate, we end up with George Bush.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/us/politics/26recruit.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] Ibid.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Destroy Democracy to Save Democracy
You cannot make this stuff up, it is too good. General and President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf held a news conference to discuss the reasons behind his having to call for emergency rule in such proximity to the upcoming elections. The General has obviously been a student at the George Bush School of Political Studies, because he has the lines down. According to the General in order to save democracy in Pakistan, he has to destroy it, temporarily of course. He stated that he has to suspend human and civil rights in order to protect those rights. If I didn’t know any better I would think George Bush had said that line.
He defended the decree issued 10 days ago that scrapped the Constitution, dismissed the Supreme Court and resulted in the arrests of 2,500 opposition party workers, lawyers and human rights advocates, and rejected an appeal by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to lift emergency rule.
General Musharraf said the decree was justified because the Supreme Court had meddled in politics, specifically the validity of his re-election, and because of the serious threat from terrorists.[1]
Ok, this is Pakistan, right? There has to be a new rule that anytime the head of a government is doing something unpopular, illegal, or they are threatened by the truth, they are now allowed to say the word terrorist and all proceedings are to be halted. This includes any legal proceedings, financial dealings, or policy debates that happen to be occurring. The threat of terrorism trumps all other activities, no matter how illegal they may appear to the untrained eye. The problem with Pakistanis and many Americans is that they are making decisions based on not having all the facts. There are an elite few who have been given access to all the facts and they would appreciate you unenlightened people being quiet and letting them handle this. In what smacks of the Bush Administration’s dismissal of dissent and the media headed by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the General used similar rhetoric to deflect criticism of his suspending democracy.
Supreme Court; don’t need it. Opposition Party and dissidents; secret terrorists. Parliament; meddlers and complainers. General Musharraf is demonstrating all that is wrong and has been wrong with American foreign policy. You continue to make deals with the devil, eventually you’re going to get burned. For anyone to now say that we are trying to export democracy the rug has been pulled out, the curtain has been drawn and the world can see the man behind it. Please ignore the man behind the curtain. How can we export what we refuse to allow here in America? We don’t want democracy we want stability. We talk about democracy in public, but behind the scenes we continue to prop up these “strongmen” or dictators all over the world. Why do we do it? Because they provide stability. They keep the trains arriving on time, they keep the oil flowing and the labor cheap.
I don’t have a problem with this being the case, but let’s be honest enough with ourselves to admit it. We could care less about democracy in Pakistan, the Sudan, or North Korea. What we want is stability for our markets and for our products. We want commerce to keep flowing out from them and into our pockets and if that means putting some tough guy in to keep them natives in line then so be it. I mean after all they don’t even understand democracy, nor do they deserve it. Democracy was meant for the northern Europeans, no one else really can understand its intricacies and that’s why they want to destroy it and our cherished way of life.
In the interview General Musharraf was critical of the opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, saying she was confrontational and would be difficult to work with.
Western governments and Western media, he said, misread Ms. Bhutto’s support because they placed too much emphasis on the significance of human rights advocates in Pakistan.
“You go and meet human rights activists,” he challenged his interviewers. “Ninety percent of them may have never cast their votes. They sleep on the day of elections.”
General Musharraf said nearly a dozen independent news television stations that had been closed under the emergency decree would be allowed to re-open if they agreed to a government code of conduct.[2]
Now the General, he understands democracy. Democracy is like alcohol, you don’t want to become drunk with it. He recognizes that the people really don’t want democracy; they won’t even get off their lazy butts and go vote. All they want to do is complain. And the Americans they are just a bunch of hypocrites they complain in public, but privately they support our policies and provide 10 billion dollars of aid.
Hell, we don’t want democracy for Pakistan; we don’t even want it for ourselves. If we did we would have noticed those who are destroying it, so they can save it.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/asia/14pakistan.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/asia/14pakistan.html?hp
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Kiss Of Death
You know you’ve lost your groove when the “so-called” leading country of democracy supports a group in elections and that group consistently loses. These loses are not just in one country or region, but all over the world. There is no political group in the world today that wants its party or movement supported by the US. It seems that having the support of the US is the worse endorsement you can get. I remember a time when the world looked to America as the beacon of hope and worthy of emulation, I guess those days are long gone.
“It’s the kiss of death,” said Turki al-Rasheed, a Saudi reformer who watched last Sunday’s elections closely. “The minute you are counted on or backed by the Americans, kiss it goodbye, you will never win.”
The paradox of American policy in the Middle East — promoting democracy on the assumption it will bring countries closer to the West — is that almost everywhere there are free elections, the American-backed side tends to lose.
Lebanon’s voters in the Metn district, in other words, appeared to have joined the Palestinians, who voted for Hamas; the Iraqis, who voted for a government sympathetic to Iran; and the Egyptians, who have voted in growing numbers in recent elections for the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. “No politician can afford to identify with the West because poll after poll shows people don’t believe in the U.S. agenda,” said Mustafa Hamarneh, until recently the director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan. Mr. Hamarneh is running for a seat in Jordan’s Parliament in November, but he says he has made a point of keeping his campaign focused locally, and on bread-and-butter issues. “If somebody goes after you as pro-American he can hurt you,” he said.[1]
This should show the neo-cons that even if they try to promote democracy at the end of a gun it won’t work, whoever they support is going to lose in a free and fair election. It looks like we are back in the puppet regime, dictator mode again. You know that it is so much cleaner and just requires bribe money. Free elections are so messy and you can’t predict the outcomes. There is nothing worse than to expend all that money and all those lives only to get a government that will be hostile to you anyway. That ole dictator ain’t looking so bad right about now.
In part, regional analysts say, candidates are tainted by the baggage of American foreign policy — from its backing of Israel to the violence in Iraq. But more important, they say, American support is often applied to one faction instead of to institutions, causing further division rather than bringing stability.
The problem is not necessarily the support itself, Mr. Nassif said, but that it invariably skews conflicts, worsening rather than easing sectarian and ethnic tensions.
“When the U.S. interferes in favor of one party, their interference leads to an explosion,” he said. “The U.S. openly says it supports the Siniora government, but it should say we support the Lebanese government.”[2]
If I didn’t know better I would say he was advocating even handed treatment, but that couldn’t be right. Whether you support Barack Obama or not, the one thing I have to agree with him is that we have to begin to do things another way. The same old rhetoric and business as usual politics is not working, it is not working here or abroad. The world is tired of the same old crap coming out of Washington no matter who is espousing it. If whoever comes into office is not willing to change how we do foreign policy then it won’t matter who wins.
We must get to the place where we are once again viewed as the country that supports the rights of the people and not a divider of the people. Promoting division and factionalism in the long run only hurts our interests and our standing. I don’t really hear that from the current crop of candidates; it seems that they disagree more with how it was done, more than what was done. This would be a dangerous omen to the rest of the world.
Read more!Monday, August 6, 2007
The Best Government Money Can Buy 4
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Great men are almost always bad men."[1]
My final suggestion for reforming our democracy is to place term limits on our elected offices. I do not believe that the Founding Fathers of this country believed that an elected office should be a lifetime career. As the quote states, power is a very corrupting influence and as our elected officials become more powerful many of their moral compasses become askew. The Founding Fathers debated term limits and considered adding them to the Constitution, but decided against it because it would limit the choices of the people. One must remember though that they would have never considered the idea that someone would want to be a lifetime politician. Why?
Times have changed since those days; entrenched incumbency has not made our government freer or more responsive. In fact it has had the opposite effect, due to the rules for elections being tilted towards incumbency political power has been retained in the hands of the few. Just look at the last two decades of Presidential politics in America: Bush, Clinton, Bush, & Clinton? The only reason we don’t have another Bush in the wings is because he married a Hispanic. Politics is not a family business to be handed down from parent to child, public service should be something we do for a limited period of time and then move on. The framers believe that politics would be a part-time job made up of citizen legislators, not the career politicians we have today.
John Adams put it well when he said: Representatives are "like bubbles on the sea of matter ... they rise, they break and to that sea return. This will teach the great political virtues of humility patience and moderation, without which every man in power becomes a ravenous beast of prey."[2]
Today we have more than a 90% reelection rate for incumbents, this lack of turnover continues to stagnate our democratic process. With such a low turnover rate many politicians have become complacent and out of touch with their constituents. This in turn has led to more partisanship and entrenchment of political views of elected officials. Besides if you can’t get done what you need to get done in two terms then you’re lousy and probably need to find another job anyway; maybe EPA, FEMA, or one of those cushy jobs.
Entrenched incumbency is bad for the body politic in a number of ways. Today short of a war or a corruption scandal it is next to impossible to remove an incumbent. Incumbents have their whole term to fundraise so they come into the election cycle with usually more money that their challengers. Incumbents usually have the backing of their party leaders, so they have the whole political machinery behind them. Because incumbents are in office they are able to do redistricting when the time comes, so they can gerrymander districts to ensure their incumbency. Finally, there is the advantage of pork barrel spending that comes with incumbency; the incumbent can bring home the bacon to his/her district.
Institute a two term limit for all elected offices.
For all the reasons stated above, I believe we need to limit all office holders to two terms. Because the Congress only gets two years we should increase their terms to four years and reduce the Senate to four years. This would allow us to only have to vote every four years, except for some special initiative and would put everyone on the same election cycle.
Term limits would help prevent the career politicians from staying in office forever. In just my lifetime I can think of many politicians that lasted long past their usefulness and allowed many others that were outside of the mainstream to continue to wield power (ie. Jesse Helms, Strom Thurman, etc.). Term limits would allow citizen legislators to return to politics, instead of politicians looking for careers, they would know they had two terms to accomplish their goals maximum. Democracy’s need new fresh ideas and blood to remain vibrant and responsive, this can only happen when there is a rotational system in place. Many current incumbents have no fear of being ousted so they no longer represent the people who elected them; instead they represent those who fill their campaign coffers. This is how despite an overall majority of Americans disagreeing with a policy, that policy does not change.
Term limits would allow elected officials to vote on principle and not just to prolong their careers. Term limits will not stop some politicians from peddling their votes, but it would lessen the effect. Unlike today where there are so many votes up for sell, we couldn’t get all the clowns out in any election. Term limits would allow our representatives to be more representative of the will of the people. Term limits will also help to remove corrupt politicians from other districts. There are many politicians that have been caught red-handed and yet they continue to be re-elected, term limits will force voters in those districts to elect someone else and clean up the political system at the same time.
As I stated at the beginning none of these suggestions are cure-alls for what ails the American democracy, but they would go a long way to restoring faith and trust in a system that sorely needs it. Many of the messes we find ourselves in today could have been avoided by implementing these three simple suggestions.
"that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." – Abraham Lincoln
Read more!Thursday, August 2, 2007
The Best Government Money Can Buy
(This is part 1 of a 4 part series)
Here is an example of how the candidates on the Republican side want to balance the budget. As usual they want to take from the poor and working class Americans to give to the rich, instead of doing a top down economic model they want to use a bottom up model. This will continue to reallocate the wealth of the nation from the bottom to the top, as it has been going for the past few decades.
“We will require agency heads to present five to up to as much as 20 percent reductions in their annual budget,” Giuliani says in one ad, titled “Will Do.” “It’s the only way to reduce spending . . . I will restore fiscal discipline and cut wasteful spending in Washington.”[1]
I have never understood why spending money to improve the lives of the poor, improve the quality of our food and water supply, and providing quality public education is considered wasteful; while giving money to corporations is considered worthy. We must change our priorities from corporate welfare and the military industrial complex to the quality of life issues for all Americans. We will never be able to provide government by the people, for the people until we remove the corporate influence from our political landscape. This will be very difficult due to the fact that for some ungodly reason corporations were given the status of personhood for the purpose of legal standing. With the 1886 Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific, the personhood of the corporation began and with it came the death knell of we the people by the people government. Here is how one great American put it.
"Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."[2]
To read this, one could imagine that it was written recently by an attorney familiar with the recent corporate malfeasance cases or the recent Medicare prescription drug debacle, but you would be wrong. This was written over 140 years ago by Abraham Lincoln, and they have turned out to be prophetic. Through a series of maneuvers corporations have won personhood in some sort of surreal alter reality. Corporations are not people; they never have been and never will be. The goal of a corporation is to reflect the collective investment goals of its shareholders, because of its legal fiduciary function as prescribed by law. Because of this singular goal all other pursuits are non-existent, pursuits that we as humans ascribe a moral value. Corporations are not bound by any moral codes of behavior and hence are able to pursue their only goal profits at the expense of all other goals, even if this creates harm or death to others. This is evidenced by all of the corporate scandals, death, and mayhem visited upon us by the pursuit of profit margins and share price. Let’s not be fooled despite those feel-good corporate image commercials, corporations do not have a conscience to express.
What does all this history have to do with democracy today you may ask? It is relevant because we are expecting corporations to behave like citizens and people and they cannot. Because they have no conscience to prick, to expect them to stop using their money to influence and buy government officials because of our outrage is foolish and naïve. Make no mistake it is not just the Republicans that do the bidding of the corporations, it is the Democrats as well. There does not seem to be a shortage of corporate lackeys taking their turns at the troughs of corporate money. These corporations have poisoned our political dialog and have short circuited our democracy. Until both parties get serious about reigning in the corporations we will just be spitting into the wind with any talk of political change.
How is it possible that the majority of Americans can be against a bill or a policy and yet that bill or policy still goes forward? As long as we continue to allow money to pollute our system, we have no democracy. It is funny how others can see what we have become so blind to. It is not cultural or racial why others in the world do not want our democracy; they see the hypocrisy of it all. They recognize that corporations will reign over the people, that the pursuit of profits will create an immoral entity that will overrule the will of the people.
I believe that to return to government for the people, by the people we will need to begin to reform our system. I propose beginning in 3 areas, while these are not cure-alls they will atleast begin to reverse the current trend. Please continue to follow this series for my proposals.
[1] http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/18453.html
[2] http://www.uuworld.org/2003/03/feature1a.html
Sunday, May 6, 2007
We Don’t Need No Stinkin Lawyers
In an effort to continue to circumvent due process, this administration wants to limit access to the detainees in Guantanamo and their attorneys, attorneys which by the way they didn’t want them to have in the first place.
The Justice Department has asked a federal court to impose these tighter restrictions on the attorneys. They argue that it is a breach in security to have them meeting so much with their clients and also to be able to view classified documents. These classified documents are the ones being using to prove the status of the detainees. This is eerily similar to the run up to the war strategy. The strategy where the administration would plant a story in the media and then quote the story later as proof of their quote’s authenticity, better known as a circular argument and propaganda.
Imagine being on trial for your life and the judge saying, “You are meeting too often with your lawyer and he cannot see the evidence against you.” When did America stop being America? Was it September 11, 2001? If it was, then all those people died in vain and we have made a mockery of their memorial. While I personally consider lawyers one step up from earthworm on the food chain, if I were fighting for my life in a court of law, I would probably have one. Are not the fundamental rights of being a human being reserved for those people in our control, but outside of our borders as well? One wise American said that there are certain rights that are inalienable, they belong to everyone. The true test of a democracy is not how it treats its allies, but how it treats its enemies. The world is watching us to see if those noble words we espouse real or just something we put on cereal boxes.
If these men are who we say they are, then won’t that come out in a trial with or without attorneys? Can the attorneys make evidence disappear? Either justice works or it doesn’t and if it doesn’t then lets dispense with the formalities and start executing these men now. That would be more humane than what they are receiving now.
Let’s be clear, this isn’t about lawyers or national security risks. This new strategy is about keeping dirty laundry in the hamper. This administration does not want its ugly secrets to become public and by keeping these attorneys at bay they can hope to continue their campaign of terror. Some of these attorneys have brought to light much of the information we have of the deplorable conditions found at Guantanamo, exposing this dark place to the light of morality. By doing so, they have now become “enablers of the terrorists” and therefore security risks. This argument has just about worn thin, anyone who does not fall in and goose step to the administration’s beat is at best naïve and at worse a terrorist sympathizer. The exercise of our democratic rights should not come with questions of our patriotism or our feelings about terrorists. Torture or terrorists should not be the framework of the argument. One should be able to disagree with one and not be accepting of the other. This is not the 3rd grade playground; we are adults who have the capacity to see the world in more shades than these. So, according to the Bush administration we don’t need no stinkin lawyers!
Read more!Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Are you smarter than a fifth grader?
Since 9/11 there has been much talk about the war on terror and on whether we are winning or losing. I submit that we are losing the war on terror.
How can I say we are losing after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? How can I say that when we have had no more terrorists attacks here at home? I believe that the war on terror cannot be gauged based on those criteria alone. The goal of terrorists is not to win militarily because usually they are a lesser force, no the goal of terrorist is to get us to change how we live. How we view ourselves and each other. The reason I say we are losing this war is not based on what the terrorist are doing, but based on what we have done in response to the terrorist threat. We now have more repressive legislation at home, we have resorted to torture and imprisonment without due process, and we use fear and paranoia to justify any and all activities.
Of course it would be easy to blame an administration that used the attack to enact its agenda and justify its world view. But these things could not have been done without our acquiesce. We live in a democracy that is supposed to have checks and balances. We are four years into a failed foreign policy and we just now want to institute oversight and review. I am far removed from the civics’ class of my youth, but even then we learned that in a democracy the people are the “deciders”, not one man no matter what the justification. Are you smarter than a fifth grader? When in a democracy is having a healthy debate about the path of this country’s foreign policy “aiding and abetting the terrorists”? When in a democracy are all the citizenry guilty until proven innocent. No my friends the terrorist are winning, because America is no longer America. In a democracy there will always be opportunities for terrorist to act, that is the price of having a free society. It is not the acts of the terrorist that defines us; it is our responses to those acts that define us; if we are truly a democracy. We can respond as we have with the politics of fear and divisiveness or we can respond as a true democracy and tell the terrorists of this world that we will not live in fear and attack each other. Of course there have always been those who have used our fears to promote hatred and division. I remember from my civics days a gentleman by the name of McCarthy who made quite a name for himself hyping the fears of others.
The next administration will need to heal this land and reunite us as a nation. This will not be an easy task considering all of the damage that has been done. The first thing will be to roll-back the imperial presidency and return this country to a healthy democracy. The democracy we learned about in the fifth grade; remember the one “of the people, by the people, for the people”. It will require letting the world know that we do not have imperial aspirations on other lands. It will require us to once again take our role in the world community not as a bully, but as a leader by example. We must be a beacon of hope and freedom that the downtrodden of the world can look up to; a respecter of international law and international cooperation, and above all a nation that believes in diplomacy for solving conflict and uses force as a last resort. I believe that John Edwards can and will embody this philosophy more than the others. It is now up to us to choose what type of country we want for our children; what type of democracy we want to give them. Are you smarter than a fifth grader?
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