Response to Cyberpi
Pathless,
I think the people need more involvement in the law making in congress, and involved in the decision making of the executive branch, and involved in the judgments of the judicial branch too. While there is a complaint of checks and balances within this elite minority that calls themselves government, in order for the constitution to not lose weight since inception, the number of votes in both the house and senate need to be 100 x's what once they were. There need to be 100 x's the presidents, the vice presidents, the various secretaries, etc... The sheer foolishness in handing a country over to any one man defies the science that I have learned, it defies the religions that I have seen, it defies commerce, it ignores and belittles the will of the people, and I believe it defies God. We do it because our dad's did it, and their dad's before them... and I see that is a senseless, senseless reason. If government or anyone wills to be a leader, then the people must make him their servant. More like a hired attorney or teacher. As a member of the people, I see how the government has assumed control. That said, I see greater faith between people in the election process and in the representation that does exist in the USA, than in many other countries. Why not improve rather than recede?
Absolutely. People do need to be more involved in government. We have gotten to the point where government has become autocratic, self-perpetuating, automatic not for the people, but for the elite, for the moneyed class and corporations. Presidential politics are currently playing this out in repetition and refinement in the Democratic primary campaigns of Clinton vs. Obama, each painting themselves--more or less successfully--as the people's candidate, when in actuality, they are both servants not of the people, but of Washington and of corporations.
Congress, too. This body of popular representation is mostly enslaved to the mechanizations of money--capitalism, militarism, elitism. Take Clinton and Obama, both senators, both beholden to big money, no matter how much they deliver crowd-pleasing speeches to the contrary. They are both so far gone in the game of acquiring the nomination that they are both making promises that they, I believe, have no intention of keeping, based on their history in congress.
Congressional representation is supposed to be the people's recourse to the government--one part of it at least. And so we have movements for civic engagement, like these petitions towards impeachment. We have movements on the state level, where
ten states have passed resolutions to impeach Cheney or Bush or both. The
Jefferson Manual of Impeachment may be a useful reference in educatiing ourselves about the impeachment process. This document states that a proposition to impeach is a "question of high privelage" that should supercede any other business (page 3, Jefferson Manual). Should we conclude then that congress, having before it ten state motions to impeach, as well as the direct representation of somewhere around one million United States citizens, through their signatures on petitions calling for impeachment, is not following the law? Should we be surprised?
And this seems to be case: no, we are not surprised. No, it is just "business as usual". There is an illusion of apathy over the whole matter--illusion, because clearly people are dissatisfied. Clearly people feel unrepresented. People feel betrayed and violated by the federal government, and not just the executive branch.
It seems to me that relevant history has gone through this cycle before, and it ended in revolutions in France and what has become the United States. Popular revolutions, I hear, are also underway and in verious stages of progress throughout Latin America. Cuba has gone through several revolutions in its struggle against colonization, exploitation, and subjugation to economic hegemony, and is still struggling.
Yet the American people appear not to struggle, even as we do resist and struggle in diverse ways. The mainstream media is superficial, of course, and shows a distorted reflection of America to itself and the world: we are to believe that we are consumers, capitalists, enjoyers of luxuries. Some of us are, and those of us who are have been well represented in the legislature and in the executive office. Yet the vast majority of Americans struggle. Many struggle simply to survive: struggle for employment, for education, for representation, for health care. A more privileged class struggles for meaning and meaningful work, for representation, for education, for health care. Few in America do not struggle. The question that we must ask and continue to ask is the one word, "Why?" and the many questions that flow from it.
Who are we in America, told that we are the paragon of democracy, the privileged? Under the superficial brainwash gloss of what we are told, who are we? Diverse, e plurubis. Forget the unum. The one that has come out of the many is a despot, hydra-headed.
We need more representation, more organization, more diversity, more direct action. We need more respect for each other as we struggle for change in our diverse arenas. We need to scratch political correctness and get real with each other. We need change, yes, and change should be a constant. Change is not something that is acheived in, say, an election year; not the one turn of a page to write in a new era of history, a new schedule. Change is not found only in direct action, or only in representative democracy, or only in the black community, or only in the halls of power, or only in feminism, or only in the church. All of these places can be and are venues for positive change. Why then do they so often stand against each other, bitching and biting and fighting back and forth? Why cannot we respect each others' differences and move in many different directions in the name of constant change, of flux, of time circular and seasonal, responding in many different ways to the many differnet calls of the moment? Democracy is not orderly. Democracy should not be linear. Democracy should not be strictly patriarchal, and democracy is never militaristic. Democracy plays out in bars and boardrooms; in lounges, living rooms, and labyrinthine organizations; in books and speeches received as living expressions of thought and action by living, thinking, active beings. Democracy is a process, is not stagnant, is not a slogan, cannot be captured or imposed. I believe that democracy is grassroots, not hierarchical.
Is the United States too big, too unmanageable to be a democracy? As things currently stand, it sure seems that way. Compartmentalized states, each with their own government, funnel upwards to the federal level, where the people's voices are not heard, because even at the state level governments have become beholden to corporations and big money. I can write my representative knowing that she does not represent me and many people that I know. Honestly, I am not sure who she represents. I would like to talk to her, but I won't go alone, because I know that alone, as one individual, I lack the sheer numbers that are needed to pressure. Even if one hundred people went to her together with our grievances, it very well may not make one bit of difference. What is clear to me, however, is that we must organize ourselves in order to be effective. In order to organize effectively, we must also recognize that we will not agree about everything, that we are diverse and each one of us a unique individual. We will have to be democratic from this basic level of organization if we truly want to experience democracy.
Voting is a singular act in many ways, just as signing a petition is a singular act, just as defending oneself in court against hostile organizations like the IRS is a singular act of resistance. I am realizing that in order to effectively resist, people need to come together. We must organize ourselves and come to consensus on just what is wrong and what the most effective way of opposing it is. There can be no one organization for everyone, which is illustrated in grand fasion as we watch and are subjected, every day, to the orchestrations, power plays, and manipulations of the federal government, which claims to act in our name and to come form us. Yet it has conquered us, and in doing so has divided the people into so many fractured, isolated pockets and splinters. Somehow we've got to organize, to get ourselves together so that we can move in the way that is right for us, that expresses who we are and what we value, in all its deversity and complexity and disorderliness.
Way to bring up the facts, too. You know very well that Clinton's impeachment proceedings had their roots in a sex scandal. I would much rather have a president that has extramarital sex in the white house than one who lies, moralizes, bullies, and manipulates the country into wars in which millions of people suffer and die, and in which resources are squandered and exploited.
