April 08, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
PARADIGM SHIFT
For several decades, beginning in about the New Deal era, the federal government took the lead in advancing progress in this country. The states, particularly in the South, wanted to hold back progress in areas like civil rights. Since right-wing dominance began at the federal level with Ronald Reagan in the 1980's, though, the states are taking the lead in moving us forward. It's in states and local communities that we've seen a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum wage. It's where we've seen efforts toward living wage laws. It's where we've seen movement toward civil rights for gay people. And now we're seeing an effort to move toward democracy by abolishing the Electoral College system that helped George W. Bush steal the presidency. This article by David Sirota is at www.alternet.org:
On another very basic issue - the concept of "one person, one vote" - states are moving forward with major reforms. Specifically, Maryland and Hawaii took key steps toward creating a national popular vote for president - a system that would scrap the anti-democratic electoral college that essentially writes entire states out of presidential elections. Under the proposal being pushed by National Popular Vote, Fair Vote and the Progressive States Network, states' electoral votes would automatically be awarded to the winner of the national popular vote regardless of the state's individual vote. The system, which would create a national popular election, would take effect only if states representing a majority of the nation's 538 electoral votes approved such legislation. Big surprise - Beltway elites are against the idea, with the dean of the Washington press corps, David Broder, actually writing that the electoral college's anti-democratic fundamentals are a "formula for healthy politics." Such hysterical, substance-free arguments are yet more proof that states' bold moves are frightening the entrenched special interests in Washington that enjoy owning America's political process.
Finally, various states such as Washington, New Mexico, New Jersey and others are moving forward with plans to publicly finance elections - the ultimate pro-democracy step in giving candidates a way to run for office without having to shakedown special interests for cash. Earlier this year, I was in Seattle for a speech on public financing in my role as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, and I can tell you that this is an issue that an increasing segment of the population understands - and, as polls confirm, is ready to get behind.
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
March 27, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MAJORITY WILL SHOULD MATTER
It's always a tightrope act in a democracy. You don't want mob rule. You want to protect the rights of minorities. You don't want public policy driven by temporary passions. All of that said, however, Congress should take strong action to end the war in Iraq. The evidence is clear that most of us want out of this quagmire. It's tactically wrong. It's destroying our treasury. We're losing too many of our military to a lost cause. And, most of all, it's an immoral war. If we stand for justice, we have to get out of Iraq. This commentary by David Sirota is at www.inthesetimes.com:
How much opposition to the Iraq War must be expressed in America before Congress takes note and does something?
This simple question tears away the veneer of antiwar platitudes and pro-democracy rhetoric that spews from the nation’s capital. It has been four months since voters delivered an antiwar mandate, and the Washington establishment no longer pretends to care about the public will.
As opposition to the war has increased and as the progressive movement has demanded action from Congress, Beltway voices have expressed their disgust with democracy. In November, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on national television to say that the war “may not be popular with the public—it doesn’t matter.” In March, Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D-S.D.) attacked Democratic proposals to end the war: “I don’t think we should be overreacting to public opinion polls.”
The same disdain for voters is expressed by the corporate media. In early March, the New York Times reported that the most intensely antiwar Democrats are on the “fringe,” despite the Times’ own poll showing growing public outrage at the war. This followed the paper’s columnist David Brooks, who lashed out at those who would challenge pro-war Democrats: “Polarized primary voters shouldn’t be allowed to define the choices in American politics.”
SUPPORTING THE COUNTRY
We had some right-wingers in today's Fresno Bee commending pro-war demonstrators. The spin is that pro-war demonstrators are supporting the country. We on the other side, you see, are "America haters." In reality, people who support this war are supporting George W. Bush and his corporate war profiteers. People who love this country and what it stands for want us out of Iraq. People who support the troops don't want them sent into a meat grinder to die for nothing. As the late Ann Richards once said, "You can put lipstick on a pig and call it Monique, but it's still a hog."
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MAJORITY WILL SHOULD MATTER
It's always a tightrope act in a democracy. You don't want mob rule. You want to protect the rights of minorities. You don't want public policy driven by temporary passions. All of that said, however, Congress should take strong action to end the war in Iraq. The evidence is clear that most of us want out of this quagmire. It's tactically wrong. It's destroying our treasury. We're losing too many of our military to a lost cause. And, most of all, it's an immoral war. If we stand for justice, we have to get out of Iraq. This commentary by David Sirota is at www.inthesetimes.com:
How much opposition to the Iraq War must be expressed in America before Congress takes note and does something?
This simple question tears away the veneer of antiwar platitudes and pro-democracy rhetoric that spews from the nation’s capital. It has been four months since voters delivered an antiwar mandate, and the Washington establishment no longer pretends to care about the public will.
As opposition to the war has increased and as the progressive movement has demanded action from Congress, Beltway voices have expressed their disgust with democracy. In November, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on national television to say that the war “may not be popular with the public—it doesn’t matter.” In March, Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D-S.D.) attacked Democratic proposals to end the war: “I don’t think we should be overreacting to public opinion polls.”
The same disdain for voters is expressed by the corporate media. In early March, the New York Times reported that the most intensely antiwar Democrats are on the “fringe,” despite the Times’ own poll showing growing public outrage at the war. This followed the paper’s columnist David Brooks, who lashed out at those who would challenge pro-war Democrats: “Polarized primary voters shouldn’t be allowed to define the choices in American politics.”
SUPPORTING THE COUNTRY
We had some right-wingers in today's Fresno Bee commending pro-war demonstrators. The spin is that pro-war demonstrators are supporting the country. We on the other side, you see, are "America haters." In reality, people who support this war are supporting George W. Bush and his corporate war profiteers. People who love this country and what it stands for want us out of Iraq. People who support the troops don't want them sent into a meat grinder to die for nothing. As the late Ann Richards once said, "You can put lipstick on a pig and call it Monique, but it's still a hog."
Saturday, March 24, 2007
March 24, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE CAPITALISM-DEMOCRACY CONFLICT
In the past couple of decades there has been confusion among Americans about the meaning of democracy. "Democracy" has become the same as capitalism in their minds. "Democracy" means the freedom to acquire things. It's a far different meaning than the Founding Fathers had in mind. This article by Gerry Lower is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The overwhelming majority of Americans agree that democracy is the political philosophy of choice in the modern world, but most Americans know very little about the WHAT of democracy as it emerged over two centuries ago. They know even less about HOW democracy emerged and they know virtually nothing about WHY democracy emerged in their homeland.
That ignorance explains why many Americans are currently unable to make a distinction between corrupt corporate capitalism and democracy, thinking them to be synonymous. It is as if we have not yet experienced adequate numbers of political and corporate scandals to get the message. Only flat out ignorance can explain our current position, which is essentially 180 degrees off course from what our Founding Fathers had in mind.
That ignorance thrives in the U.S. because knowledge of human rights and democracy has been made irrelevant for both rich and poor in struggling to survive a competitive socioeconomic system which knows little of family and community values. In other words, capitalism nourishes ignorance as it nourishes materialism in the interest of shallowness. Capitalism has made the U.S. into a nation in which both the rich and poor are desperate, to thrive and to survive, respectively.
THE ILLUSION
One of the most influential books I've ever read is The Rich and the Super-Rich by Ferdinand Lundberg. Although he wrote the book back in the 1960's, Lundberg's book is probably even truer today than it was then. We have a few plutocrats who do very well in the United States. The "prosperity" most of us enjoy is mostly an illusion. We own very little. Even homeowners don't really own their homes. The banks own the homes while the borrowers seek to acquire equity over years and years. This article by Joshua Holland is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
America is very wealthy country, but one has to wonder how much of our wealth is in fact a chimera, spun of a consumerist ideal and given the appearance of solidity by a flood of easy credit? How much poverty and real economic pain is covered up by an endless succession of pay-day loans and EZ-finance rip-offs that eventually just bury people under mountains of debt from which they have little chance of digging themselves out.
Today's bankruptcy rate is ten times what it was during the Great Depression, foreclosures are at a 37-year high and the United States has a negative savings rate, yet we're told every day that the economy is going gangbusters.
George W. Bush often points out that more Americans own their own homes today than ever before. He doesn't mention that they also have less equity in those homes than ever before. Every day brings news of the potential scope of the emerging "sub-prime" loan scandal -- what Robert Kuttner called "deregulation's latest gift" -- and new indicators that the housing market that's driven so much of the economy for the past five years is a bubble that's begun to burst right before our eyes.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE CAPITALISM-DEMOCRACY CONFLICT
In the past couple of decades there has been confusion among Americans about the meaning of democracy. "Democracy" has become the same as capitalism in their minds. "Democracy" means the freedom to acquire things. It's a far different meaning than the Founding Fathers had in mind. This article by Gerry Lower is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The overwhelming majority of Americans agree that democracy is the political philosophy of choice in the modern world, but most Americans know very little about the WHAT of democracy as it emerged over two centuries ago. They know even less about HOW democracy emerged and they know virtually nothing about WHY democracy emerged in their homeland.
That ignorance explains why many Americans are currently unable to make a distinction between corrupt corporate capitalism and democracy, thinking them to be synonymous. It is as if we have not yet experienced adequate numbers of political and corporate scandals to get the message. Only flat out ignorance can explain our current position, which is essentially 180 degrees off course from what our Founding Fathers had in mind.
That ignorance thrives in the U.S. because knowledge of human rights and democracy has been made irrelevant for both rich and poor in struggling to survive a competitive socioeconomic system which knows little of family and community values. In other words, capitalism nourishes ignorance as it nourishes materialism in the interest of shallowness. Capitalism has made the U.S. into a nation in which both the rich and poor are desperate, to thrive and to survive, respectively.
THE ILLUSION
One of the most influential books I've ever read is The Rich and the Super-Rich by Ferdinand Lundberg. Although he wrote the book back in the 1960's, Lundberg's book is probably even truer today than it was then. We have a few plutocrats who do very well in the United States. The "prosperity" most of us enjoy is mostly an illusion. We own very little. Even homeowners don't really own their homes. The banks own the homes while the borrowers seek to acquire equity over years and years. This article by Joshua Holland is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
America is very wealthy country, but one has to wonder how much of our wealth is in fact a chimera, spun of a consumerist ideal and given the appearance of solidity by a flood of easy credit? How much poverty and real economic pain is covered up by an endless succession of pay-day loans and EZ-finance rip-offs that eventually just bury people under mountains of debt from which they have little chance of digging themselves out.
Today's bankruptcy rate is ten times what it was during the Great Depression, foreclosures are at a 37-year high and the United States has a negative savings rate, yet we're told every day that the economy is going gangbusters.
George W. Bush often points out that more Americans own their own homes today than ever before. He doesn't mention that they also have less equity in those homes than ever before. Every day brings news of the potential scope of the emerging "sub-prime" loan scandal -- what Robert Kuttner called "deregulation's latest gift" -- and new indicators that the housing market that's driven so much of the economy for the past five years is a bubble that's begun to burst right before our eyes.
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