Everybody's Political What's What
Richard Smoley
Please relax. I am not about to launch into a tirade about the current election, the current crisis or crises, or anything of the kind. Obviously I have no idea who you are, but I strongly suspect that you are as sick of hearing about this stuff as I am.
What I would like to do is put our current situation in a longer-term perspective. Why do we have the system of government that we do? And what does it have to do with what's going on in the nation today?
If you asked many people today what form of government they live under in the U.S., they would automatically say, "Democracy." Some who remember a bit more of their civics courses will say, "Representative democracy." Others who are more sophisticated may say, "Well, it's supposed to be a democracy, but it's been taken over by special interests."
In fact the U.S. is not a democracy, and it was never intended to be. It is a republic, and the difference between a republic and a democracy is a very interesting subject that is, unfortunately, not too well understood. What is even less known is why we have a republic and not a democracy.
As happens so often, the story goes back to Plato and Aristotle. They were among the first to frame anything like a coherent theory of political philosophy. It would be absurd to try to give a full account of their thought in an article like this one, but one thing they concluded was that there are basically three forms of government: government by one, by the few, and the many. Government by one person, if it is good, is called monarchy. If it is bad, it is called tyranny. (These are their terms, not mine.) Government by the few, if it is good, is called aristocracy (which literally means, "the rule of the best"). If it is bad, it is called oligarchy. Government by the many, if it is good, is called democracy. If it is bad, it is called mob rule. Democracy, in this sense, is not what we think of as democracy. Instead it is a system in which the people vote directly on the laws and, indeed, on everything. The classic town meeting of the smaller communities in New England is an example of direct democracy. So, to some extent, is the California system of approving some of the laws through referendums taken directly to the voters.
All of these forms of government, according to Plato and Aristotle, have their strengths and their weaknesses. If one man is running things and he is a good man, he can accomplish a great deal of good remarkably smoothly. If he is bad, he can be a monster and it will be very difficult to stop him. Hence, they said, rule by one is the best form of government when it is good and the worst when it is bad.
Democracy, by contrast, is extremely inefficient, since it requires getting a large mass of people to agree on something. This limits the good it can do, but it also limits the evil. So, said Plato and Aristotle, direct democracy is the least good form of government when it is good and the least bad when it is bad.
Unfortunately, forms of government are not stable, and, said the ancient philosophers, even a good specimen of government tends to degenerate into its bad form. Democracy deteriorates into mob rule; monarchy deteriorates into tyranny, and so on. Then there is a revolution, and a new form of government takes over, which is subject to the same process of decay.
Plato and Aristotle had no great optimism about fixing this sorry state of affairs (the Greeks in general had no concept of progress as we now understand it). But a couple of hundred years later, a Greek historian named Polybius thought he had found an exception.
In Polybius's day, the Roman Republic was gobbling up most of the known world. It was an astonishingly effective and sophisticated form of government. What accounted for its success? Polybius said that the Roman Republic was so brilliant because it represented a "mixed constitution." It combined all the best features of the three forms of government, so it was remarkably efficient and (he thought) immune to decay.
The Roman Republic of Polybius's time (his dates are roughly 203-122 B.C.) did have elements of all three forms of government. It had a kind of elected president, called the consul, except that the Romans were very frightened of the possibility of a tyrant taking over, so they had two consuls. Moreover, they were elected for one-year terms in order to further limit the amount of power they could grab. The Roman state had a legislative body called the Senate, which was elected directly by the people.
The Roman Republic was no more immune to decay than any other system of government. By the first century B.C., it had broken down to the point where an intermittent and decades-long civil war erupted. The first victor was Julius Caesar, who in 44 B.C. bullied the Senate into naming him dictator for life. Since this looked like tyranny, he was promptly assassinated by his foes. The civil war recommenced, and the winner of the second round was Caesar's great-nephew Octavian (later Augustus), who was much shrewder than his kinsman. He did not have himself named dictator. Instead he took over several legitimate offices (permanently) and proclaimed the "restoration of the Republic" in 27 B.C. Nevertheless, historians generally date the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire to this date.
This all may look like ancient history, and so it is. It would be a matter of merely academic interest if not for one little detail: the U.S. Constitution was set up in imitation of the Roman Republic, as interpreted by Polybius by way of the French philosopher the Baron de Montesquieu. Instead of the consuls, there is a president; there is a legislative body (one part of which is even called the Senate); and these leaders are elected by popular vote.
The Founding Fathers set up this form of government because they believed that direct democracy would lead to mob rule. On the other hand, they reasoned, if the ruling class (of which the Founding Fathers were definitely a part) ran things without any accountability, they would soon turn everything toward their own self-interest. And while it was necessary to have one man at the top running things, it was thought to be just as well if this man were replaced every four or eight years.
For all of the (entirely justifiable) complaints we have about our government, it has worked remarkably well. It has enabled the U.S. to become the richest and most powerful nation in the world.
Where, then, is our current malaise coming from? If you look back on the history of any country that has had a reasonably free system of government -- republic or democracy -- you will soon see that power polarizes between two main groups. One is the popular party, which represents the interest of the many. The other is the aristocratic or oligarchic party, which represents the power of the few -- generally the rich.
Those of you who are interested in history and political philosophy can look back and see how these interest groups have fought and struggled over the centuries. In Greece, in the fifth century B.C., Athens, which was a real democracy, promoted the popular parties in other Greek states, just as the U.S. congratulates itself today on spreading democracy around the world. Its chief rival, Sparta, which was essentially an early and very ruthless version of the totalitarian state, supported the few. Their struggle came to blows, and it is known in the history books as the Peloponnesian War. It lasted from 431 to 404 B.C. (Sparta won.)
Athens, by the way, had its own political party that represented the few (it just wasn't in power very often in that period). The Athenians had nothing if not an ear for a high-sounding phrase, so this party called itself the kaloi k'agathoi: "the beautiful and good." The popular party was known more prosaically as simply the demos: the "people." The struggles between these two parties was a large factor in Athens's defeat in the war against Sparta.
Similarly, the Roman Republic fell apart largely because of the struggle between these two parties. The popular party was known as the populares (hence our own word); the party of the few were called the optimati (the best). Despite his enormous wealth, Julius Caesar was one of the populares. One of the sources of his power was the fact that he backed the people against the entrenched oligarchic interests that had taken over the Senate more or less permanently. Hence he was murdered by wealthy and aristocratic senators who weren't exactly happy with his stance.
Well, then, what does this mean for us today? These two eternal parties have manifested and are manifesting in American political life, and for all the talk about third parties and whatnot, they aren't going away anytime soon. The Republicans represent the interests of the few; the Democrats represent the interests of the many. You can see this in the current presidential election, where the Republican candidate has absolutely no interest in increasing taxes on the rich. He can't and he won't: they are his base. The Democratic candidate is, on the other hand, quite comfortable proposing a tax increase on the richest 5% of the population. They are not his base. Similarly, in the 1990s a Democratic president was able to balance the budget partly by imposing a hefty tax increase on the rich. Many of the rich did not like this and took certain steps (honest and not-so-honest) so that someone who favored them would be elected afterward.
I grant you that this all sounds simplistic. There seem to be so many exceptions that the model seems to fall apart. How do you explain the fact that the comfortable professional classes have been moving more and more toward the Democratic party, whereas many blue-collar people have been voting Republican for the last couple of decades? The only way you can explain this is by supposing that people often vote against their own interests.
And that is just what they do (usually unknowingly, of course). In an interview conducted shortly before his retirement, the late Senator Daniel P. Moynihan remarked about how many of his constituents regularly voted against their own interests, particularly in impoverished upstate New York.
One reason for this lies in the fundamental weakness of pure democracy: the masses are easily manipulated. Comedian Lewis Black lampooned this fact in his "Voters Against Voters" routine on "The Daily Show" a week or two ago. If the people are so wonderful and wise, Black was saying, why are they so easily seduced by the most vicious and deceitful forms of political advertising? I lived in California for eighteen years, and I was continually astonished how the referendum measures (which often had to do with intricate and confusing matters such as insurance regulation) were decided by absurdly simplistic commercials, which often portrayed a given measure as doing the exact opposite of what it was really going to do.
In the contemporary U.S., there is, I think, another factor at work. Many voters identify with a social class considerably higher than the one they belong to. Many white- and blue-collar workers subconsciously think it is somehow classier to vote Republican. That the Democrats have been stigmatized in recent decades as the party of minorities and the poor has just made this process easier. Some historians contend that this process is no accident, that it was the result of a careful, decades-long program on the part of the powers-that-be to convince the average American that the very people who were striving to advance his lot were somehow closet Bolsheviks.
Whether or not it is classier to vote Republican is not an issue that I care to address. But it does seem to be the case that a large number of Americans imagine (or wish) that they are part of the few and subconsciously identify with them rather than with their own class. Why else would so many middle- and working-class people find it easier to get worked up about the "niggers on welfare" than about the much higher sums of money regularly and blithely handed over to the wealthy?
There are, I realize, many subtle and complex issues of class rivalry, compounded by ethnic prejudice, that it would take a weighty volume to address. It is a delicate issue. Often even bringing up the notion of class struggle tags one as a Marxist. Marx was mistaken, I believe, in saying that all history is the history of class struggle and that the direction of history would march irresistibly toward a dictatorship of the proletariat. But he was right in saying that class struggle is a crucial part of political reality. But then practically every political theorist since antiquity would agree to that.
Is it possible that most "values" issues are ways of blurring and obscuring these far more substantial issues? In any case, the typical "values" perspective -- which usually implies some form of cultural conservatism -- has to clear up its inconsistencies if it is to deserve to be taken seriously. What does it mean to be "pro-life" when you are scouring the map for the next country to invade? What does it mean to preen yourself on your Christianity when you show nothing but contempt for Christ's commands to help the poor? What does it mean to sacralize the American flag when you are trampling on the freedoms it stands for?
Some may contend that I am urging people to put their own interests and their own pocketbooks ahead of the common good. And it is true that there are times when one must do this. But it is one thing to genuinely see the common good and quite another to be bamboozled into confusing the interests of wealth and power with the common good. It is reasonable to ask Americans to sacrifice to make their nation great. It is not reasonable to ask them to put up with decrepit roads and wretched schools so that the rich can keep on accumulating vacation houses.
It may seem that I am subtly arguing in favor of one class interest -- what I have been calling the many -- and demonizing the other. This is not the case. These polarities are organic to any state. The natural order is some kind of equilibrium between the two. On the one hand, the interests of money and property are integral to the stability and prosperity of a nation (as we have been reminded rather often for the past couple of weeks). On the other hand, the powers-that-be, if left unchecked, will eventually succumb to the temptations of greed and arrogance. If everything is working well, the imbalance will correct itself. But the greater and more extreme the imbalance, the greater the correction.
It seems to me at this point in American history that the interests of the few have vastly outstripped not only those of the many, but those of the common good. There is an imbalance, and it is going to be corrected. The question that faces us is this: will it take place now, when the correction will (all in all) still be comparatively mild, or will it have to wait for another five or ten years, when it will shake the nation irreparably? After all, the American republic is no more guaranteed immortality than was its ancestor in Rome.
Photo by filippo minelli, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
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Nice read. I love to see
Nice read. I love to see people point out that America is in fact a Republic because ever since Wilson we've seen our country go down hill in our pursuit to "Make the world safe for Democracy!" which is disgusting to say the least and is responsible(along with the uneducated apathy of the masses) for our current mess. That is a simplistic thing to say but I think there is enough to back that up!
When will we get this new system, this new culture of self-sufficiency going? Good question. Some of us have already started it seems, many of us are catching up. . .
Black Light in the Attic Podcast w/Serpicody & Sancho
http://blacklightattic.podomatic.com
Simplistic, yes ... simple? No.
I think the most accurate comment you make is that your schema of these two poles is overly simplistic. As a general model it fits large scale political movements, but I doubt its usefulness at the ground-level of daily life and decisions. What you say here depends on the interpretation of vast movements in history on the one hand and on how individuals percieve themselves on the other ("am I an elitist or a popularist?"). The applicability of this bipolar - almost manichæan - political perspective to our own situation seems thus highly questionable since it seems to produce an "us vs. them" mentality.
Would it not be more useful to address how each political movement from the past to the preset, from Athenian democracy to European feudalism to our modern system that is so intricately involved with the economy, may each contribute elements and facets to the kind of ideal system that manifests and ensures the real freedom and potential of our nature - whatever that potential and system of government may be? These little verbal moments published online are the first stirrings of how our independant minds can each manifest a direct influence on the minds, and thus actions, of our society. They are a poor foreshadowing but a foreshadowing nonetheless.
With this in mind, we have a pressing obligation to rise to whatever best we can manifest. Perhaps remaining in this paradigm of dualistic antagonism is not the ideal stance from which to view our history and current political position. Then again, perhaps I share the old Greek and not-so-old French perspective that a little revolution every now and then is not a bad thing. Or maybe I am overly critical of your perspective. It has certainly gotten me thinking and makes some imortant parallels that often go unnoticed. Thank you for this.
Tales inveniunt, quales colunt
Well I do point out that
Well I do point out that Wilson introduced the world to the concept of "making the world safe for democracy". Wilson's time spent in the White House saw many horrible things that go against what this country is all about. Ever since, we have been on an interventionist bender in world affairs that would make the Founders sick one could argue. It's this "make the world safe. . ." mentality that has been peddled by politicians and soaked up by the general public that has allowed for us to become entangled in such horrible messes as the Iraq War. With such a disconnect from core principles, it's no surprise we're in this mess.
I don't know what the new system will look like, but it's likely it will still have many aspects of older systems to start with because I don't think our world could handle such a drastic shift as to abandoned all that has been tried in the past.
Black Light in the Attic Podcast w/Serpicody & Sancho
http://blacklightattic.podomatic.com
oops
those feisty founders that get sick with seeing what has been done to their beautiful country.If they could see. I wonder if anybody has really ever done a serious research project on just how the dumbing down process runs contrary to the vision of the founding revolution. i wonder if the masses are dumber now because of deliberate dumbing down since the first world war.Or would that fall into the manifest destiny category?
oh and along with that thought, on the deliberate dumbing down, Republicans, and or what passes for that now, on order to say in power have, to lie, cheat, steal, and tell more damn lies.
and who is believing that? "the dumber they come, the dumber they go". I wonder who came up with that saying, a robber baron or an anachist?
notice how the word GOD figures in the big lie, i guess the dumbing down has always been a much bigger problem of the whole picture.
so why would a common working person vote against their own intrests? It's funny but, not all people that believe in God believe in tryants.Its just those dumber then dumb people, the ones that have been dumbed down the most that, can't make the distinction.Notice that the current VP choice of the GOP, is directly using the dumber then dumb GOD to find the dumber then dumb people and in effect call on the dawn of the living dead.
I love that you ask "will it happen now?"
How about no government?
There is an excellent quote by Benjamin Franklin given to the men at the Constitutional Convention. It recites as follows:
"Gentlemen, you see that in the anarchy in which we live society manages much as before. Take care, if our disputes last too long that the people do not come to think that they can very easily do without us."
yes, exactly
i recall reading that in Rome
the elites, were all going mad because their dishes were all coated in lead. the poor people did not have fancy dishes, coated in lead. as an analogy, i think the poor people have been bombarded with so many toxins, that they are if not mad then they have little will to transform. on the other hand, the people in the corporate world, mostly never think about how toxic they are too.So, but if we were hoping for some poetic justice, to balance the equation, maybe its that poor people still have their souls. I think that the anarchy that Ben Frank was thinking about, is the natural world, that he was still in some awe of.Where as part of the dumb down, is the war on the natural world, that they already saw as nothing but a resource to exploit.
and as far as the reality sandwich that Ginsberg was talking about, you know politcs as usual is in everything we eat.It's in people's brains like a toxin, and they can hardly speak, without most of what they say sounding like politics, even with people that should be natural allies, even thinker- transformers, that end up still, playing the ends justify the means game.
oh we are so politicaly toxic, and poetry is the one way to really mirror that,or poetic thinkers. Ginsberg was wise, but thinking poets are way too few , and when one comes along, even one that tells it like it is, they are seen as trouble makers, i know, only too well.People are so politicaly toxic that they can't tell a poet from a rock, and when you dance and jump like a freak, they point at you in abject horror, i know.
but, i also know that this toxin of politics where there should be poetics, is beginning to show itself in the world around us, in signs,IN OLD TUG BOATS with the word Democracy painted on the side. And in the flights of birds, and in the words spoken on a city corner to the few stars that manage to shine through the glare of "world entertainment war"
'Bebop or be dead"
the Last Poets.
All engines full reverse
Recently I had a similar conversation with my co-workers about the "current situation." It's tragic and true that voters often vote against their own interest. I said to my co-workers, it's like chickens voting for colonel Sanders. If you are voting for the lesser of two evils, your still voting for evil! I think we all have heard the lesser of two evils line before. Many of us believe that both political parties are corrupt and untrustworthy. We all know that politicians will lie to get elected. "read my lips, no new taxes." We all know that politicians will lie after being elected. "I did not have sexual relations with that women." How can anybody be expected to trust the goverment when your constantly being decieved? And why do we keep eating the shit being served?
A captain is lost without his crew and vice versa. The captain and the crew are nothing without a ship. A ship needs a good compass that the captain can trust to navigate safely. Good order and discpline cannot be maintained on a ship without harmonious ethics. Without good order and discpline the ship cannot be properly preserved. Unethical leadership leads to mutiny onboard. Harmonious ethics keeps the captain the crew and the ship underway. If things don't get squared away soon...you get the picture. I like your article and I'll be sure to pass the word over the 1MC.
anarchy again
great article
What a great article!
I'm rather awed by CJ's 'oops' posting, since it seems to presage something I writ in another blog. Maybe I writ it in some subconsious way in a 'time reversed' way, but it seems highly relevant.
I guess, in my 'drunken state' of one in love with 'liberty' and as a 'groker' of Jefferson's objection to all 'tyranny', and . . . am I going on too much? . . . I'd like to see Smoley talk on 'atlantisrising.com'.
In my lack of temerity, I tried to start a thread there about this. But, being lazy, couldn't recall all I've read about this issue of 'conservative' versus 'liberal' and 'republican' versus 'democrat' and restrictive philosophy versus egalitarian philosphy.
Will someone help me?
Will none of ye-all go there and do some 'kicken ass' against a forum almost all overtaken by so-called 'metaphysical' conservative 'genius'?
Must I fight all by myself?
Ignrent tho' I be?
Will you help me understand?
I started one thread:
http://forums.atlantisrising.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t...
In others, it seems that the 'moderators' have a definite preference.
For example see this:
http://forums.atlantisrising.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t...
In putting this forth, my purpose is not to find fellow critics.
What I would like to see is cross fertilization and proliferation of opposing positions whereby we might be more able to 'inform our discretion'.
It would be all to easy to allow expression of opinion to just devolve into some loop of self-approbation or some dichotomy of 'those with' versus 'those against'.
A term often used at "atlantis" is 'leveraging'.
This can be taken more than one way, but it harks back to the idea of monitary motives which have led us into a kind of morass. 'Leveraging' can be seen as some utile use of a principle of amplification of mere physical force; or it can be seen as a form of 'usury' and taking advantage of other human beings to ones' own advantages.
I might be wrong.
I cannot be objective all by myself.
I think it rational to ask others to look and see and refer back to the original questioner: right, kinda right, not right, kinda very wrong, absolutely idiotically wrong and so forth.
Will ye all help me? Not that I deserve any help, just be honest and look and see and say what one will say?
Must we always be circumscribed to just one forum and not have cross-polination?
======================
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation." HERBERT
<
is the "Rights of Man" or the Rights of Humans
Thank you, Richard
I've been waiting for someone to take a fresh look at this "forest" from a suitable distance since in the present political environment so many others seem to be running exausted through the maze of its "trees".
While I did detect a slight bias toward "democratic" vs. "republican" thinking in your piece, I confess to the same bias, which given my personal neutral political stance, I find somewhat embarrassing. Your review was refreshingly simple, thank you.
I also often find myself agreeing with the responder named 'criticism' (If I understand his post correctly). Should the republicans succeed in their effort to appropriate control of the government by any means necessary, civilization, as we know it, should collapse into chaos more quickly, resulting in a cataclysm of such proportions that should permit the preservation of more of Earth's natural resources, while decreasing toxic levels of green house gasses more quickly. Along with reducing all of the other flow-through abuses of this planet, chances for the survival of future generations should be increased.
In this regard I'm reminded of the saying "Be careful what you wish for" for all of you Obama supporters.
What happens next must include a mass mutation of consciousness sufficient to awaken us from our destructive adolescence. I just finished reading The Secret History of Consciousness by Gary Lachman, which confirms my long-held intuition in this regard.
"everything means something"
Some where
I remember only one thing Marx ever said, and without being able to give it exactly, the sentiment of it was that there is a trend to attempt to embue inanimate things with life, while the trend of thinking life is to go towards the inanimate.
Existence by rote.
I'm afraid this topic is too deep for us. And I'm very afraid for us if that is really true.
We don't really understand the fantastic depth of thought and study that went into a system of thinking that enabled a structure that dispenses with any compulsory need for a ruler.
A universal respect for process and a system of laws based on equity or the 'golden rule' cannot exist without education.
I see this article as part of this basic thing: education.
Maybe this article hereinabove isn't perfect, or all-informative, but it does touch all the basic points that were available to the founders of this Nation whose creation we enjoy and in which we live.
And the process is not by any means 'finished' and it was never conceived or even writ as if it were 'finishable'.
A trend is nevertheless discernable in it, and it is definitely anti-rulership as from without.
Can anyone who enjoys citizenship in the USA not wonder about what the processes were that yielded this new thing?
Does anyone who reads this page and the responses not wonder about all those names and their relationship with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, Thomas Payne, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Madison, Jarvis, and the thousand odd other names of men and women who put their lives and fortunes at risk to vouchsafe this thing we, today, take for granted?
Jefferson speaks of Baron de Montesquieu, and in some various places speaks of the importance of appreciation of history to inform our judgement with current conditions.
One can study Jefferson and Washington side by side only by reading their actual thoughts. And we can see these thoughts evolve. And we are not recipients of some static, self-perfect thing. But that they understood that could come about, they did take pains to insure that a PRINCIPLE was conveyed into the future by taking excrutiating pains to letter-perfect as much as possible the idea of this new thing: a nation ruled by law and principles with moral content and mercy and truth. An new 'animal politick' that could grow and learn and become better.
And they were accomodative to the idea that there would be rough spots and revolution and yet believed in the possibility that what was forged could negotiate those periods, anticipated and written about and talked about and recorded - - - if they formed a framework that could generously allow for things imperfect and yet editable or ammendable.
There is nothing in recorded history that comes even close to the perfection of this generosity of intellectual freedom that could not just be some cultural phenomenon or some epiphenomenon, but something actually reducable to law in ways that permit all cultures to intermingle.
Some cultures have lived that were more perfect in terms of what could freely published; but in terms of what was published as National Policy, nothing comes close to what is extant here in the USA in the form of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and their ammendability.
Wouldn't it make sense to understand the frame of minds that could come up with this? If for no other reason than to defend against assaults against this framework?
Or is the 'Constitution' just a 'goddam piece of paper'?
If you want some metaphysical insight, some revelatory experience: read the history hinted at in this article in reading about the facts of history of the borning of this Nation.
======================
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation." HERBE
Just watched W to observe
Just watched W to observe how the personal can affect the global. Any system no matter how upstanding can be undone by the inferior specifics of individuals. The "American" system is now rotten by the spiritual/moral "fall" of a small group of individuals that used the machine of governance for their own personal gain. Anyone running for a position of power should have to undergo extensive personality, health, moral fiber and social network testing. For you can already see pre-emptively what history will unfold from the make up of the individuals. As soon as Bush started undermining the constitution he should have been sent out of Washington naked sitting backwards on a donkey.
The Bush Regime is Dead
Emotional times. The emperor is down, we mourn the death of the personal God and youthful drive to outdo the father and win out over the older brother. We grieve for the pain of trying to please a distant punitive father. We grieve for the father and mother of the son displaced and wild. We grieve for the millions lost in the war that never was. We grieve for the loss of the Bush name and the end of the Republican party forever. We grieve for the exposure of the colossal drive of the ego run riot under the immutable banner of democracy. We grieve for the blow to democracy and the dismantling of constitutional integrity. We grieve for the damage done to the world economy and the traumatization of people around the globe. We grieve for the loss of the American soul and the waste of treasure in going after the black gold. We all went a little insane. We believed the whims of one small boy could be writ large on the world stage. We believed the mistaken notion that Texan politics had any place in world affairs. We lost our voice and we forgot how to say NO! Let there be no more oilmen in the White House, nor Monsanto or Haliburton executives in government positions. Let us outlaw private armies funded by industry that are better equipped than the military. Let us expose and refuse nepotism, cronyism and corruption and then get on with creating the life of our dreams. If we out-create the darkside, there will be no place for it to gain footing. No place for sad little boys to run rampant in the halls of fate.
Well said
It is a tale of tragedy and woe and farce versus feeling and some sense of justice.
Power-mongers can be of all stipes and of every class.
Consider Reagan, who touted his 'poor roots' and his diametrically opposite behaviour once in power: a kind of luke-warm 'democracy'. Mostly 'restructuring' the martial system of capitalism against - - - most of all - - - the People of the Nation he was supposed to be serving.
What happened? Home-made things moved away from home, and as it stands, the stamp of 'Made in the USA' today means: Made in China at the behest of Americans.
And we can't trust the food we eat being pure.
'Law' was sacrificed at the behest of 'business'.
The poor were treated as 'drains' on the economy, and the rich as the 'real salvation' of the Nation.
And these 'rich' gave the green-light to divesting small-business and 'made in the USA' type business the red-light.
Why? Evidently because the 'middle-class' was growing too far. What would that mean?
An encroachmente on the 'priviliged classe'?
And the defense tactic?
Divest that power by 'law' or political action.
And so we saw the newspapers all across the USA being bought up and the television stations being bought up and all the trend was towards one thing: a REPUBLICAN cum 'FAR RIGHT' tyranny. 'Death to the Democrat'.
Evidently, this wish has met face to face with something much more potent than their 'prayers to the Almighty' that they might succeed.
We can know, already, that they will attribute this to the work of the 'evil one' or SATAN!
Right.
A police-state mentality has been dealt a real blow.
They wanted to live not only in the public arena, not just in the private communications on all levels, but in the very minds and private thoughts or feelings of all . . . whether the 'subjects' wanted such or not . . .
And it didn't work out.
Now we will see them hunker-down and find some excuse for why they thought it was a 'good thing' what they did.
And we will see all manner of formerlly 'right-wing' radio shills begin to accomodate themselves to the new environment. They will adapt. And their adaptation will be . . . what? Sincere?
It will be interesting to note the changes. The level of pejorative. Money rules the roost for these clowns. And I'm thinkng they will tone down their retoric some while still utterly missing the sentiment of a principle that inheres in the REAL basis of what it is to be a citizen of the EARTH. They'll still be jingoistic, and still wrong.
A two-facedness is inherent in a philosophy based mostly on profit rather than justice and equality. If a 'middle-class' isn't aimed at by any political force, it must mean either a favoritism of the rich or a declaration of war against both the rich and the middle class in preference to the poor as a kind of 'anarchy'. Advocacy for the extremes cannot work. We must not be like the French, nor the English or the German or other examples. We are Americans, and seek a middle road: good fortune for all, equal rights for all. Not some 'elitism' nor a 'socialist' state of hand-outs. Just equal opportunity and equal rewards in our pursuit of life, liberty and happniness by work.
It's not easy to develop any philosophy that promotes such an ideal when LAND or SPACE to be is limited.
The 'American Continent' is not unlimited.
Reproduction cannot be unlimited, either.
We will see in the future the same strictures imposed as China today imposes on itself.
After that, if we insist on unlimited growth, we had better hope either that the planet will expand or we will have facile means to move and terraform other globes.
Self-government is what we have. If we refuse to adhere to this principle, nature itself will limit us and that is the opportunity of tyrants and 'saviors' who will be most stern and unforgiving.
From today, we might actually work at preventing that eventuality. I only wonder if that will take place.
We have a reprieve now. What will we do with it?
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Amen
Just my opinion on the issue
It is truly sad that an entire political system has been hijacked quite simply by lying. I believe in what republicans SAID they stood for.
Bush got into office with a humble foreign policy. He promised that America would not to be the police of the world and that we would not begin nation building. Yet we did the exact opposite.
I don't know that we can say the man willing to tax the rich supports the poor. Why do we trust the government to do the right thing with the money? Even if one administration does it right the next could be a curveball and misuse all the power or money we've invested in the previous president or congress.
The democratic party platform is FAR away from the anarchy some of you desire. More gets funneled into capitol hill and then redistributed so that we become reliant on the system. Well, that was before the Republican party started creating entirely new branches of government. Now it seems they both have the same agenda. Take from the people and hope the government is responsible... I don't know about you, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
We should learn to dare danger and death, mortify the flesh, and acquire the capacity to endure all manner of hardships.
-Gandhi
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awesome richard