You Can't Make Democracy Work

YOU CAN’T MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK IN AMERICA, if …
We Are Perilously Close to Losing It

It’s become more obvious every day that we have taken our system, which is supposed to be Democracy, for granted. Remember, we’re just 200 years old – 232 to be exact – which is like a couple of weeks when compared to the established governments in Europe, even China. During that time we’ve had it pretty easy. It has been relatively simple to make this governmental experiment work. A few years after our forefathers crafted our government, the year 1800 came along. During the next fifty years we only had a war in - 1812 - which didn’t stress us too much.

Our Democracy showed its first signs of breaking during the 1860-1865 period, but thanks to a very mature minded leader, very fair, gifted and far reaching in his decisions, we got through that horrible Civil War. From that time to 1900, we had no stresses to tear at us. American manufacturers started to think independently of Europe, and started making things, highlighted by Thomas Edison’s light bulb in December 1879, and before that, his phonograph. The great movement to connect the Western United States to the Eastern United States also was in full force. Thus we arrived at 1900 with great thoughts of things like the automobile, harnessing electrical distribution, and in just a few years, the great invention of the airplane.

Remember, with a lot fewer states, there were fewer Congress persons and Senators. That meant fewer power grabs at our government than exist today, with 50 states.

YOU CAN’T MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK, if you don’t have a fully functioning FREE PRESS to keep the legislators honest. The word Free in the title means the Press is by definition free of any censoring, free of any governmental or corporate control over what it publishes. The PRESS is how we have always kept excesses under control in America. But that was then, this is now.

There’s no debate on this matter: we do NOT have a Free Press in America in August 2008. The administration has stooped to sending “talking points” to its communication lackey, which presents a slanted view of the administration’s actions to the public. This administration uses FOX news, the Washington Times, the Weekly Standard, among others. This has been ongoing for years now. Bad enough, but when you realize that the rest of those in the Press don’t challenge such highly-slanted views, a lot of which are bold-faced lies, and demand proof then the picture gets clearer. We do NOT have a Free Press in America in August 2008, as long as certain entities have the capability to present a constant drumbeat of their one-sided viewpoints, all unsubstantiated, all unchallenged, with a tremendous forum ! The true method for arriving at this conclusion here is “…if the Press is not the solution, then it very likely is the problem.”

YOU CAN’T MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK, if the representatives you elect in your District to represent your welfare in Washington, turn out to be more loyal to those who hand them money, than they are to you, who elected them. Those we send to Washington to represent us learned early on where the money is, and they coined the greatest euphemism in the history of language, Campaign Finance. This term is to hoodwink the information-deprived masses. It is, in actuality, a synonym for what can only be called legal bribery. It is legal because our representatives made it legal. The thinking they used was: “…since we have to become known to get re-elected, we can take money assistance from the public to help us buy television time and make campaign trips for speeches.” So they called it by the now famous euphemism Campaign Finance. And we, the public let them. We allowed them to take money from private interests, mostly corporations, and when it comes time to vote on a measure that those private interests want defeated, how do you think our representative will vote? If our representative votes for the bill, he would be stiff-arming the group that gave him money. Who would do that? Psychology 101 screams that answer !

Thus the concept of money, freely given and just as freely taken, with no taint of bribery allowed by the Free Press, or anyone in government, was perpetuated and perpetuated, until candidates for federal office rake in hundreds of millions of dollars to campaign. They routinely use half and save the other half for retirement. Who is protecting the rights of the citizens who will be affected by these laws that are passed out of the womb of money? Three things have to happen, and fairly rapidly.

· candidates for office can’t take money, or if they do, very little
· candidates campaign for six weeks, like in Britain – free television
· senators enjoy one re-election, congressmen two, then the country has to move on, and purify the legislative bodies

YOU CAN’T MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK, if you find you have an Executive, called President in our Democracy, who is demonstrably working against the interests of the nation. This is manifested in any number of ways. If the Executive arrogantly refuses to even try to cooperate with other nations in any one of a number of relationships, from trade, to international relationships to climate change. If the Executive fills important government posts with inexperienced and incompetent cronies, who regularly commit blunders and serious mistakes in judgment, yes, even crimes, detrimental to the nation and a lot of people. If the Executive utilizes the Presidential device of signing statements too often. The signing statement is a statement that a President affixes to any law he sees he must pass, but he doesn’t like it. Thus he signs it into law, but the signing statement stipulates that he won’t obey it as law. Pretty clever, huh? If you have an Executive who commits more signing statements than all the other previous 42 Executives before him, did, by triple. If you have an Executive who brazenly increases the power of the Executive, and provides his own rationale for doing so, so that he can get away with such things as eavesdropping or snooping on the citizenry, or committing the nation to a misbegotten war without the Constitutionally-mandated requirement that only Congress can declare war.

YOU CAN’T MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK, if you realize you have an elected Executive who has arguably lowered the standard of living of our citizens; lied constantly to the country on every matter; ruined the economy; very nearly ruined our Armed Forces; made our country look terrible in the eyes of the world; acted irresponsibly, especially lying in his reasons for invading another country; spent the nation into a recession and record debt, coupled with inflation; caused the deaths of three quarters of a million souls; every utterance from him is political in nature; works tirelessly to increase the wealth of corporations, to the detriment of the people’s welfare, who reached new low levels of approval, and your Congress won’t file impeachment against him. IT IS AT THIS POINT that whatever you call your form of government, it isn’t working. Since in our country it’s called Democracy, it’s 3rd grade logic that you need a Parliamentary system badly. If you had a Parliament, you could force a removal from Office, and have him out of there in a couple weeks, like they did in England with Tony Blair recently.

YOU CAN’T MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK, if you are trying to get by with a deliberately uneducated populace A lack of curiosity about things, lack of some higher education, especially in philosophical thinking, or by using the genius of “…What if?” thinking, will lead to non-voting or not keeping abreast of all issues that affect the nation, from road and bridge repair, to laws which discriminate against some, and need to be changed; to total inability to see through and challenge the many euphemisms thrown at the populace by greedy corporations and individuals, to facilitate their theft of the assets of the people as a whole. Uninformed people are probably most of the reason for the dismal fact that over 60% of eligible voters in America simply don’t bother to vote. They utter statements created by their own uninformed colleagues, like “…I don’t vote, it just encourages them,” and “…I don’t vote, there’s no difference between the two of them.” Both of these childish analyses of such a serious matter are always delivered as a joke. Some joke !

Many writers of recent date have carefully pointed out the unhappy fact that huge portions of the populace are falling so far behind, the result is the dismantling of the nation as we have come to know it.

YOU CAN’T MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK, if you sit on your hands when it comes to light (and without a functioning Free Press it took a hundred years or more !) that your elected representatives have created laws that allow them to continue to draw their salaries until their death regardless of how few years they serve in the Congress/Senate. Surprised? And if you sit on your hands when it comes to light that your elected representatives vote themselves more pay raises than is the norm in the country, while simultaneously refusing to raise the minimum wage for over TEN YEARS, that’s more damage to the country. That divides the country even more!

This effectively creates another class of people in America. Then, as if that isn’t bad enough, our representatives added a little addendum to the “money after they retire gambit.” They even draw their generous retirement if they have broken the laws so egregiously that they end up in PRISON – see Duke Cunningham, Dan Rostenkowski, James Traficante, and soon to be Ted Stevens of Alaska. It was reported recently that thanks to a formal challenge to this activity by a Freshman congress person, the Congress struck down a small portion of this perk for about two or three crimes, but retained the privilege for the felonies that Legislators would be most likely to commit.

You can’t make a democracy work with activity like that. Can you?

After viewing these impediments that prevent the concept of Democracy from being a vigorous, long-lived form of government, it appears that the most damaging of them all is the absence of a Free Press. The reader may differ, thinking one of the others is more troubling, but for my part, I notice all the time how legislators are getting away with murder, so to speak, by the lack of any accountability, occasioned by no one doing any questioning of them. Our present faux-news people are the worst in my lifetime, for “going along with the flow” - with one or two exceptions. You know who they are:

David Gregory of MSNBC – had a good start, but the longer he has stayed, the more he has knuckled under. One of his latest questions of Bush was: “How’s Barney doing, Mr. President?” (Barney is bush’s dog.) No longer deserves the title newsman.

Chris Mathews – when he asks a question, it’s really a speech. We once taped a question of his and counted – his “question” was just under three hundred words. A fop, who is so immersed in himself, he interrupts all answers two or three words into the answer. Not even close to being called a newsman.

Chris Wallace – Fox broadcasting. For a real newsman like Mike Wallace to have sired this one must be tough for Mike to take.

George Stephanopolous – see David Gregory.

Helen Thomas – the best of the best. In fact, so honest, so good, so incisive and so probing, the current President refuses to EVER call on her. Real democracy, huh? If a reporter asks probing questions, DO NOT CALL on him/her.

Charles Gibson – see David Gregory, without a good start
Katie Couric – out of her element
Joe Scarborough – see David Gregory only add much more ego and less intellect.

Rachel Maddow – rapidly becoming the new Helen Thomas. As good as it gets. Works on radio as well as television, and is showing real character and skill. A good one.

John Stuart – in actuality a comedian who does more news than a lot of so-called newsmen. Presents all the day’s sticking points as comedy, and as a result, covers most of the day’s news. Needless to say, very independent, and thus a very positive force in our society. He does not allow guests to intimidate him in any way, regardless of job title, Military rank, moneyed position, or any of those artificial signposts. Touches more nerve points in a half hour than could Wallace, Gregory, Scarboro in a day.

Steven Colbert – like John Stuart in most ways. He is a wonderful comedian who dissects all the day’s news in satire. Like Stuart, he covers all the news that a half hour will let him get to, and he does NOT allow anyone in office, or in a corporation to hoodwink, or intimidate him.

Keith Olbermann – the Gold standard. Asks very probing questions of all, especially those in an Administration. Sees through euphemisms, talking points, and hauls the worst before the bar of accountability in America. Nominates three every night as “The Worst Person in the World,” including the President of the country when it is justified as he did on August 1. Has accurately called the sitting President of the United States a liar a number of times, has pointed out his (the president’s) huge incompetence, has challenged the President’s often voiced statements, as reporters are supposed to do. Aren’t they? Thank God for Keith Olbermann.

One final thought: you can’t make Democracy work if you’re surrounded by thousands of individuals with power who don’t want it to work.

Bottom line: at August 1, 2008, we (Americans) are not making Democracy work. Ben Franklin warned us in 1789 it wasn’t going to be easy. He was right. Anybody have any ideas on where we should start?

faithfully, in the interest of the American people
see also swungnotes @daily kos.