This may be our last chance to avoid Ben Franklin’s warning that we have “a republic, if you can keep it” -- It may also be our best chance to revive democracy in America and, by example, the world...
The electoral college, two senator system, filibuster rule, and gerrymandered house seats do not equal democracy at a federal level. It's fascinating that Gellman has now put together for the nation what they could have learned from Thom a long time ago. Unfortunately, the ones that don't hang in there to read an extremely long article in The Atlantic will learn as Trump and the GOP put it into action. Some will be stunned and some will be ecstatic.
We have to face the fact that, until a generation or two passes on, there will be no constitutional convention. Gird your loins, old people.
The one saving grace is that democracy lives in many places, shapes and forms in our country. I predict that it won't die. Vote for your city council, mayor, school board, district attorney, county commissioners, sheriff, county clerk, state representative, state senator, state attorney general, state secretary of state, referendums, measures, and governor. There are water boards, planning commissions, airport boards, and many more. It all starts when you elect the student council and class president. Pedro won and Napoleon Dynamite rocked the election!
Right on. Tip O'Neill famously wrote a book titled "All Politics is Local." In essence, the idea of democracy -- the innate sense of it, indeed the passion for it -- starts in the individual mind and spreads outwardly. As Thom has pointed out many times, Mother Nature herself seems to have imbued most "thinking" animals with a deep sense of fairness, which perhaps is the seed that flourishes and ensures survival.
"Revive democracy" is a more accurate way of putting it than "save democracy," since we no longer live in a country that IS a democracy, if indeed it ever was, inasmuch as the definition is a government elected by the most votes.
The electoral college, gerrymandering, two senators per state, the filibuster, an outdated constitution that makes it nearly impossible to "form a more perfect union," and a tiny, horribly partisan "star chamber" appointed for life with ultimate power that floats above it all issuing corporate-friendly decrees as the final word ("Damn the people!") -- all that puts the lie to the idea of an "American democracy" as an example for the world to emulate.
Nope, we live in a minority-rule dystopia -- an authoritarian, autocratic, fascistic, theocratic, oligarchical, plutocratic, kakistocracy of all-powerful landlords who cheat and lie and steal, fleecing the dumbed-down population (citizens in name only) in every possible way. There are many words to describe our collective nightmare; "democracy" is not one of them.
And for this, we send our young to fight and die.
It is way, way past the time to face the hard truth and DO SOMETHING! Hello? Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, Garland?! The last chance: eleven months and counting...
Thanks for the well documented rants. You make my messaging efforts much easier.
Saving our democratic political system, requires, as Professor Richard Wolff promotes, bringing democracy into the work place.
Our authoritarian economic system has, twice before, tried to destroy our democracy: it enabled slave-owner oligarchs to start a Civil War and then enabled the Great Depression and allowed excessively wealthy industrialists and bankers to plan a failed military coup led by retired Marine General Smedley Butler in 1933. Since the passage of FDR's New Deal laws, the oligarchs have been destroying all the democratic expansion efforts completed in response to their previous failed coup attempts and they are planning the current coup you describe above.
Until we disempower the authoritarian oligarchs by democratizing our economic system and redirect profit in a more democratic fashion, this pattern of coups followed by more democracy will continue to recycle until either democracy or the oligarchs strike a deadly blow to the other.
Democracy at work gives the workers power over profit and resluts in a more democratic distribution of profit. This will end the excessive income for oligarchs. Add to this, a significant wealth tax and the oligarchs are neutered. They can no longer buy our government and remake it in their authoritarian image.
Democracy at work requires repeal of Taft-Hartley, allowing union representation votes without corporate delays and lies, ending 'right to slave wage' laws, significant union representation on boards of directors for large corporations, and massive federal promotion of coops as an alternative to unionization.
A nation divided is easily subdued by a lesser force - internal or external. And if that division extends to our WAR department, that we keep funding without question, what does that say for the future of the “world’s greatest democracy?”
A nation divided is easily subdued by a lesser force - internal or external. And if that division extends to our WAR department, that we keep funding without question, what does that say for the future of the “world’s greatest democracy?”
The electoral college, two senator system, filibuster rule, and gerrymandered house seats do not equal democracy at a federal level. It's fascinating that Gellman has now put together for the nation what they could have learned from Thom a long time ago. Unfortunately, the ones that don't hang in there to read an extremely long article in The Atlantic will learn as Trump and the GOP put it into action. Some will be stunned and some will be ecstatic.
We have to face the fact that, until a generation or two passes on, there will be no constitutional convention. Gird your loins, old people.
The one saving grace is that democracy lives in many places, shapes and forms in our country. I predict that it won't die. Vote for your city council, mayor, school board, district attorney, county commissioners, sheriff, county clerk, state representative, state senator, state attorney general, state secretary of state, referendums, measures, and governor. There are water boards, planning commissions, airport boards, and many more. It all starts when you elect the student council and class president. Pedro won and Napoleon Dynamite rocked the election!
Right on. Tip O'Neill famously wrote a book titled "All Politics is Local." In essence, the idea of democracy -- the innate sense of it, indeed the passion for it -- starts in the individual mind and spreads outwardly. As Thom has pointed out many times, Mother Nature herself seems to have imbued most "thinking" animals with a deep sense of fairness, which perhaps is the seed that flourishes and ensures survival.
Right. Bring out the defibrillator!
"Revive democracy" is a more accurate way of putting it than "save democracy," since we no longer live in a country that IS a democracy, if indeed it ever was, inasmuch as the definition is a government elected by the most votes.
The electoral college, gerrymandering, two senators per state, the filibuster, an outdated constitution that makes it nearly impossible to "form a more perfect union," and a tiny, horribly partisan "star chamber" appointed for life with ultimate power that floats above it all issuing corporate-friendly decrees as the final word ("Damn the people!") -- all that puts the lie to the idea of an "American democracy" as an example for the world to emulate.
Nope, we live in a minority-rule dystopia -- an authoritarian, autocratic, fascistic, theocratic, oligarchical, plutocratic, kakistocracy of all-powerful landlords who cheat and lie and steal, fleecing the dumbed-down population (citizens in name only) in every possible way. There are many words to describe our collective nightmare; "democracy" is not one of them.
And for this, we send our young to fight and die.
It is way, way past the time to face the hard truth and DO SOMETHING! Hello? Biden, Schumer, Pelosi, Garland?! The last chance: eleven months and counting...
Wish I could give this 10 likes.
Hi Thom,
Thanks for the well documented rants. You make my messaging efforts much easier.
Saving our democratic political system, requires, as Professor Richard Wolff promotes, bringing democracy into the work place.
Our authoritarian economic system has, twice before, tried to destroy our democracy: it enabled slave-owner oligarchs to start a Civil War and then enabled the Great Depression and allowed excessively wealthy industrialists and bankers to plan a failed military coup led by retired Marine General Smedley Butler in 1933. Since the passage of FDR's New Deal laws, the oligarchs have been destroying all the democratic expansion efforts completed in response to their previous failed coup attempts and they are planning the current coup you describe above.
Until we disempower the authoritarian oligarchs by democratizing our economic system and redirect profit in a more democratic fashion, this pattern of coups followed by more democracy will continue to recycle until either democracy or the oligarchs strike a deadly blow to the other.
Democracy at work gives the workers power over profit and resluts in a more democratic distribution of profit. This will end the excessive income for oligarchs. Add to this, a significant wealth tax and the oligarchs are neutered. They can no longer buy our government and remake it in their authoritarian image.
Democracy at work requires repeal of Taft-Hartley, allowing union representation votes without corporate delays and lies, ending 'right to slave wage' laws, significant union representation on boards of directors for large corporations, and massive federal promotion of coops as an alternative to unionization.
Another Warning of A Coup Attempt in 2024, Only …
A nation divided is easily subdued by a lesser force - internal or external. And if that division extends to our WAR department, that we keep funding without question, what does that say for the future of the “world’s greatest democracy?”
https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/us-generals-issue-chilling-warning-of-divided-military-and-possible-civil-war-with-next-attempted-coup-in-2024/
Another Warning of A Coup Attempt in 2024, Only …
A nation divided is easily subdued by a lesser force - internal or external. And if that division extends to our WAR department, that we keep funding without question, what does that say for the future of the “world’s greatest democracy?”
https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/us-generals-issue-chilling-warning-of-divided-military-and-possible-civil-war-with-next-attempted-coup-in-2024/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jANuVKeYezs