On re-establishing our Constitution rights…

There must be a sense of urgency if we are to avoid the excesses of the GWB administration in the Obama administration or in administrations yet to come.  Once an office-holder gets power, it is very difficult to reclaim the power and give it back to its rightful owners (“We, the People”).  

It is also clear that Obama will abandon his principles in the name of “getting SOMETHING done.”  This has held true for every controversial issue that has come before us in the last couple of years (and before that when he voted “present” in the IL State Senate).

The only way we can get our rights re-established within the current governmental structure is to enact campaign finance reform in order to shift the power back to the people and seize it from fat-cat Big Business and their special interest groups and lobbyists.  Until we do this, Congress and the Executive Branch will allow them to “pay to play” and will not make decisions that benefit the people.

Campaign Finance Reform is the first and most critical step.

Once that is in place, a healthcare bill can be passed that benefits the people and not the insurance companies, healthcare providers and Big Pharma.

Decisions about how to solve the economy will move back from “welfare for Big Businesses” and the proper restraints and regulations that were eroded since the Reagan years (and even before that) will be re-established.

And, of course, if we re-establish the natural balance between the three branches that the authors of the Constitution intended (and which have worked reasonably well in the past), it stands to reason that our rights and protections will be re-established as well.  All the executive abuses of the past, from torture, rendition and the writ of habeas corpus to Executive Orders and all the provisions in the last few FISA amendments and the Patriot Act will cease to exist in their present form. 

We must acknowledge that “We, the People” do not have to relinquish our constitutional rights and protections in order to be safer.

 

Fear causes us to make bad decisions out of desperation in order to “feel better” or less fearful of our enemies and the potential threats it presents to our country and its citizens.  And what it really accomplishes is to change what is good about our society and form of government based on our fear and desire for safety.  We only have to look in our past to see how we slaughtered Indians by the millions and imprisoned Japanese American citizens in our own concentration camps because we didn’t trust people who didn’t look like us.

And we must pass a rule that amendments that are not germane to a bill cannot be included in any bill.

We also must demand the SCOTUS rule on whether or not an Executive Order is constitutional and binding, particularly if it includes provisions that are unconstitutional (abolishing the writ of habeas corpus, etc.).

And we must clearly establish the Right to Privacy, which will resolve such issues as abortion and homosexual marriage (and, for all practical purposes, many of the wedge issues that have plagues us since 1980).  I believe the Right to Privacy does exist.  If you look at the Bill of Rights, it is quite apparent that our Constitutional framers believed in the “man’s castle” theory which clearly establishes our inherent Right of Privacy.

Anyway, I think we must approach this issue in two ways:

First, get back control over our elected officials, who have reason to fear Big Business and Special Interests because of the enormous cost of running a successful re-election campaign, through passing campaign finance reform.

Second, we must try to educate “We, the People” and make them realize how dangerous it is to set such precedents that shift too much power to either of the three branches and shift power from the People to the government.  We must re-establish the inherent controls and balance between the three branches of government and the unconstitutional shift of far too much government power to the Executive Branch.  Even if we like and trust (or think we do), the guy in office now, we must remember that these precedents, once set, will empower and candidate that occupies these governmental position in the future. 

Unchecked power and unaccountable authority just don’t work, whether we are speaking of individuals or a political party.  We have seen that throughout the ages, and especially since 1980, when the political parties and special interests influenced the general public in becoming more and more polarized.  And that is the real danger. 

A democracy must be “people-oriented” and “people controlled “  Any act or action that contributes to American society by solving societal problems or preventing abuse by a government branch that refuses to acknowledge their accountability to the law of the land and to We, the People, must be effective and results-oriented in order to succeed and achieve the true goals of a democracy.  Every time we allow wedge issues to consume public discourse and further polarize Americans or sit back and watch our inherent constitutional rights and protections “flushed down the toilet” — regardless of any fear that permeates political discourse or public discourse — we move further and further way from the true freedoms that only a democracy can provide.

Abandoning our democratic values in exchange for the delusion that we are safer is the greatest “win” the terrorists could have hoped for…. and we gave this to them out of fear.

The GWB administration was masterful when it came to fear-mongering.  They proved how instilling fear in the general population could successfully empower an unhealthy, unchecked Executive Branch who believed themselves to be above the law.  And we also see how the country was bankrupted by the GWB administration to the point where the People are now financing with their own tax dollars poorly run companies with incompetent or criminal executive management; who deserve to be punished, not rewarded with multimillion-dollar executive bonuses BEFORE they have paid the American taxpayers back for their bailout money… These are the same executives that routinely and for a significant period of time made bad management decisions and were even criminally negligent to the point that their actions consist of a criminal breach of their fiduciary responsibilities.  And then we allow them their million-dollar bonuses while we are punished for their crime by having to carry the load of an out-of-control national debt.

Campaign Finance Reform is the first step

Without it, the Constitution will not be restored to its original intent, real healthcare that first protects the best interests of the People and not Big Business, Big Pharma and other Special Interest will never pass, and Big Business, the NRA and Special Interests will continue to have improper, excessive access to our elected officials, which results in the power to secretly write bills that benefit them or their industry.

Reflecting on 2008

Well, I learned a lot this year….

They say a cynic is a disillusioned idealist.  To be honest, I suppose I have qualified on that score for some time now.

For starters, I learned that liberal Democrats are just as prejudiced, biased, dishonest, disreputable and corrupt as the extreme Right Republicans.  I always thought my party was better — more honest, more caring and supportive of the “common” man, more concerned about this planet and its inhabitants, etc.  And that the Republicans were the “bad guys.”  This year, I found out that lust for power trumped ethics and decency hands down — no matter which party you were talking about.

I also found out that the integrity of the Constitution could no longer be taken for granted – that it was not a document on which we common Americans could depend to protect us unless we had money,  power and influence — at least, not so long as our governmental branches all agreed to ignore it when it was convenient [for them] to do so.  I learned that my rights were not as ‘guaranteed” by the Bill of Rights as I thought they were.  I learned that my vote did not always count and my voice was not always heard, particularly if the media did not agree with me.

I learned that journalism as I knew it and studied it in graduate school was DOA.  Truth was passé.  No more who, what, when, where, why.  The new questions were “how will it sell” or “how does it test” (AdSpeak) and “how will it benefit the corporation.”  No more journalistic ethics.  No more publication standards.  No more professional respect and professional distance.  Now our journalists can call female candidates they disagree with c*nts, bitches and hos.  Now they listen to the “tingle down their legs,” not the facts and the truth of the argument.  No more courageous editors and publishers who backed their reporters when the “consequences” of an article spoke truth to power arose.  Not anymore.  At least, not if it was not good for business as interpreted by the corporate executives that controlled the conglomerates that now controlled broadcast and print journalism.  Ratings are now more important than truth.  And it is now apparently sufficient to cry “mea culpa” after the fact when blatantly distributing or broadcasting propaganda for your candidate, masking it as “news.”  It’s OK to be “in the tank” for a candidate so long as you admit to it after the votes are cast and your mea culpa can no longer influence the outcome of the election against your interests.

I also learned that rules do not apply to all of us.  Apparently election fraud is now OK.  Citizens who have the audacity to demand proof that a candidate meet the constitutional requirements for an elected office somehow cannot actually demand proof from anyone that demonstrates this, and no state or federal office (including the Secretaries of State who control the ballots of each state in elections), no court, no party and no candidate is responsible or can be held accountable for providing said proof.  Apparently, publishing a fraudulently “doctored” birth certificate or draft card should be accepted as proof without question.

I learned that political corruption has become so rampant and accepted that political parties and election officials no longer even try to hide election manipulation anymore.  And that caucuses are the easiest election vehicles to manipulate simply by creating rules that eliminate any voting group that is not .likely to support your candidate.

I learned that a DNC Chairman is no longer required to maintain a professional distance from all party candidates during the primary.  That he can cut a deal with a candidate before even the first primary is held to move the party office to his preferred candidate’s home base without anyone so much as batting an eyelash or questioning at least the appearance of impropriety.

I learned that elected officials and party appointees can start a drumbeat during the primary season for the opposition to their candidate WITHIN THEIR OWN PARTY to drop out of an election without the media finding it outrageous and contrary to the old-fashioned “American” way of democracy and open government.

And I found out that the corruption I suspected of the Bush administration — the lies, the deceit, the outright criminality — was all pretty much exactly as I had suspected. 

That was one time I was hoping to be proven wrong.  But I wasn’t.

And here we are now.  The first day of 2009.  What will the future hold?

Well, it is clear to me that no matter who is in power, the American people are in for some hardcore suffering at the hands of the cowards we have sitting in Congress and in the White House.  The economy, the war, virtually every aspect of government has been corrupted by undue corporate influence that is the result of MONEY from PACS, businesses and other special interests that have the resources to cause Congress to act in their best interest instead of ours.  And with Obama’s successful fund-raising without using public funding, we can now consider public funding — our last, best hope of removing money from politics — dead in the water for decades to come.  Now accepting public fundings will be considered an act of political suicide.  As it proved to be for McCain.

So, how do we fix the mess we’re in? 

I hoestly don’t know, but I know sitting back and being silent in our misery is guaranteed failure, so I will continue to speak out, because rewarding bad behavior is a sure-fire guarantee that it will continue.

And I am becoming increasingly more convinced that Ralph Nader is right in saying that we need more political parties to bust up the two-party monopoly that has a vice-like grip on our power structure.  “More voices and more choices” is not sounding nearly as radical and insane as the Dems, bitter from Gore’s defeat, wanted us to believe.

And I have also found that we cannot trust our regulatory agencies to curb the unethical and criminal behavior in any of our industries — not even the so-called “grown-ups” in the banking industry.  That we can now depend on imports from China to be uninspected, drugs to be approved based on political ideology and influence, scientific reports to be fraudulently tampered with to protect political ideology, and all the environmental protections to be rolled back because they were “bad for business.” 

And I learned that the bailout has proven to be welfare for financial giants, not one dime has apparently made its way to purchase risky mortgages or free up the credit market as promised.  But CEOS can rest soundly knowing their unearned, outrageous salaries and  bonuses will be paid in full — even as the corporation they were charged with leading failes and the taxpayer is left holding the bag for that as well.  And if they defraud clients in the tens of billions of dollars, they can rest assured that they will be sleeping in their $7M NYC apartment, not in jail like the rest of us would be if we committed fraud in the tens of dollars.

I look forward to your thoughts….  And, once again, I pray that my suspicions will be proven wrong.  Unfortunately, I have an annoying habit of being right about these things. 

Great Depression II, here we come!