Incredibly, the Occupy Wall Street movement has now spread to some 1,500 cities and towns across the United States. Will that be enough to force meaningful change?
I think not. I support the movement, although I cannot do so actively, and I continue to believe that the Occupy movement is the best, perhaps last hope the people of the United States have to regain control not only of their own government, which sold itself out to the monied interests in this country decades ago, but also of their own society as a whole including their economy and the way information itself (perhaps the most priceless of all commodities) is disseminated in our society.
However, as I've stated in this blog before and will now state again, no entrenched, powerful socioeconomic and/or political system has ever in the history of the world succumbed to radical change from within or without unless it has been presented with no alternative, or else has been forcibly swept away; and it is inconceivable to me that the corporatocracy which has now governed through its bought-and-paid-for politicians for decades, and which has used its power during those decades to stack the proverbial deck to its own advantage in every imaginable way will be any different.
Yes, it is truly marvelous that there still exist enough clearheaded, patriotic Americans to have brought Occupy protests to the streets of 1,500 U.S. cities and towns. That in itself is something I never hoped to see and is an accomplishment of historic proportions. But even if every city and town in the country were "occupied," even if there were tens of millions of Americans protesting in the streets instead of the tens of thousands we sometimes see today, still the prevailing system would not change. It would not because it cannot.
Both of the major U.S. political parties have long since sold their souls to their corporate masters. Perhaps the advent of television made that sellout inevitable, given the power television at once assumed over U.S. federal, state, and local elections and the costs associated with political (as with all other forms of) advertising, but the two major parties' Faustian bargain has long since come due. Try as they might, they will not be able to escape the coils of their masters. It is also an historical fact that no third party has ever in U.S. history been able to make any lasting contribution for good or ill with the exception of being in a position to act as a spoiler from time to time.
Add to all of the above the facts that police departments across the country have been militarized and trained to see so-called "terrorists" lurking around every corner, that what once passed for journalism in the mass-media (also corporate-owned) has long since turned into little more than a propaganda machine touting the virtues of the status quo, and that it goes against human nature for those who hold power of any sort ever to relinquish it willingly, and it seems clear that even if the current "occupiers" manage to make it through the oncoming winter intact, even if some sort of national General Assembly can be formed and is permitted to meet and do its business (a highly questionable proposition at best, given the level of repression already being practiced against the movement across the country), the end result will still be an election as usual in 2012, for which the usual candidates will be selected in the usual way. These candidates, so-selected and both beholden to those who bought and paid for their nominations and who will also buy and pay for their campaigns, will then be presented to the American people as their only alternatives. The final outcome, no matter who wins the White House or which party controls the Congress, will leave the American people precisely where we are right now.
The Occupy movement is a great beginning. It has at least managed to get thousands of Americans out into the streets to protest the injustices being practiced against them by their own elected and appointed officials and by those officials' true bosses, and it has perhaps gotten millions of other Americans who are not as yet actively protesting to stop and think about where our country is headed. But that in itself will not be enough. If the Occupy movement remains what it is today, at best it will go down in history books a few decades from now as just another populist "revolt" which in the end came to nothing.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
What I Hope #OWS Will Accomplish
First (and again), I can't stress enough that I am not an active participant in any of the Occupy movements around the country. The nearest to me would be Indianapolis, I'd have no way of getting there even if I wanted to, and my health's so crappy I can only barely make it out of my apartment two or three times a month for very short periods of time. So that's out.
Second, the ideas I'm going to present below do not represent what I think is actually achievable. What might be or wouldn't be achievable would take a completely separate blog post, if not a full-scale book to set down.
Below, then, are the issues which I, as a private citizen, feel need to be addressed. They appear in no particular order, and in some cases are more fully-fleshed than others. The ideas presented are really only a much-abbreviated version of my personal wish list.
Second, the ideas I'm going to present below do not represent what I think is actually achievable. What might be or wouldn't be achievable would take a completely separate blog post, if not a full-scale book to set down.
Below, then, are the issues which I, as a private citizen, feel need to be addressed. They appear in no particular order, and in some cases are more fully-fleshed than others. The ideas presented are really only a much-abbreviated version of my personal wish list.
Get Corporate Money Out of Politics
I think I've heard this mentioned by occupiers more often than anything else, and I couldn't agree more. The trouble is how, exactly, is this to be accomplished? The idea I've most often seen regarding getting corporate money out of politics is to get the states, since Congress will never go along with it, to agree to call a constitutional convention, which would then draft an amendment to the U.S. Constitution essentially reversing the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the notorious Citizens United case.
The trouble with that idea is that corporate money is involved in the state legislatures too, although to a lesser extent than it is in Congress. Another problem is that many would-be professional politicians get their start in one of the state legislatures, hoping to go on to "bigger and better things" later on (i.e. election to the U.S. House or Senate). They're unlikely to be sympathetic to the idea of reducing the flow of cash to the members of a body whose ranks they hope to join one day.
Dismantle the "National Security State"
This heads such issues as the repeal of the infamous "Patriot Act" and the other similar and/or supporting acts of Congress which were initiated by President George W. Bush, and which have been added to and strengthened substantially by President Barack Obama. Collectively, these acts represent the most heinous, fundamental assault on the civil liberties of Americans since the notorious "Alien and Sedition" acts were enacted under President John Adams. There is also the point to consider that the establishment of the so-called "Department of Homeland Security" and the various minion agencies which were created to augment and support it represented a doubling of the size of the Federal government (and of the government's non-military expenditures) from what existed at the time George W. Bush first took the oath of office on January 20, 2001.
Clearly, doing anything in the way of the repeal and subsequent dismantling of DHS and any of its subordinate agencies would represent taking a colossal political risk on the part of any elected official who might support such a move. That would be the case even for elected officials who might not be personally corrupt in the sense of having benefited financially from the industries which make the national security state possible.
Why? Because there are individuals and entities existing in the world who do wish the United States and the people thereof harm, even if the majority of them may only be semi-brainless fanatics. Even if the political climate in this country weren't as poisonous as it is, any politician with even half a brain must realize that were they to vote for the disestablishment of the national security state, and if a successful attack were then made within this country resulting in mass casualties, their career in politics would be finished. The dead and/or wounded would have been their fault. At least that is what the perception of the media, and of a very large segment of the general public would be.
Bring the Troops Home, Drastically Downsize the Defense Budget
This amounts to the dismantling of the "American Empire" and of ending U.S. military adventurism and interventionism. These ideas seem to be prevalent among a large proportion of the Occupy crowd, although nowhere near everyone involved would think these ideas even worth mentioning.
First, while there have always been Americans who have believed (as George Washington did) that the less the United States has to do with other countries the better, there have also always been (and still are) many millions of Americans who believe that exactly the opposite is true. Anytime a people anywhere are oppressed, there are Americans (including many on the "progressive" Left) who believe the U.S. ought to intervene, even militarily, on "humanitarian" grounds even when the regimes involved pose no threat whatsoever to the security of the United States. In support of this assertion I offer the unilateral military interventions decreed by Democratic President Barack Obama in the affairs of Libya and Uganda. There are also Americans (perhaps more on the political Right) who believe (rightly, in my view) that a war economy produces more jobs (and profits!) than does a peacetime economy. Then there are those on the political far-Right who genuinely believe in what has been labeled "American exceptionalism," that the United States somehow has a "duty," possibly divinely-ordained, to act as the world's policeman.
Second, the drastic downsizing of the defense budget would inevitably lead to the loss of tens of thousands, if not millions, of American jobs, as pointed out above. Huge defense contractors such as Boeing, Lockheed, and a plethora of others would find themselves with no further rationale (in a business sense) for employing those American workers who make the Pentagon's "toys." If the U.S. economy were healthy, if unemployment in the United States was low, such cuts in themselves would undoubtedly raise the unemployment level substantially, and might indeed cause the whole economy to slow to a crawl. And today, of course, the U.S. economy is already circling the proverbial bowl, and unemployment is already at unacceptably high levels. Again, no politician in his or her right mind is going to support this, since their political enemies would inevitably (and gleefully) point the finger at those responsible and accuse them of throwing millions of Americans out of work, to say the very least.
Third, like it or not, the United States has now become a global empire, at least on a de facto basis, and any historian worth his or her salt knows very well that, in historical terms, once an empire comes into being, it has no alternative but to continue to expand, that the instant an empire ceases to expand, it begins to die, and that what may take its place when it finally does die is unpredictable and often wholly unforeseeable.
None of the above is to say that I am not personally in favor of dismantling the American Empire and of drastically downsizing our defense establishment, but it is, I think, necessary to at least look at some of the real issues involved, and to understand that the whole issue isn't nearly as simple as it may appear on the surface.
There are my two (or three) cents for today. There are a great many other issues I would like to see addressed in a best-case scenario, but I'll leave those for another post.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
So, This Is Going On Too
From where I'm sitting (a straight wooden chair in front of my computer) it looks as if some members of the "professional Left" are making some inroads into the Occupy movement, and I hate seeing that. I don't hate it because I'm hoping the professional Right will win out (shudder), but because, armchair supporter of the movement that I am, the fastest way I can think of to kill the movement off, or at the very least to reduce it to irrelevancy, is for it to allow itself to be co-opted by either of the major American political parties. The Republicans, of course, won't make any serious attempt to co-opt the movement. Or at least I'll be truly dumbfounded if they do, and I don't believe they'd stand much of a chance of success if they did try. But the Democrats may be another story entirely.
I won't go into details except to state that I've seen at least one "occupation" including in their tweets the Twitter name of a known shill for President Obama, a man who's currently building what he's trying to bill as a "grass-roots movement" which will (surprise!) ultimately support the President's re-election in 2012. I've also seen other members of the professional Left showing up at occupy movements (including the original in NYC) and, to a degree, being lionized for their supposed "support."
All of which isn't to say I have anything against people of the Left in general, any more than I have anything against people of the Right in general. It's just that I don't have any trust whatsoever in people who've been active and highly visible in U.S. politics during the past several decades. I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but I can't help feeling that said high-visibility people have some kind of agenda of their own whether they're willing to come right out and say so or not; and for me, their inclusion or participation in any of the Occupy movements raises all sorts of red flags because I do believe that if the Occupy movement, taken as a whole, has any real meaning or relevancy, that meaning is that it's composed of ordinary Americans who are convinced that politics in this country is massively corrupt, and who are determined to do something about the corruption, not to make common cause with any of the corrupted or invite them in for a nice cup of tea.
But we'll see, I suppose. I'm enough of an amateur historian to realize that most great movements have made missteps here and there, and there's no reason to think that the present one will be any different in that regard. Although I've been dismayed to have seen some of the things I've seen in the past few days, that doesn't mean I'm ready to write the whole thing off. Yet. I do still believe that the Occupy movement is the best (and probably last) chance the people of this country have of righting the ship of state. I only hope that those who are able to be actively involved will keep their eyes on the ball, that they will remember what it was that brought them out into the streets in the first place.
I won't go into details except to state that I've seen at least one "occupation" including in their tweets the Twitter name of a known shill for President Obama, a man who's currently building what he's trying to bill as a "grass-roots movement" which will (surprise!) ultimately support the President's re-election in 2012. I've also seen other members of the professional Left showing up at occupy movements (including the original in NYC) and, to a degree, being lionized for their supposed "support."
All of which isn't to say I have anything against people of the Left in general, any more than I have anything against people of the Right in general. It's just that I don't have any trust whatsoever in people who've been active and highly visible in U.S. politics during the past several decades. I may be wrong, and I hope I am, but I can't help feeling that said high-visibility people have some kind of agenda of their own whether they're willing to come right out and say so or not; and for me, their inclusion or participation in any of the Occupy movements raises all sorts of red flags because I do believe that if the Occupy movement, taken as a whole, has any real meaning or relevancy, that meaning is that it's composed of ordinary Americans who are convinced that politics in this country is massively corrupt, and who are determined to do something about the corruption, not to make common cause with any of the corrupted or invite them in for a nice cup of tea.
But we'll see, I suppose. I'm enough of an amateur historian to realize that most great movements have made missteps here and there, and there's no reason to think that the present one will be any different in that regard. Although I've been dismayed to have seen some of the things I've seen in the past few days, that doesn't mean I'm ready to write the whole thing off. Yet. I do still believe that the Occupy movement is the best (and probably last) chance the people of this country have of righting the ship of state. I only hope that those who are able to be actively involved will keep their eyes on the ball, that they will remember what it was that brought them out into the streets in the first place.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Is This #OWS Phase Two?
I happened to see this link "Here Are Occupy Wall Street's Plans For A National Convention That Could Change The Face Of America" tweeted the other day. Since I've been following the Occupy Wall Street movement, and as many of its derivatives as I can find around the country and around the world, almost from the beginning, I was intrigued, because I'd never seen anything like this mentioned before.
So I clicked the link, read the story, and found the original (on which Business Insider's story was based) here: The Steps to Non-Violent Revolution and the Convening of a National General Assembly. As you can see, the Business Insider reporter had simply copied the entirety of this document into her report, which since a link to the original was provided and the document is posted publicly, I assume was fine with all concerned.
That still left the question in my mind, however, whether the above document really expresses the views of the Occupy Wall Street movement in NYC specifically, let alone the views of the various offshoot Occupy movements around the country. All I could find on that score, on the same site as the above document, was this: Who are we?.
So, okay, it appears that some lawyers and maybe at least some of the original protesters collaborated on the document. It appears, let me reiterate, because I don't think the "Who are we?" statement is quite conclusive.
Bottom line: I'm still wondering. The last I've seen out of of the original NYC Occupy Wall Street movement, apart from asking people to close their accounts at some (or all, I'm not too clear on that point) of the country's biggest banks by November 5th of this year was a declaration that their intention was for their occupation to continue more or less indefinitely, and that they expected (or hoped) that other occupiers throughout the country would do likewise. If the document referred to above has ever been discussed at the NYC General Assembly, let alone at the GAs of any of the other Occupy movements around the country, let alone agreed to, I haven't heard about it. Not that there's any particular reason I should have, I hasten to add, since I'm only an observer and not an active participant. Still, I can't help wondering if there is some plan, at some point in the not-too-distant future, for the document to be dusted off, possibly modified to some degree, and presented to the NYC GA and/or other GAs around the country for consideration, and if so, when we might expect that to happen.
As for the actual content of the document: I'm not a lawyer, or even an educated man, so I'll leave the legal feasibility of the proposals made therein alone. On the surface of it, I like some (perhaps all) of the proposals made in the document, but does anyone really think that President Barack Obama (if he manages to pull off a win in 2012), let alone any possible Republican president who might succeed him if he doesn't, will give so much as a rat's rear-end about any "Petition of Grievances?"
When one looks back at the Obama campaign in 2008 and the promises made (or implied) at that time, and adds in the reasons many, many swing-voters, not to mention Democratic progressives voted for Mr. Obama, the way the President has handled most of his first term up until now is almost as if, immediately after taking the oath of office, Mr. Obama looked into a television camera at the American people and said, "Fuck you." Why on earth, if he does manage to be re-elected, would he do any differently in a second term? Particularly since, at that point, he'd have no further need to please anyone or even to pretend to care what the American people think? And the idea of any possible Republican president feeling any differently about it is . . . to state the point moderately, downright laughable.
So then, if I'm reading the document correctly, over a year from now, assuming that the plan outlined in the document is fully agreed-to and fully implemented, we'd be looking at forming another third political party for the 2014 elections, and how often in American history have third parties ever accomplished anything? Admittedly, third parties have, on occasion, managed to split the vote of one of the two major existing parties, but that's about as far as any of them have ever gotten to the best of my knowledge. There's also a serious question in my mind at least as to whether, given the current political climate and the economic mess we're still in (which may get much, much worse at any time in the future, and is hardly likely to improve), the country's still even going to be a viable concern by 2014.
I hope I'm just being pessimistic. I get that way sometimes. And if this really is the plan, I hope that the various GAs across the country (and new ones which may come into being along the way) are able to do all the debating and so on they'd need to do to make this fly. But clearly the existing system is already reacting (in many cases forcefully and even brutally) against the protests in general, and I can't see that getting any better in the foreseeable future. No powerful, entrenched socioeconomic/political system ever changes willingly, and ours in the United States is hardly likely to do so either.
If this all does come about, if a national petition for the redress of grievances can be formulated and adopted on a nationwide basis, I'll be a huge cheerleader for it and those who drew it up. And when that gets slapped down by whomever's in the White House and by the vast majority of whomever's been elected to Congress by then, I'll support a third party, if one arises based on the issues people are protesting about today, too. But I'd be lying if I said I think either a petition or a third party are likely to be effective, to be able to bring about the basic, fundamental changes in our system of governance that I believe most protesters are hoping for.
So I clicked the link, read the story, and found the original (on which Business Insider's story was based) here: The Steps to Non-Violent Revolution and the Convening of a National General Assembly. As you can see, the Business Insider reporter had simply copied the entirety of this document into her report, which since a link to the original was provided and the document is posted publicly, I assume was fine with all concerned.
That still left the question in my mind, however, whether the above document really expresses the views of the Occupy Wall Street movement in NYC specifically, let alone the views of the various offshoot Occupy movements around the country. All I could find on that score, on the same site as the above document, was this: Who are we?.
So, okay, it appears that some lawyers and maybe at least some of the original protesters collaborated on the document. It appears, let me reiterate, because I don't think the "Who are we?" statement is quite conclusive.
Bottom line: I'm still wondering. The last I've seen out of of the original NYC Occupy Wall Street movement, apart from asking people to close their accounts at some (or all, I'm not too clear on that point) of the country's biggest banks by November 5th of this year was a declaration that their intention was for their occupation to continue more or less indefinitely, and that they expected (or hoped) that other occupiers throughout the country would do likewise. If the document referred to above has ever been discussed at the NYC General Assembly, let alone at the GAs of any of the other Occupy movements around the country, let alone agreed to, I haven't heard about it. Not that there's any particular reason I should have, I hasten to add, since I'm only an observer and not an active participant. Still, I can't help wondering if there is some plan, at some point in the not-too-distant future, for the document to be dusted off, possibly modified to some degree, and presented to the NYC GA and/or other GAs around the country for consideration, and if so, when we might expect that to happen.
As for the actual content of the document: I'm not a lawyer, or even an educated man, so I'll leave the legal feasibility of the proposals made therein alone. On the surface of it, I like some (perhaps all) of the proposals made in the document, but does anyone really think that President Barack Obama (if he manages to pull off a win in 2012), let alone any possible Republican president who might succeed him if he doesn't, will give so much as a rat's rear-end about any "Petition of Grievances?"
When one looks back at the Obama campaign in 2008 and the promises made (or implied) at that time, and adds in the reasons many, many swing-voters, not to mention Democratic progressives voted for Mr. Obama, the way the President has handled most of his first term up until now is almost as if, immediately after taking the oath of office, Mr. Obama looked into a television camera at the American people and said, "Fuck you." Why on earth, if he does manage to be re-elected, would he do any differently in a second term? Particularly since, at that point, he'd have no further need to please anyone or even to pretend to care what the American people think? And the idea of any possible Republican president feeling any differently about it is . . . to state the point moderately, downright laughable.
So then, if I'm reading the document correctly, over a year from now, assuming that the plan outlined in the document is fully agreed-to and fully implemented, we'd be looking at forming another third political party for the 2014 elections, and how often in American history have third parties ever accomplished anything? Admittedly, third parties have, on occasion, managed to split the vote of one of the two major existing parties, but that's about as far as any of them have ever gotten to the best of my knowledge. There's also a serious question in my mind at least as to whether, given the current political climate and the economic mess we're still in (which may get much, much worse at any time in the future, and is hardly likely to improve), the country's still even going to be a viable concern by 2014.
I hope I'm just being pessimistic. I get that way sometimes. And if this really is the plan, I hope that the various GAs across the country (and new ones which may come into being along the way) are able to do all the debating and so on they'd need to do to make this fly. But clearly the existing system is already reacting (in many cases forcefully and even brutally) against the protests in general, and I can't see that getting any better in the foreseeable future. No powerful, entrenched socioeconomic/political system ever changes willingly, and ours in the United States is hardly likely to do so either.
If this all does come about, if a national petition for the redress of grievances can be formulated and adopted on a nationwide basis, I'll be a huge cheerleader for it and those who drew it up. And when that gets slapped down by whomever's in the White House and by the vast majority of whomever's been elected to Congress by then, I'll support a third party, if one arises based on the issues people are protesting about today, too. But I'd be lying if I said I think either a petition or a third party are likely to be effective, to be able to bring about the basic, fundamental changes in our system of governance that I believe most protesters are hoping for.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
When Will Americans Wake Up?
As I type this tonight, the NYPD is preparing to clear Occupy Wall Street protesters from Washington Park. The Denver police department has a swat team out to deal with Occupy Denver protesters, and the Chicago Police Department is now preparing massive arrests in Chicago. Earlier today, Occupy Raleigh protesters were arrested, again, for exercising their First Amendment rights in that city. Protesters have also been arrested or harassed by police in Cincinnati, Seattle, San Diego, Evansville, Dallas, and Des Moines, just to name a few. And yet I still see people expressing the hope that President Obama, presumably because he is a Democrat, and again presuming that being a Democrat indicates that an official is likely to be conscientious about upholding First Amendment and other constitutional rights which are enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.
Clearly, a very large number of American still don't get it. Prominent Republicans, early on into the protests, began referring to members of the Occupy movements as "mobs in the streets." Their bought-and-paid-for media outlets, both broadcast and online, have from the beginning tried to portray current protesters as Communists, Socialists, hippies, druggies, public defecators, fornicators, and every other pejorative epithet they could think of because it was obvious to them from the beginning that the ongoing protests could under no circumstances be turned to their advantage in political terms.
Which brings us to the various crackdowns, which amount to the illegal, unconstitutional denial of the First Amendment rights of Americans taking place this evening, and the hopes, expressed by some, that President Obama will see what is going on and somehow intervene.
Here's a tip, campers: President Barack H. Obama, and his Democratic cohorts in Congress, in the various governors' offices, and in the various state legislatures, don't give any more of a damn about the Constitution or your First Amendment rights than the Republicans do. They've only held off until now because they hoped, their polling numbers currently being in the toilet and slowly circling the bowl, that they could somehow co-opt the protests going on nationwide to improve the President's chances of re-election in 2012 and his Democratic cronies in Congress with him. In hundreds of cities and towns across the United States today, protests were taking place, and where did President Obama spend the day? Monitoring the situation, one might think? Trying to think of a way to address the protesters' concerns? No, President Obama spent some five hours on a fucking golf course! Presumably he was tapped out from the arduous duty of hosting five-course (or whatever they are) state dinners for the visiting President of South Korea, and arranging photo-ops so that the two of them could show themselves in "solidarity" against something.
The ugly, basic fact is that the United States of America has been transformed, right under our noses, into a police state. Either political party may tolerate dissent, but only so long as they believe it may be turned to their own advantage, much as the Hitler regime tolerated (and actually encouraged) the infamous "Kristallnacht" in Germany on Nov. 9-10, 1938, and precisely as the Republican Party and their corporate masters tolerated (and encouraged) the early Tea Party demonstrations in the United States two years ago.
The truth is that today, Americans have no rights other than those which the government du jour (on the federal, state, or municipal level) chooses to indulge. That is a very far cry from the Constitutional reality, in which the American people were sovereign, and their rights came ahead of those of any government on any level.
Americans can debate back and forth that the Tea Party was permitted to do this and that, while Occupy protesters are denied far less (carrying assault weapons to demonstrations, for example), but the point is that once the free people of a free nation leave it up to the government (or administration) of the day to decide who is permitted to do what and for what reasons, it is only a matter of time before all are enslaved. To paraphrase a famous old German tale from the period immediately after World War Two, "First, they came for the Communists, but I wasn't a Communist, so I didn't care. Next, they came for the Jews, but I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't care. Last, they came for me, and there was no one left to care."
What remains to be seen is what (if anything) the American people will decide to do about it, and another enormous question is what the United States military will choose to do about it. All too many Americans, I fear, will take the path of least resistance. So long as they are not being prevented from doing anything they wish to do, it will be much easier, simpler, and safer not to stick their necks out, and indeed many will probably cheer until it is their turn. The military, however, may be another matter.
I am not speaking here of the brass-hats in the Pentagon who are as much political as military in nature, who dispose of trillions of taxpayer dollars paid into the hands of greedy defense contractors, from whom they may then expect a rich reward upon their retirement from military service. I am speaking about the men and women who wear the uniform with pride and honor, who are among the best this country has to offer, who have spent their sweat, their blood, and all too often their lives, defending "freedom" and the "American way of life." All Americans (but for the richest one percent) have suffered during this past decade, and especially in the last three years, but none have suffered or been so abused as they.
Beginning with the infamous "stop-loss" program under the Bush administration, by which the government simply declared "King's X" on conditions under which every single person who had enlisted in the military had signed on the dotted line, now the Washington regime is talking not only about further reducing medical and financial benefits paid to veterans, but also about reducing the pensions and medical care afforded to those brave men and women currently on active service. In some cases, returning heroes are not even being paid the monies due them for their active service, and in hundreds (if not thousands) of cases returning heroes have found that their homes have been foreclosed upon and their families cast into the streets by the criminal banks which support the Washington regime, and to which it is beholden, while they themselves were fighting and dying overseas.
What will happen? Only God knows. Will Americans not immediately concerned with the current protests content themselves with a six-pack and their favorite "reality" television show so long as DHS, the FBI, or the local police are not knocking on their door? Will the rank-and-file in the United States military continue to endure being sent to fight and potentially die to prop up corrupt and ultimately unsustainable regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan while knowing full well that their own government, to which they have sworn allegiance, may very well stab them in the back at home?
We Americans are now "beyond the looking glass." We as a people and as a nation are standing upon ground which Americans have never trod before. All we can do is hope and pray that, if there is a god, Almighty God will look down upon us, forgive us any sins we may have committed, and give us a second chance.
Clearly, a very large number of American still don't get it. Prominent Republicans, early on into the protests, began referring to members of the Occupy movements as "mobs in the streets." Their bought-and-paid-for media outlets, both broadcast and online, have from the beginning tried to portray current protesters as Communists, Socialists, hippies, druggies, public defecators, fornicators, and every other pejorative epithet they could think of because it was obvious to them from the beginning that the ongoing protests could under no circumstances be turned to their advantage in political terms.
Which brings us to the various crackdowns, which amount to the illegal, unconstitutional denial of the First Amendment rights of Americans taking place this evening, and the hopes, expressed by some, that President Obama will see what is going on and somehow intervene.
Here's a tip, campers: President Barack H. Obama, and his Democratic cohorts in Congress, in the various governors' offices, and in the various state legislatures, don't give any more of a damn about the Constitution or your First Amendment rights than the Republicans do. They've only held off until now because they hoped, their polling numbers currently being in the toilet and slowly circling the bowl, that they could somehow co-opt the protests going on nationwide to improve the President's chances of re-election in 2012 and his Democratic cronies in Congress with him. In hundreds of cities and towns across the United States today, protests were taking place, and where did President Obama spend the day? Monitoring the situation, one might think? Trying to think of a way to address the protesters' concerns? No, President Obama spent some five hours on a fucking golf course! Presumably he was tapped out from the arduous duty of hosting five-course (or whatever they are) state dinners for the visiting President of South Korea, and arranging photo-ops so that the two of them could show themselves in "solidarity" against something.
The ugly, basic fact is that the United States of America has been transformed, right under our noses, into a police state. Either political party may tolerate dissent, but only so long as they believe it may be turned to their own advantage, much as the Hitler regime tolerated (and actually encouraged) the infamous "Kristallnacht" in Germany on Nov. 9-10, 1938, and precisely as the Republican Party and their corporate masters tolerated (and encouraged) the early Tea Party demonstrations in the United States two years ago.
The truth is that today, Americans have no rights other than those which the government du jour (on the federal, state, or municipal level) chooses to indulge. That is a very far cry from the Constitutional reality, in which the American people were sovereign, and their rights came ahead of those of any government on any level.
Americans can debate back and forth that the Tea Party was permitted to do this and that, while Occupy protesters are denied far less (carrying assault weapons to demonstrations, for example), but the point is that once the free people of a free nation leave it up to the government (or administration) of the day to decide who is permitted to do what and for what reasons, it is only a matter of time before all are enslaved. To paraphrase a famous old German tale from the period immediately after World War Two, "First, they came for the Communists, but I wasn't a Communist, so I didn't care. Next, they came for the Jews, but I wasn't a Jew, so I didn't care. Last, they came for me, and there was no one left to care."
What remains to be seen is what (if anything) the American people will decide to do about it, and another enormous question is what the United States military will choose to do about it. All too many Americans, I fear, will take the path of least resistance. So long as they are not being prevented from doing anything they wish to do, it will be much easier, simpler, and safer not to stick their necks out, and indeed many will probably cheer until it is their turn. The military, however, may be another matter.
I am not speaking here of the brass-hats in the Pentagon who are as much political as military in nature, who dispose of trillions of taxpayer dollars paid into the hands of greedy defense contractors, from whom they may then expect a rich reward upon their retirement from military service. I am speaking about the men and women who wear the uniform with pride and honor, who are among the best this country has to offer, who have spent their sweat, their blood, and all too often their lives, defending "freedom" and the "American way of life." All Americans (but for the richest one percent) have suffered during this past decade, and especially in the last three years, but none have suffered or been so abused as they.
Beginning with the infamous "stop-loss" program under the Bush administration, by which the government simply declared "King's X" on conditions under which every single person who had enlisted in the military had signed on the dotted line, now the Washington regime is talking not only about further reducing medical and financial benefits paid to veterans, but also about reducing the pensions and medical care afforded to those brave men and women currently on active service. In some cases, returning heroes are not even being paid the monies due them for their active service, and in hundreds (if not thousands) of cases returning heroes have found that their homes have been foreclosed upon and their families cast into the streets by the criminal banks which support the Washington regime, and to which it is beholden, while they themselves were fighting and dying overseas.
What will happen? Only God knows. Will Americans not immediately concerned with the current protests content themselves with a six-pack and their favorite "reality" television show so long as DHS, the FBI, or the local police are not knocking on their door? Will the rank-and-file in the United States military continue to endure being sent to fight and potentially die to prop up corrupt and ultimately unsustainable regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan while knowing full well that their own government, to which they have sworn allegiance, may very well stab them in the back at home?
We Americans are now "beyond the looking glass." We as a people and as a nation are standing upon ground which Americans have never trod before. All we can do is hope and pray that, if there is a god, Almighty God will look down upon us, forgive us any sins we may have committed, and give us a second chance.
Friday, October 14, 2011
25th Amendment, Section 4 - Updated
Below, in its entirety, is the email which I just sent to Vice President Joe Biden:
Mr. Vice President:
Although I supported the election of President Obama in 2008, and although I was sympathetic to the cause of the Libyan rebels, I believed (and still believe) that the President's decision to commit US military personnel, assets, and US tax dollars in support of the rebels without the prior authorization of Congress, given that Libya has never and did not then represent even a remote danger to the security of the United States, was a blatantly unconstitutional act for which the President should have been held accountable via the legal constitutional processes.
Today we are reading that President Obama has now, on his own authority, decided to commit some 100 US combat personnel to Uganda in order to assist in combat against something called "The Lord's Resistance Army." In this case, it seems, the President did at least take the step of notifying Speaker Boehner of his decision, although in the copy of that letter which I have read online, the President is clearly not requesting congressional authorization, merely once again asserting his supposed (and I believe unconstitutional) authority to commit US troops, assets, and dollars in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief and Chief Executive as, when, and how he sees fit to do so.
Mr. Vice President, it surely cannot have escaped you, members of the Cabinet, or other leading government officials that the United States currently is, and has been for some considerable time, in a state of unprecedented crisis here at home. Millions of ordinary Americans from across the political spectrum are angry, even outraged, and I believe rightly so, over the poor performance of our economy in general, the lack of jobs in particular, the ongoing lack of any responsibility being placed on the shoulders of those persons and institutions which caused the present financial crisis, and our two major, seemingly interminable wars in the Middle East which a majority of Americans clearly no longer support.
I do not believe that even his detractors would claim that President Obama is not a highly intelligent, well-educated man, which is why this latest step (the commitment of American forces to a conflict in Uganda, which few Americans have even heard about, and which clearly represents no threat whatsoever to the security of the United States), given the other circumstances mentioned above, causes me to have serious doubts about the President's mental/emotional stability and capacity to continue to govern.
Although I believe that important constitutional issues are involved, we are now at the point at which I, and I suspect a great many other Americans, are less concerned with them than with the President's fitness, from a medical standpoint, to remain in office.
Therefore, Mr. Vice President, I earnestly hope that you and members of the Cabinet will give serious consideration to the possibility that the President may indeed be ill, that his illness (if he is so diagnosed) may well be preventing him from competently discharging the duties of his office, and that you will consider invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment, Section 4, of the Constitution of the United States to remove, even if only temporarily, the President from office at least until the matter can be sorted out by competent medical personnel and both Houses of Congress, assuming that the President would not agree that he is no longer able to function competently.
I believe that at this point the course I have suggested, Mr. Vice President, would be best for the Democratic Party, for the United States, and for the American people.
Respectfully,
Robert Schiele
And the response was:
Dear Friend,
Thank you for your message. On behalf of Vice President Biden, we appreciate hearing from you. The President has promised the most transparent administration in history, and we are committed to listening to and responding to you. In order to better handle the millions of electronic messages we are receiving and respond more quickly, we have implemented a new contact form on our website:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact-vp/ Please note that this web form has replaced vicepresident@whitehouse.gov.
That email address is no longer monitored, so we encourage you to resubmit your message through the link above. Thank you for using the web form and helping us improve communications with you.
Sincerely,
The Office of The Vice President
Or, as Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say on Saturday Night Live: "It just goes to show you that it's always something."
Mr. Vice President:
Although I supported the election of President Obama in 2008, and although I was sympathetic to the cause of the Libyan rebels, I believed (and still believe) that the President's decision to commit US military personnel, assets, and US tax dollars in support of the rebels without the prior authorization of Congress, given that Libya has never and did not then represent even a remote danger to the security of the United States, was a blatantly unconstitutional act for which the President should have been held accountable via the legal constitutional processes.
Today we are reading that President Obama has now, on his own authority, decided to commit some 100 US combat personnel to Uganda in order to assist in combat against something called "The Lord's Resistance Army." In this case, it seems, the President did at least take the step of notifying Speaker Boehner of his decision, although in the copy of that letter which I have read online, the President is clearly not requesting congressional authorization, merely once again asserting his supposed (and I believe unconstitutional) authority to commit US troops, assets, and dollars in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief and Chief Executive as, when, and how he sees fit to do so.
Mr. Vice President, it surely cannot have escaped you, members of the Cabinet, or other leading government officials that the United States currently is, and has been for some considerable time, in a state of unprecedented crisis here at home. Millions of ordinary Americans from across the political spectrum are angry, even outraged, and I believe rightly so, over the poor performance of our economy in general, the lack of jobs in particular, the ongoing lack of any responsibility being placed on the shoulders of those persons and institutions which caused the present financial crisis, and our two major, seemingly interminable wars in the Middle East which a majority of Americans clearly no longer support.
I do not believe that even his detractors would claim that President Obama is not a highly intelligent, well-educated man, which is why this latest step (the commitment of American forces to a conflict in Uganda, which few Americans have even heard about, and which clearly represents no threat whatsoever to the security of the United States), given the other circumstances mentioned above, causes me to have serious doubts about the President's mental/emotional stability and capacity to continue to govern.
Although I believe that important constitutional issues are involved, we are now at the point at which I, and I suspect a great many other Americans, are less concerned with them than with the President's fitness, from a medical standpoint, to remain in office.
Therefore, Mr. Vice President, I earnestly hope that you and members of the Cabinet will give serious consideration to the possibility that the President may indeed be ill, that his illness (if he is so diagnosed) may well be preventing him from competently discharging the duties of his office, and that you will consider invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment, Section 4, of the Constitution of the United States to remove, even if only temporarily, the President from office at least until the matter can be sorted out by competent medical personnel and both Houses of Congress, assuming that the President would not agree that he is no longer able to function competently.
I believe that at this point the course I have suggested, Mr. Vice President, would be best for the Democratic Party, for the United States, and for the American people.
Respectfully,
Robert Schiele
And the response was:
Dear Friend,
Thank you for your message. On behalf of Vice President Biden, we appreciate hearing from you. The President has promised the most transparent administration in history, and we are committed to listening to and responding to you. In order to better handle the millions of electronic messages we are receiving and respond more quickly, we have implemented a new contact form on our website:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact-vp/ Please note that this web form has replaced vicepresident@whitehouse.gov.
That email address is no longer monitored, so we encourage you to resubmit your message through the link above. Thank you for using the web form and helping us improve communications with you.
Sincerely,
The Office of The Vice President
Or, as Rosanne Rosannadanna used to say on Saturday Night Live: "It just goes to show you that it's always something."
If US Authorities Have Any Sense They Will Listen to #OWS, Not Try To Repress
Yesterday NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that Brookfield Office Properties, which constructed and owns Zuccotti Park (aka "Liberty Park") in which Occupy Wall Street protesters have now been bivouacking for several weeks, wished to "clean up" the park, that Brookfield had requested the help of the NYPD to clear the protesters from the park, and that under his direction the police would do as requested.
The protesters, predictably, voted to refuse to vacate the park, and it seemed that an early-morning showdown today was imminent; however, at almost the last moment the Mayor announced that Brookfield had instead decided to "try to work with" the protesters in order to see that their concerns regarding the "sanitation" and other issues concerning the park were addressed in some mutually agreeable way. Mr. Bloomberg's own publication, Bloomberg, carried this story this morning: "Zuccotti Owner Got Calls From Elected Officials, NYC Mayor Says," which perhaps adds another wrinkle to what nearly happened in NYC this morning, and it is a story I think worth a closer look.
As I type this, Occupy San Diego protesters are being arrested in that city. A few days ago, the Boston Police Department moved against a group of protesters who were a part of Occupy Boston. The Occupy Cincinnati protesters have been subjected to almost nightly police harassment in the form of citations almost since they began their protest. Occupy Seattle protesters have also been arrested. Also today, the Occupy Denver protesters' encampment was destroyed by police, their equipment and possessions confiscated, and many of them were arrested as well. Protesters belonging to the Occupy Dallas and Occupy Houston protests have also been subjected to arrest and/or police harassment, and these are only a few examples of attempts by US authorities to deprive American citizens of their First Amendment rights.
The idea has long been almost folkloric in the United States that the US government in Washington pays little if any attention to anything which happens "outside the Beltway," as the saying goes, meaning that, whether Democratic or Republican, most American administrations seem more or less oblivious to what is taking place in the country at large, instead concentrating on the political infighting and deal-making which occur in Washington to the exclusion of everything else.
Now, I do not know, nor have I seen any hints even, that any federal officials might have made any of the telephone calls to Brookfield Office Properties to which Mayor Bloomberg alluded in the above linked article, but if they didn't they ought to have done. And it would behoove them also, to the extent permissible given that the various US states are "sovereign" entities in their own right, to contact state and local authorities across the country and advise them that, wherever their personal or partisan sympathies may lie regarding these protests, the worst thing they can possibly do is to employ repression in any form.
Americans have always been a notoriously unruly people. That is not to say that Americans are not, in the vast majority of cases, decent, law-abiding citizens. In fact, they are, and nearly always have been. But Americans have never reacted well when they feel as if they are being pushed around, and in particular when they feel as if any of their most basic constitutional rights are being threatened. And for most Americans there are no more basic, fundamental constitutional rights than those enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Clearly, these rights do not apply only to persons who happen to agree with the current administration in Washington, nor do they apply only to those who voted for or support those elected officials who happen to be in power in any of the various state capitals or municipalities.
It should also have been clear to elected officials at all levels of government, for several years now, that the people of the United States in general are mightily displeased, although many may not be displeased about exactly the same issues. Enormous displeasure, for example, was clear for all to see at the very beginning of the Iraq War. Later, after the financial crisis of 2008 began to come into focus, and in particular after the Bush Administration began the bailout of the big financial houses and banks, the Tea Party was born due, among other things, to the fury of conservatives who found themselves left in the lurch, financially speaking, while the federal government spent trillions of dollars (including the trillions it was only learned recently that the Fed also gave to the banks, surreptitiously) propping up many of the institutions which had caused the financial meltdown in the first place. And now we have the Occupy Wall Street protests, which consist of many progressives and people even further to the Left, but also a fair sprinkling of conservatives too. They are outraged by the bank bailouts and by the continuation of America's seemingly endless overseas military adventurism or empire-building, among other issues, and these protests have now spread from coast to coast, taking place in literally hundreds of cities and towns of all sizes, descriptions, and types.
All of the above goes to show for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that the entire country, or a very substantial portion of it, is absolutely seething with anger. Americans from one end of the political spectrum to the other are feeling much aggrieved, disempowered, disenfranchised, and in general ignored and ill-served by their elected officials. This is true to a degree which I have never before witnessed in my lifetime, and although the various types of protests which have occurred up until now have been, on the whole, non-violent in nature, there can be no guarantee that they will always remain so. Any people, even Americans, if they feel they have been pushed too far, are capable of lashing out, and the consequences of that, should it occur on a nationwide basis, could well be too terrible to contemplate.
That is why I sincerely hope that our elected officials, from city councils, mayors, governors, congressmen, senators, and the President himself will take note of what is really taking place here and act accordingly. Repression, when it is employed, will only go so far, and in almost every case when it is employed serves only to aggravate an already inflamed and irate populace even further. It is, put simply, exactly the wrong tactic to employ.
So is "politics as usual," which seems to be the prevailing attitude in Washington. Conservatives are thundering against the latest protests, referring to them as "mobs in the streets" (probably because these latest protesters are not all conservatives whom they can hope to co-opt for their own purposes), and progressives are attempting to co-opt them for their own party in the upcoming 2012 elections; but these protests are not about the upcoming elections, no matter how devoutly Democrats might wish that such were the case. They are about the issue of governance in this country as a whole, not about specific candidates and/or issues. For an excellent article on this topic see: "Occupy Wall Street’s ‘Political Disobedience’."
There is still, I believe, time to save the situation before events spiral completely out of control. Each repressive act committed only pours gasoline on an already raging fire, so all such acts should be halted so long as protesters remain peaceful, non-violent, and obey the law. And it will also be necessary for officials at all levels of government to realize, once and for all, that whatever the ultimate outcome of the current unrest in the United States may be, business as usual is simply no longer an option. What is occurring is not just a "sound bite" or the subject of a few "news cycles." If it is to be dealt with constructively instead of destructively, if ultimate catastrophe is to be prevented, officials must do what they can to engage the American people in a serious, sustained dialogue. Either way, the eternal game of "musical chairs" in Washington, in the Congress and the presidency, in the state governors' offices, in the state legislatures, in the mayors' offices and the city and town councils, cannot and will not be allowed to go on indefinitely.
Americans are no longer willing to sit on the sidelines and be treated by elected officials or financial "geniuses" as if they were ignorant, unruly children. Like it or not (and I suspect most professional politicians and most corporate CEOs won't like it much), the American people have dealt themselves back into the game. Those who choose to ignore that simple fact, whether in government or in the private sector, do so at their peril.
The protesters, predictably, voted to refuse to vacate the park, and it seemed that an early-morning showdown today was imminent; however, at almost the last moment the Mayor announced that Brookfield had instead decided to "try to work with" the protesters in order to see that their concerns regarding the "sanitation" and other issues concerning the park were addressed in some mutually agreeable way. Mr. Bloomberg's own publication, Bloomberg, carried this story this morning: "Zuccotti Owner Got Calls From Elected Officials, NYC Mayor Says," which perhaps adds another wrinkle to what nearly happened in NYC this morning, and it is a story I think worth a closer look.
As I type this, Occupy San Diego protesters are being arrested in that city. A few days ago, the Boston Police Department moved against a group of protesters who were a part of Occupy Boston. The Occupy Cincinnati protesters have been subjected to almost nightly police harassment in the form of citations almost since they began their protest. Occupy Seattle protesters have also been arrested. Also today, the Occupy Denver protesters' encampment was destroyed by police, their equipment and possessions confiscated, and many of them were arrested as well. Protesters belonging to the Occupy Dallas and Occupy Houston protests have also been subjected to arrest and/or police harassment, and these are only a few examples of attempts by US authorities to deprive American citizens of their First Amendment rights.
The idea has long been almost folkloric in the United States that the US government in Washington pays little if any attention to anything which happens "outside the Beltway," as the saying goes, meaning that, whether Democratic or Republican, most American administrations seem more or less oblivious to what is taking place in the country at large, instead concentrating on the political infighting and deal-making which occur in Washington to the exclusion of everything else.
Now, I do not know, nor have I seen any hints even, that any federal officials might have made any of the telephone calls to Brookfield Office Properties to which Mayor Bloomberg alluded in the above linked article, but if they didn't they ought to have done. And it would behoove them also, to the extent permissible given that the various US states are "sovereign" entities in their own right, to contact state and local authorities across the country and advise them that, wherever their personal or partisan sympathies may lie regarding these protests, the worst thing they can possibly do is to employ repression in any form.
Americans have always been a notoriously unruly people. That is not to say that Americans are not, in the vast majority of cases, decent, law-abiding citizens. In fact, they are, and nearly always have been. But Americans have never reacted well when they feel as if they are being pushed around, and in particular when they feel as if any of their most basic constitutional rights are being threatened. And for most Americans there are no more basic, fundamental constitutional rights than those enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Clearly, these rights do not apply only to persons who happen to agree with the current administration in Washington, nor do they apply only to those who voted for or support those elected officials who happen to be in power in any of the various state capitals or municipalities.
It should also have been clear to elected officials at all levels of government, for several years now, that the people of the United States in general are mightily displeased, although many may not be displeased about exactly the same issues. Enormous displeasure, for example, was clear for all to see at the very beginning of the Iraq War. Later, after the financial crisis of 2008 began to come into focus, and in particular after the Bush Administration began the bailout of the big financial houses and banks, the Tea Party was born due, among other things, to the fury of conservatives who found themselves left in the lurch, financially speaking, while the federal government spent trillions of dollars (including the trillions it was only learned recently that the Fed also gave to the banks, surreptitiously) propping up many of the institutions which had caused the financial meltdown in the first place. And now we have the Occupy Wall Street protests, which consist of many progressives and people even further to the Left, but also a fair sprinkling of conservatives too. They are outraged by the bank bailouts and by the continuation of America's seemingly endless overseas military adventurism or empire-building, among other issues, and these protests have now spread from coast to coast, taking place in literally hundreds of cities and towns of all sizes, descriptions, and types.
All of the above goes to show for anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that the entire country, or a very substantial portion of it, is absolutely seething with anger. Americans from one end of the political spectrum to the other are feeling much aggrieved, disempowered, disenfranchised, and in general ignored and ill-served by their elected officials. This is true to a degree which I have never before witnessed in my lifetime, and although the various types of protests which have occurred up until now have been, on the whole, non-violent in nature, there can be no guarantee that they will always remain so. Any people, even Americans, if they feel they have been pushed too far, are capable of lashing out, and the consequences of that, should it occur on a nationwide basis, could well be too terrible to contemplate.
That is why I sincerely hope that our elected officials, from city councils, mayors, governors, congressmen, senators, and the President himself will take note of what is really taking place here and act accordingly. Repression, when it is employed, will only go so far, and in almost every case when it is employed serves only to aggravate an already inflamed and irate populace even further. It is, put simply, exactly the wrong tactic to employ.
So is "politics as usual," which seems to be the prevailing attitude in Washington. Conservatives are thundering against the latest protests, referring to them as "mobs in the streets" (probably because these latest protesters are not all conservatives whom they can hope to co-opt for their own purposes), and progressives are attempting to co-opt them for their own party in the upcoming 2012 elections; but these protests are not about the upcoming elections, no matter how devoutly Democrats might wish that such were the case. They are about the issue of governance in this country as a whole, not about specific candidates and/or issues. For an excellent article on this topic see: "Occupy Wall Street’s ‘Political Disobedience’."
There is still, I believe, time to save the situation before events spiral completely out of control. Each repressive act committed only pours gasoline on an already raging fire, so all such acts should be halted so long as protesters remain peaceful, non-violent, and obey the law. And it will also be necessary for officials at all levels of government to realize, once and for all, that whatever the ultimate outcome of the current unrest in the United States may be, business as usual is simply no longer an option. What is occurring is not just a "sound bite" or the subject of a few "news cycles." If it is to be dealt with constructively instead of destructively, if ultimate catastrophe is to be prevented, officials must do what they can to engage the American people in a serious, sustained dialogue. Either way, the eternal game of "musical chairs" in Washington, in the Congress and the presidency, in the state governors' offices, in the state legislatures, in the mayors' offices and the city and town councils, cannot and will not be allowed to go on indefinitely.
Americans are no longer willing to sit on the sidelines and be treated by elected officials or financial "geniuses" as if they were ignorant, unruly children. Like it or not (and I suspect most professional politicians and most corporate CEOs won't like it much), the American people have dealt themselves back into the game. Those who choose to ignore that simple fact, whether in government or in the private sector, do so at their peril.
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