Election Erections

Our Founders and the Unbalance of Power

-- Al Gore, 6/25/04

"When we Americans first began, our biggest danger was clearly in view: we knew from the bitter experience with King George III that the most serious threat to democracy is usually the accumulation of too much power in the hands of an Executive, whether he be a King or a president. Our ingrained American distrust of concentrated power has very little to do with the character or persona of the individual who wields that power. It is the power itself that must be constrained, checked, dispersed and carefully balanced, in order to ensure the survival of freedom. "

"In addition, our founders taught us that public fear is the most dangerous enemy of democracy because under the right circumstances it can trigger the temptation of those who govern themselves to surrender that power to someone who promises strength and offers safety, security and freedom from fear.

It is an extraordinary blessing to live in a nation so carefully designed to protect individual liberty and safeguard self-governance and free communication. But if George Washington could see the current state of his generation's handiwork and assess the quality of our generation's stewardship at the beginning of this twenty-first century, what do you suppose he would think about the proposition that our current president claims the unilateral right to arrest and imprison American citizens indefinitely without giving them the right to see a lawyer or inform their families of their whereabouts, and without the necessity of even charging them with any crime. All that is necessary, according to our new president is that he - the president - label any citizen an "unlawful enemy combatant," and that will be sufficient to justify taking away that citizen's liberty - even for the rest of his life, if the president so chooses. And there is no appeal...

"...I think it is safe to say that our founders would be genuinely concerned about these recent developments in American democracy and that they would feel that we are now facing a clear and present danger that has the potential to threaten the future of the American experiment.

"Shouldn't we be equally concerned? And shouldn't we ask ourselves how we have come to this point? ..." --Al Gore, Truthout 6/25/04; read more on cite

The Case Against Civility

--Randall Kennedy

"...The 1960s inculcated an irreverence that questioned such tenets of our political culture as the belief that poverty is primarily the fault of lazy, improvident, stupid, or otherwise undeserving individuals. Unfortunately, under the influence of the virtuecrats, those ideas are again being elevated to the status of Laws of Nature."

"The virtuecrats' portrayal of the 1960s mirrors their approach to contemporary society. They have fits over "coarse language," but homeless families and involuntary unemployment only get a shrug. They focus more indignation on the raunchy lyrics of gangsta rap than the horrific indifference that makes possible the miserable conditions that those lyrics often vividly portray. As Benjamin DeMott perceptively noted in a bracing polemic in the Nation in December 1996, "Seduced by Civility," the virtuecrats have helped to confuse the distinction between central and peripheral political evils..."--Randall Kennedy, The American Prospect; read more on cite

10 Steps to Restore Democracy in America

--Thom Hartmann

"1. Human rights are for humans.

Corporations are not persons. We must update the 14th Amendment to insert "natural" before the word "persons" so corporations can no longer claim the "right to lie," the "right to hide their crimes," the "right to buy politicians and influence elections," and "the right to force themselves on communities that don't want them." Corporate charter laws should be amended on a state-by-state basis to reinstate the spirit of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by again outlawing the ownership of one corporation by another, to limit the term of a corporation, to insert Corporate Code-like language requiring a corporation to place the needs of its community above its desire for profits, and, as Teddy Roosevelt so strongly urged us, to ban corporations from political activity of any sort...." --Thom Hartmann; read more on cite

1997 Speech of Vaclav Havel

--Vaclav Havel

"...The question of identity of a nation, a state or a society is raised fairly often. Many an opponent of European integration uses it to make his or her case, and spreads fear for its loss. To my mind, most of those who do this subconsciously perceive identity as something given by fate, or determined by our genes, almost as a matter of blood that we cannot influence in any way. This concept of identity is very wrong. Identity is first and foremost a deed, a piece of work, an accomplishment. It does not stand apart from responsibility, on the contrary: identity is an expression of responsibility..." -- President Vaclav Havel, Address to Parliament 1997/12/09; read more on cite

RAVE ACT should have us raving

-- Billy Gould

"...The great axe of political power is now in the hands of some highly irresponsible people; frightening policies and laws are getting enacted on a daily basis, and the only weapons we have to defend ourselves are our knowledge of the facts, our right to free speech and our right to vote. And I suppose this is what’s motivated to focus on a particularly odious law (among many) that has been passed through congress recently, called the RAVE ACT....For example: did you know that in North Carolina, a man running a methlab has been charged with “manufacturing chemical weapons”? Or that the Justice Department is currently conducting seminars on how to “stretch new wiretapping provisions (provided by the Patriot Act) to extend them beyond terror cases” (David Caruso, AP)..." -- Billy Gould, Kool Arrow Records on Punk Voter read more on cite

Democracy's Long Range Challenges

DEMOS

"...A central challenge for any democracy is to extend the power of representative government into the economic realm. In recent decades, however, this has become increasingly difficult in the United States and elsewhere. Large corporations are more mobile than ever in an era of globalization and less easily regulated by national governments. The tools of regulation have also lost their effectiveness due to political attacks on government, a failure to reinvent and re-imagine these tools, and declining public support for activist government. Falling rates of unionization have removed another important counterweight to corporate power.

"Demos is exploring new ways to ensure responsible corporate behavior in the changed conditions of the 21st century. .." DEMOS; read more on cite

"Voting Doesn't Work" - NOT!

--Geoff

"...It doesn't have to be this way! If I've learned one thing from identifying with punk culture it's that things don't have to be the way they've always been and actions don't have to mean what they've always meant. We don't have to live in a world of strictly defined and limited options. Voting can be a tactic just like a black block or a banner drop. We can contextualize a vote however we want to. We know that voting doesn't work, and we can tell people why and why, even knowing this, we're still voting. Participation doesn't have to equal universal approval! ... Since it seems that we have to contextual our actions whatever they may be, we might as well vote tactically and use direct action, our words, independent media and other resources to make it very clear that voting for a candidate doesn't mean that one supports these policies and that social change can and must start in places other than our system of government...." --Geoff; read more on cite

David Brock founds "Media Matters"

--by David Brock

"Welcome to Media Matters for America, a new Web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Because a healthy democracy depends on public access to accurate and reliable information, Media Matters for America is dedicated to alerting news outlets and consumers to conservative misinformation -- wherever we find it, in every news cycle -- and to spurring progressive activism based on standards and accountability in media.

"In the mid-1990s, as a conservative media insider, I saw firsthand (and participated in) the damage done to our democracy when conservative misinformation masquerades as journalism. In my book Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative (2002), I revealed how this misinformation -- deliberately bought and paid for by covert political forces -- enveloped the media, poisoned public discourse, and nearly toppled a president. ..." --David Brock, Media Matters; read more on cite

"Until When?" Green Party asks...

"Democrats ask the Greens to delay party building – but for how long?" --Matt Gonzalez; Mesh Magazine; read more on cite

Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy

--Arundhati Roy

"Way back in 1988, on the 3rd of July, the U.S.S. Vincennes, a missile cruiser stationed in the Persian Gulf, accidentally shot down an Iranian airliner and killed 290 civilian passengers. George Bush the First, who was at the time on his presidential campaign, was asked to comment on the incident. He said quite subtly, "I will never apologize for the United States. I don't care what the facts are."

I don't care what the facts are. What a perfect maxim for the New American Empire. Perhaps a slight variation on the theme would be more apposite: The facts can be whatever we want them to be. ..." --Aruhdhati Roy Speech, Center for Economic and Social Rights; read more on cite