February 1, 2013
Sick and tired
Fannie-Lou Hamer once said, "I am sick and tired of being sick and tired." I am sick and tired of senators and members of the House telling us what the American people really want! How would they know? They don't have a clue. Pew found that the approval rating for Congress is now at a record low. A full 73 percent are not confident in government. Egad! And these people are telling us what the people want.
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Are you telling us that Ron Johnson doesn't know what the people of Wisconsin want?
-Dana | DeForest Wisc | February 1, 2013
Speaking of our wonderful senator, www.evilgopbastards.com has him as the Evil GOP Bastard of the month for February.
-Bob | Oregon, WI | February 1, 2013
It's hard to get people to change when they're paid not to. We're not just talking about Congress here.
I love the two quotes from Dean Baker the economist about Obama:
"In 2008, President Obama ran on a platform of hope and change. After four years, the biggest change is that there is no hope."
"Four More Years of 'It Could Have Been Worse"
-Mad Hemingway | Heart of Badger Country | February 1, 2013
Time to face reality.
Our current form of "representative" government does not work. The idea that we vote out politicians who go against the public will is a huge time suck and it doesn't accomplish anything.
Over two centuries we have created the same kind of class system we fought to get away from with England: our own version of royalty with the corporate class, millionaires, and billionaires.
I'm with Huey Long on this one: no person should own more than $50 million. If you look around today, most people with enormous fortunes end up causing nothing but trouble because they try and game the system. Such is the price of egos and boredom.
Our system needs to be modernized with a new constitution and a new bill of rights for people (not corporations). There's no way the Founding Fathers could have even imagined what the country would look like today (muskets vs assault weapons, they warned against a two party system yet here we are, etc). Along the way, we enshrined in law the fact that we are a secular nation with the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli; well, we did that right.
I chuckled this week when Associate Justice Scalia was quoted saying the Constitution is dead. No activist judge is he. 2000 and 2010 decisions among others say otherwise. A lifetime appointment along with the ever silent hoot owl Clarence to do the bidding of their rich benefactors.
Iceland did it right. After the financial crisis, they crowd-sourced the writing of their new constitution last year. It's coming along.
Vancouver BC is trying direct democracy which allows individual citizens to draft laws and vote directly on matters of public policy. Under the current system of representative government, the average citizen's power ends with their ability to elect a representative. And that's the biggest problem.
Last year in Canada, Jack Layton's New Democrats Party kicked the Liberals out and became the official opposition party to Canada's own version of George W Bush, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives, who have been trying to remake Canada into a privatised version..
It's time for a major overhaul, not just changes and tweaks to a party. The US has been going backwards since Reagan. The Democrats have gone seriously off track; the party of FDR and the progressives have been stolen. Working within the system does not work; real change comes from outside the system.
It is definitely time to have a party that represents the people and to bring the country into the 21st century with a more fair and balanced government.
Get it right and the people will pay for it with their time and their money.
-Mad Hemingway | Heart of Badger country | February 1, 2013
All the letters...and the column...reflect an optimism that somehow government can be reformed. They give the idea that the system somehow can be fixed.
It can't.
We're past the tipping point. What we have is the perfect storm for people of wealth: those not in their class think they run government and pay for it. The reality is government is just there to facilitate the wishes of the wealthy both here and abroad. They pay less than they can afford.
Pshhaw...you say. Then try to justify how a "Democrat" like Bill Clinton could sell the American worker down the river with free trade agreements. Little Shrub is expected to curry to the wealthy, and did over and over again. But "Democrat" Obama's first bailout went to Wall Street, the very group that helped put our economy into the toilet.
The only hope...and this likely won't work...is to have a large group of independent voters grab control of the House and Senate. It would require the Repuglicrat party to at least negotiate with people other than their own money folks. Yes it's a pipe dream. Even more so because the media is owned by big business and is profiting handsomely off Citizens United. Why would they want reform?
Friends, we're screwed. As soon as I retire I'm leaving the U.S. I can watch it all unwind from afar. Best wishes to all of you who remain.
-Harry Hodag | Rhinelander, Wisconsin | February 2, 2013
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