Government is broken: Time to reboot

[Starfury]

This is an entry from Melinda Pillsbury-Foster's blog. She's a prominent libertarian, but she understands the electoral problems we face. This entry was written shortly after Alito was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Folks who believe that the bulk of congressional Democrats are hesitating to join Feingold's censure motion out of politcal caution will probably disagree with certain assumptions of this article, but even so, everyone should read it. It has a lot of meat. She also recommends that everyone read Mark Crispin Miller's book, Fooled Again.

Alito is in. If it hadn't been him it would have been one of the clones lined up to take his place provided by the Federalist Society. When the opposition controls both the ball the field and both the teams you cannot win. Now is time to take a hard look at our approach and examine, with egos deactivated, how this happened.

The Supreme Court is now totally iced, frozen into compliance with the view that America's checks and balances are no longer in force. We discovered a week ago, beyond doubt, that the NeoCon strategy is working. It works so well that the Congress is in effect a one party legislature and that party is not Republican but NeoCon. Make no mistake, the two are not identical. Expect to see independently minded Democrats to go the same way as the independently-minded Republicans did, starting in the late 80s. Therefore changes and reforms that necessitate Congressional action will fail. Protests and call-in campaigns are a waste of time until the voting system has been changed.

The way to change the voting system is through action at the state and local level and demanding only paper ballots and radically reforming the registration process. Other specific reforms must also be instituted from the local and state level. Until then attempts to influence Congress are a waste of time.

(...)

The present make up of the Congress is a product of electoral fraud. The NeoCons placed the programmable means for producing the outcome that would keep them in power and used it beginning in 2000. Before then they had relied on removing independently minded Republican candidates in the primaries. If you doubt this see the history of Republican primaries in California starting in the late 1980s. Managing election results through voting machines facilitated the process but the idea had been present for a long time.

(...)

The first tool we need to accomplish the goal is a real coalition, right, left, and other. We need to awaken the sleeping mainstream of Americans by moving past the divides of political prejudice. That done, we can start rebooting the system and returning governance to the people. That is what our Founders intended, that a people exercising their inherent rights govern themselves; it is time to do the job. We can build out a structure for governance the NeoCons can't control while at the same time cleaning up the environment. It can be done.

http://howtheneoconsstolefreedom.blogspot.com/2006/02/government-is-broken-time-to-reboot.html

[Kierkegaard]

1. Great website. She has an interesting point of view.

She's dead-right about a coalition. The divide and conquer strategy of the 'Cons has worked so well, that we waste our time arguing across party lines instead of combining our resources to remove the offending parties from office, whom represent neither of our 'groups.'

[nicknameless]

2. What a great article!

My favorite line:

"The present make up of the Congress is a product of electoral fraud."

Recommended!

[Burning Water]

3. An interesting article, indeed.

The first tool we need to accomplish the goal is a real coalition, right, left, and other. We need to awaken the sleeping mainstream of Americans by moving past the divides of political prejudice.

A coalition means compromise. What elements of our agenda are we willing to give up to attract the right? Who are the "other", and what must we do to attract them? Somehow, I doubt that fixing the electoral system will have the emotional resonance needed to overcome the differences we have with our proposed coalition allies without giving them something in return, and I think we need to know what it is.

[glitch]

6. Not necessarily. There are areas of agreement we can work together on

right now, like saving the Constitution. We can save our squabbles for after we've done that.
The burning house analogy: while the house is burning you fight the fire. After the fire is out you hammer out how it's remodeled.

[Burning Water]

7. Saving our Constitution is good.

But, to do it, someone will have to take charge after the evil Bush regime is kicked out. So, are you willing for it to be other, non-neocon Republicans? The fundies, for instance? The paleo-cons. The anti-gays, or anti-immigrationists?

Because not one of those groups would be willing to kick Bush out if it meant letting the progressives assume power. They think Bush is bad not because he is too conservative, but because he is too liberal.

So, what are we willing to give up to work with any of these people? I'm not advocating giving anything up here, myself.

[glitch]

8. My point is we work together to get the fascists out, to get free, fair

elections again. Once we are assured of a legitimate election process again, we vote on who takes charge and how to proceed.

[Burning Water]

10. My point is that

that ain't gonna happen. Get fair and legitimate elections, yes, that is possible, if we are willing to compromise with the Republicans. For instance, photo ID at the election booth in return for paper ballots, that kind of thing. Then we can throw the bastards out.

But they will never go for throwing Bushco out, and then trying to clean up the elections. Because they will think, rightfully I feel, that the Democrats will be in charge for the cleanup (somebody has to be), and they don't trust the Democratic leadership. Hell, from what I read on DU, we don't trust the Democratic leadership.

[FogerRox]

4. WOOT WOOT WOOT for Election reform--- K n R

[kster]

5. K&R......nt

[Kurovski]

9. K&R(nt)

[Land Shark]

11. K&R: what we can heartily agree on, on a MULTIPARTISAN BASIS, is

is that PROCEDURAL INTEGRITY is absolutely necessary for elections, if they are to have any legitimacy at all. (this is so because democracy doesn't even PROMISE or SUGGEST that its substantive result of who wins the election will be just. Indeed, democracy is based on the "consent" of the governed, kind of an idea of 'well, you majoritarians voted for 'em, so tough luck buster, the people as a whole can't complain...)

In fact today I wrote to some republicans who I think will totally agree with procedural integrity in principle (note: not elected or party officials, but grassroots elections activists on the other side).

We will DISAGREE FOR SURE about how to best implement the procedural integrity principle. BUT THAT'S THE BIG TENT OF DEMOCRACY BABY. IN A SOCIETY IF THERE ISN'T DISAGREEMENT, THAT WOUlD BE 99% OF THE NECESSARY PROOF TO SHOW THERE'S NO FREEDOM.

The real enemies are those that are so out of touch with this country's principles that they are effectively anti-democratic, whether they admit it or not. Certain elitist elections officials qualify for this, for example.

Anyway, based on the big tent of procedural integrity, understanding that we can disagree in good faith on many issues underneath the integrity principle, and recognizing who the real enemies of the People are (not R's per se, but elitist, corporate anti-democratic Rs which are only a faction) I think we can make a lot of progress.

Thanks for the post, K&R