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"That
government governs best which governs the most democratically
(representatively) while protecting constitutional individual
rights."
R. Rand Knox 2002
ReDemocracy
ReGovernment
ReCommunity
Democracy
does not have to end on election day... and it shouldn't!
R Knox
Every mail
box, phone, computer, and ATM (?:-) also a secure voting booth!
In those
states such as California, where the initiative petition remains
legal and available to the people, the people should take and
vest the governors' legislative veto and approval power with
themselves directly, perhaps on a five year trial basis, or on
a continually repeating five year opt-in/opt-out basis, as a
continual reminder to elected representives of who is (We) funding
this experiment. Bringing redemocracy to our national goverment
may be a tougher sell, but it should be tried until successful.
When is
a conservative conspiracy not a conspiracy? When it's an openly
declared war on American culture, society, economics, democracy,
families and education system [ Cultural War] by the extreme
right wing reactionaries in compassionate conservative drag...
Rand
Knox 2003
Thank
you for teaching.
Tea Ching: The martial art of imparting knowledge during a right
wing instigated cultural war. Rand Knox 2003
Ingersol
Rand
and Stanley Tool Works (among hundreds of other formerly
US incorporated companies) have incorporated off-shore to avoid
helping the rest of us pay corporate federal income taxes. Planning
a consumer purchase? Is the manufacturer a US incorporated corporation?
Or an expatriate free-loader?
Having difficulty
connecting the dots? Try these:
"The Corporation" a documentary film (Why Corporations
Suck)
"What's The Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Frank
"Fahrenheit 9/11 (Celsius 488.33 - still hot!) a politocology
by Mike Moore
"The Wrecking Crew: How a gang of right-wingnut con men
destroyed Washington and made akilling by Thomas Frank (nothing
conservative about the neo-compasionate conservatives)
Kabuki Democracy: The System vs Barack Obama by Eric Alterman
How
Right-Wing "Conservatives" Hijacked U.S. Democracy
"Worse
Than Watergate: The Secret Government of George W. Bush by John Dean (Former
Counselor to the President under Nixon)
"I
know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society
but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened
enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion,
the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion
by education."
Thomas Jefferson
- 1820
Are you going
to the revolution?
Consider
taking a copy of the
ReDemocracy
Flyer 1
ReDemocracy
Flyer 2
It's the demockery,
dammit!
It's the
democruptcy, Dubya!
"Don't Texas
With America!"
GWB's
Resume
(Copy & Share)
Ok, so we
wasted it. We voted for Bush, Gore, Nader, or Buchanan. Now what?
Redemocracy
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Affirmative Action - Racial Justice?
Healthcare Reform?
Corporate Welfare Reform?
Environmental Protection?
Personal Privacy Rights?
Real Family Valuing Policies?
Globalism?
Free Trade vs Fair Trade?
Living Wage?
Public Transportation?
We Decide?
Needed: (1).
State and national consitutionally defensible sample initative
petition ballot language to make state and national governments
more representative of the majority of Americans' values and
will, while protecting individual rights...
Ergo:
November 12,
2002
Dear Letters Editor:
Re: "A Recipe
for Democracy"
If we want
a more representative-of-the-majority-of-the-people government,
we need to begin testing a program and process for redemocratizing
it.
This will likely
happen (if ever) first at state levels. Where initiative petitions
are permitted we should vest the state electorate (voters) with
the responsibility for approving or rejecting all state lower-house
legislation (except for emergency matters and people-house determined
ministerial matters -- the voters would decide the rules of lower
state-house assemblies).
This would
put minority-rule special-interest government of, by, and for
the few on notice that while individual rights should be protected
by the court(s), the governor(s) and the state and national upper-house
legislature(s), that majority rule should be the rule again rather
than the exception in the US as it has unfortunately become.
A comprehensive
redemocratization program would involve modernizing and securing
the voting system(s) and phasing the program in over a 'to be
determined' period of time (5 to 10 years?).
When tested
at state level(s) and made to work, we should do the same at
the national level, vesting ratification or rejection of House
of Representatives proposed, debated, and packaged legislation
with and by the people directly on a legislative ratification
calendar to be determined (monthly, quarterly, semi-annually
or annually) by the people.
Ya' know, unless
we want the current status-quo to continue where minority rulers
can game the system state by state for personal or special interest,
with little real input or approval from the people.
It will take
a constitutional amendment to reform the way legislation is approve
in the U.S. House of Representatives. However, here in California
and in other states where the initiative petition process is
authorized, all we have to do is fix the voting system and put
it on the ballot (at the same time may be preferable), and voila
-- redemocracy.
Every mail
box, phone, computer, and ATM (?:-), also a secure voting booth...
Rand Knox
redemocratist at large and at heart
ReDemocracy / ReGovernment / ReCommunity http://www.autobuyology.org/car15.html
March
4, 2001
Dear Letters
Editor: The Wall Street Journal:
RE: Spending
"Our" Money
Tax Refunds vs Representative Government
Keep the money and give us back our government
Frequently
"President" Bush tells us that the people know better
than government how best to spend our money. Perhaps so. Lets
see.
On a five-year
trial basis lets test his theory. Lets vest in the people with
only the non-emergency
legislative ratification duties of only the US House of Representatives (all
other functions of the House, the senate, the presidency and
the courts would remain unchanged), and find out if we, the people,
know how best to spend our money. Or vest the legislative veto
power of the presidency directly with the people.
We're likely
to find that indeed we are better at spending our money than
is a pseudo-representative government by proxy under the undemocratic
influence of speech-enhancing and more importantly-- speech-stifling,
special interest "soft"-money.
George W. Bush
should consider his proposed $1.6 trillion dollar tax refund
as down payment from the people for more ownership of and more
representation in their government. Keep the money, and give
us back our government. Now, there's a real compassionate
and bona fide conservative idea.
Imagine; had
Californians vested a mere meaningful public voice in their lower
house, the California State Assembly, they likely wouldn't be
ponying up tens of billions of power related fees because their
representatives forgot who "brung-em" to the dance
and who really pays for their legislative sausage (Bills).
Rerepresentativized
government, anyone?
Redemocracy. anyone?
Sincerely,
Rand Knox
redemocratist at large and at heart
POB 150763
San Rafael, CA 94915-0763
If only "The
People" had a direct and meaningful voice in ONLY
the ratification
of ONLY all non-emergency legislation of ONLY The House of Representatives,
we could have spared America and the World the spectacle of the
politically driven Impeachment of President Clinton... (Not that
his behaviors have not been absolutely shameless from to time
to time) the issue would never have risen to the Senate had only
"We--The People" had merely vested in ourselves a direct
and meaningful public voice in ONLY all non-emergency Legislation
which is debated and packaged by ONLY the House of Representatives.
The US House
of Representatives would otherwise remain unchanged as would
the Senate, the Presidency and the Courts... As long as our representatives,
who we elect in good faith to go off to Washington to do our
bidding for us, instead merely go and do their own bidding and
the bidding of the monied and self-interested--at our cost, its
time to take and vest a direct and meaningful national public
voice in all non-emergency House of Representative Legislation...
Lets put it on the ballot in all fifty states...
It's the demockery,
dammit!
It's the democruptcy, Dubya!
DeeperDemocracy
ReDemocracy
A few judicious
words from Tommy...
"... every
government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people
alone." Thomas
Jefferson - 1789
"I know
of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but
the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough
to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy
is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by
education." Thomas
Jefferson - 1820
Summary: A modest, workable proposal to vest a
direct and meaningful public voice (not the last word necessarily)
in all non-emergency and non-ministerial national [and possibly
eventually, state and local] governmental legislation via secured
electronic, phone and absentee or USPS mail voting. By vesting
ONLY the proposed legislation ratification powers of ONLY the
House of Representative with the national electorate directly
via regularly calendared agendum and ballots (weekly, monthly,
quarterly or semi-annually)... while the Senate, the Presidency
and the Courts remain unreformed as checks on each other's powers
and on the new REFORMED powers of the people and vice versa...
to be accomplished by statute by the HOR to merely agree to bind
the House to the registered view of the majority of American
citizens on macro policy and legislative issues [including Congressional
salaries and pensions], or by amending the Constitution, would
help to reclaim representative self-governance and help restore
interest and participation in our government and governance.
The machinery for making this system of moderated plebicitine
government could be accomplished with merely one year of funds
($125,000,000.00) which our national government now pays out
directly to a select group of corporations that suckle at mother
government's corporate welfare teats... -- lets put this on the
ballot in every state, if for no other reason but to inform our
representatives of our desire to once again be included in our
experiment of representative self-governance...
- White House coffee klatches,
and Tea Party II, too...?
(see Time Magazine,November 9, 1998, "What Corporate Welfare Costs You," A special investigation
by Donald L. Bartlett and James B Steele, authors of "America:
What Went Wrong")
A Road Map
to Real
Democratic Governmental Reform
President
Clinton said upon
or soon after his re-election that the millionaire's, the store
clerk's, the receptionist's and the millwright's voice was equal
in casting their ballots and in affecting the results of the
recent election. While on its face this may be imbued with a
scintilla of truth, in effect and for practical purposes it is
not. Representative self-government has been corrupted by special
interests and big money politics. We have ceded the freedoms
our ancestors fought for and gave to us in throwing off the bogus
concept of Divine Right of Kings, to the Divine Rights of the
DemocRepubliCorporataucracy.
Mega-monied special interests buy a bigger voice in government
regardless of which personality or political party reigns. A
few self-loopholed or off-shored corporations and wealthy individuals
are so powerful that they are able to buy influence at pennies
on the dollar that directly benefits their personal or corporate
standings through direct or indirect governmental policy and
legislative actions. It has been reported subsequent to the President's
Inaugural Address, that PAC money reflects and influences the
general pattern of "legislative action" taken by "our"
representatives. In other words, the more money a representative
or senator receives from a source or interest, the greater likelihood
that his or her vote will reflect the interests of the giver
relative to the issue or legislation.
Small businesses, the middle-income salaried, wage earners
and the poor citizens of America do not wield this kind of
power over their government and therefore do not have an equal
voice in selecting or lobbying their "representative"
government with the super wealthy and monopolied corporate powers.
Special interests have short circuited the magic and integrity
of the genius of representative democratic government. Soft-money
politics has removed from government any and all presumption
of democratic functioning with which it was conceived over two
hundred years ago.
Its time we reclaimed an equal voice in our self-governance
for all Americans regardless of economic or social status.
Doing Democracy More
Democratically,
More Directly While Upholding Individual Freedoms
Reforming Government
for Greater, More Representative Democracy and Better Government.
Real Government
Reform or political musical chairs?
Want real government reform?
Want a direct voice in your state and national governments?
Then demand a Constitutional Amendment (or legislation) to reform
only the House of Representatives and Lower Houses of
State Legislatures, vesting only non-emergency and non-ministerial
legislative ratification powers to the national electorate (citizenry)
through secured phone, electronic, snail-mail, and absentee voting.
The House membership (perhaps reduced in number saving millions
in salaries, perks, and pensions) would retain its tradition
of legislation and issue debate and packaging functions. Only
the responsibility and privilege of ratifying House legislation
would reside with the citizenry--directly by regularly calendered
agenda via secured voting technology.
The People, the Senate, the Presidency and the Courts would then
serve to balance checks on each other's relative powers. Restore
the people's voice in self-governance...directly. Do not let
someone else who is beholdened to special interests represent
you. Demand to represent yourself meaningfully and directly,--democratically.
Our communications technologies have developed well beyond the
Pony Express and the telegraph machine, so much so as to make
representative-by-proxy government redundant, unnecessary, and
undemocratic. Its time to give or reclaim for ourselves the power,
the duty and the benefits of self-representation in our national
government.
ReDemocracy...
- Consider Mother
Jones Magazine's March 1996 issue entitled, "MOJO's Fortunate
400." This story identifies 400 multi-millionaires /
corporations who regularly buy government favors and tax legislation
favorable to their businesses and personal benefit from Uncle
Sam's Legislative Discount Factory Outlet. Apply for your
membership today. Only qualified persons or corporations need
apply. Are you beginning to sense that except for the changes
in the names and faces, that it really does not matter much who
your president or representative is, that your government is
in the pocket of a select wealth few, or out of the hands of
the majority of Americans?
- This may not
be a conspiracy, but certainly a relatively few wealthy corporations
and individuals enjoy a greater voice in our government then
the majority of citizens and voters do. This is not democracy,
rather its government by a private corporataucracy--of, by and
for the very rich who can afford hundreds of thousands of dollars
in hard and soft political cash to puppet government office-holders
at whim to their liking at the expense of the majority of Americans.
Political party affiliation matters little to the wealthy consumers
of government services. They spread their millions around on
both sides of the political isle. And the public is left holding
the empty bag.
- With ReDemocracy
Direct there would be less of a need for campaign finance reform,
but if the national electorate wanted it, it could have it. Demand
that the US House of Representatives (and the state lower legislative
houses) be reformed to permit the national and state electorates
to vote by secured phone and electronic voting to only ratify
proposed House of Representative (Lower House) legislation as
a direct check on the Courts, the Presidency and the Senate,
which would continue to be elected and appointed by traditional
practices. Demand your voice be heard equally with the voices
of the Fortunate 400.
- Where permitted,
governmental decisions are often contested, appealed, referrended,
or recalled by aggrieved citizens or groups. This suggests a disconnect,
a symptom of a deeper problem with our republican form of democratic
government. Any possible substantive governmental reform or changes
are likely at least fifty years away (if ever), but reforming
national and perhaps state and local government to permit a direct
public voice (not the last or final word) in ratifying most proposed
legislation by secured phone, electronic or absentee voting would
give people the direct voice in government that recalls, referendums
and initiative petitions (where permitted at all) indicate that
the public (the people) want and need.
Our current
system of so-called representative government which was well
designed for its time before or around the days of the telegraph
and phony express, has become a government by proxy of "representatives"
who we naively send off to Washington (or to the state capitol
or city hall,-- present company excluded, of course) to do our
bidding, only to end up having them doing their own political
and personal bidding and the bidding of special interest and
the moneyed interests of very big business and monopolies.
- By reforming
only the House
of Representatives, perhaps reducing its membership size, and reforming
it so that its primary purpose would be to only discuss, debate,
sponsor and package rather than ratify legislation, instead vesting
only this function directly with "US, the People" (national
electorate) on a regularly scheduled agenda/calendar in most
circumstances (all non-emergency and selected ministerial bills)
would contribute to greater democracy and resolution of most
of the major national and state issues from time to time and
from generation to generation. Most major national polls on social
and economic issues suggest that the American electorate is fair
minded, educatable and competent on critical and important issues
and is capable of understanding the complexities of proposed
legislation., without being unduly mislead by political and media
rhetoric or manipulation (at least no more so then the legislatures
are). Where the public might usurp the Constitutionally guaranteed
rights of individuals, the courts would continue to have jurisdiction
and duties to intervene as they do now, and the Presidency and
Senate would share a voice in national decision making as they
have for over 220 years.
The Presidency,
the Senate and the Courts under such a [real] reformed governmental
structure would remain in place as a check on each other and
the public, and the public then would possess a direct and meaningful
voice (not the last word necessarily) as a balancing check on
the other three "Houses" or bodies of government. The details would
be watered down and politicized, and possibly adapted to state
and local governments, but this evolved democrepublicanized form
of government would likely be better than our existing system
of indirect representative government by proxy.
Democracy Direct:
putting the people back into, We The People," America's
governance of the future? We're talking about an major act of
Congress (The House could agree to abide the public's will) or
a Constitutional Amendment -- so lets get started! Make a Federal
case out of it! Lets put it on the ballot. If nothing else it
might serve to focus the attention of our elected public servants.
Implementation:
Just Doing it...
The government
could find a way to make this a reality now or over a transitionary
period through legislative policy but it is not likely to do
so because power is seldom ceded, it is taken. In order for Americans
to be able to participate directly in their government, taking
for ourselves the rights and duties of an equal voice in significant
national issues along side the megaphones of large corporations
and the special interests of wealth, we will have to undertake
a Constitutional Amendment to change the structure (real reform
-- not political musical chairs) of our existing system of special
interest "representative" government by proxy. This
is likely a thirty to fifty year process, so lets get started.
Demand support for such basic democratic changes in our government
from your current state and national representatives and senators,
and work to have this issue placed before the electorate in your
state.
- Consumers
need a meaningful voice in consumer protection legislation. Currently only the
moneyed interest of big business, the corporatocracy, are heard
by our "government by proxy" in Washington, DC. If
you think Corporate welfare was approved to appease the middle-incomed,
poor or disadvantaged, think again. If you think welfare for
the poor, or as it has become known: as an elaborate poverty
maintenance program, is a true "social" program, consider
whether rather it is not a cleverly contrived wealth redistribution
program to the wealthy, from the middle-class through the poor
-- a continuous revenue stream of money placed back into the
system where it floats back up past the middle-class to the well
positioned tax sheltered, loopholed or offshored expatriate wealthy
individuals and corporations -- our fellow folk at the top of
the economy whose voices are bigger than those of the majority
of Americans in the so-called big middle.
One couldn't design a better wealth redistribution system for
the rich or a worse social welfare system if one set out to do
so. Two hundred plus years of pork barreling direct corporate
welfare and subsidies and forty years of poverty maintenance
handouts to the needy are incorrectly labeled socialism and hardly
constitute legitimate welfare programs which are woefully needed
to expand and grow the economy, and to fill the pockmarked landscape
of potholes in our cultural, physical and environmental infrastructures.
We can and must invest more wisely in our human resources to
ensure a better future for everyone at all economic and social
levels. This is simply a matter of public health, safety and
welfare. Don't buy into the so-called conservative bromides about
self-sufficiency and family values. These empty platitudes of
American mythology are killing us in the streets and in our neighborhoods
while the economic war in America rages behind the smoke screen
of a trumped up cultural war.
Our Nation's
foreparents (Founders?) would have done something about this
state of affairs. They took the purse strings away from the tyranny
of the Monarchy. Will
we? Do we have what it takes, the right stuff? Are we self-respecting
enough to become self-governing as a people, as a self-governing,
democratic nation again?
Socialism,
you say? Nah, or rahter maybe, but lets try democracy and capitalism
first, for a change.
- Political
musical chairs or real government reform?
Its
a free country, right? Well, it used to be, anyway. So why do
the American people not have a direct voice in their government,
and why have we permitted the rules to be written by the special
interests? Is it any wonder the rich get richer faster when they
hold the purse strings to our government regardless of which
political party of personality reigns? The system and the rules
are naturally skewed in favor of those who control it. What is
the difference between the Divine Right of Kings and the Divine
Right of A Select Cabal of Corporatists which we have passively
permitted to shanghai democratic government?
Capitalism may be superior to so called socialism (actually
totalitarian communism which is often held up as the quintessential
example of failed socialism was hardly an example of socialism
and especially not of democratic socialism),-- and hyper-capitalism
where the stock market (legalized gambling?) and Wall Street
cheer increases in unemployment with profit taking "smiles
and hurrays" is hardly a harmless individual, family or
village valuing system in its unconstrained "profiting at
all cost" extremes! (Just pick up the newspaper of any location
and read about the corporate greed, fraud and abuse everyday
across the nation and the world). This greed, fraud and abuse
is far more costly to our economy then cleaning it up would be.
So who nominated Archer Daniels Midland and Texaco as the poster-persons
(?) of free market capital economics?
We are fools to think that free markets will do anything other
than to consolidate and monopolize the marketplace, which is
their nature to do if uncontrolled or unchecked by responsible
democratic government. Uncontrolled and unchecked top-down hyper-capitalism
is as anti-social,-- as harmful to individuals, to families and
to our village values as totalitarian communism and its top-down
central control proved to be for countries in the Eastern Block.
This is precisely why our so-called "FOUNDERS"
did not grant Constitutional rights to corporations. Rather they
required corporations to petition for Legislative Charters to
incorporate for specific social benefit for time certain periods,
after which they were un-incorporated. Our founders held corporations
in the same low or suspect repute as they did the Crown of England
for the same economic reasons... the Crown and corporations shared
an equal potential for evil anti-individual behaviors. Fortunately,
although there is an obvious corporate bias in law, corporate
speech does not rise to a Constitutionally guaranteed right---at
least not yet. But you can bet that corporations are working
to achieve this, too. After all, corporations have won through
politics and legal machinations what it was not granted by the
Founders,---the status, protections and rights of individual
personhood, actually super-personhood, as corporations (fake,
pseudo or contrived persons) enjoy far more benefits and protections
in many respects than do individuals (real persons).
External
Links of Interest
to Fellow Redemocratists
Democracy
Matters
(For clean elections)
National
Initative For Democracy (an ambitious and ready-to-go variant on redemocracy)
ReclaimDemocracy.org
Ratifiers
For Democracy
Vote.org
Spark's
Real Democracy Real Change
Political Resources
Net
The Direct Democracy
Center
The Committee For
Direct Democracy
Alliance For Democracy
"The
Strange Disappearance of Civic America"
"Bowling
Alone: America's Declining Social Capital"
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