I recently borrowed the audio book "Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches" from my local library. I am only in the beginning and I have already confirmed much of what I have been saying for the last few years: the Republican Party has, over the last 40 years, systematically undermined the very basics of our democracy in pursuit of their own agenda regardless of damage done to our country and its citizens.
There is a CNN series called Broken Government that thoroughly covers most points about how the U.S. Government is deadly sick. There is a serious cancer inside our government, and it is killing our democracy. How bad is it? A poll on that page indicates that 90% of respondents believe government is broken beyond repair. That is serious. That is sad. That is infuriating. It is not like most of the country did not see this happening — all you have to do is read the news, think and act. But the last two parts of that equation make it a failing proposition. First, we are all so busy at everything we are busy with that we have little time to think about serious subjects such as compromised government processes. We absorb news that have been predigested by biased news organizations that tell us the gory details about tragedies or celebrity gossip everywhere, yet will barely (if ever) discuss serious topics that affect everyone daily. Second, we are so busy with "life" that we have failed to act, as the governed, to correct the mistakes made by those we have elected to office. Government officials at all levels know that even gross mistakes will go unnoticed and unpunished — they can get away with murder (literally, as has been done by the Bush administration) and it is unlikely we will do anything about it.
I am an optimist at heart and I believe that not all is lost — but time is running out for all of us. Unless we begin turning things around soon we will find ourselves with a government that needs to be scratched out and started again; history shows that to be an expensive and bloody solution. We will all be better off rolling up our sleeves now and demanding that our government officials correct the problems they have caused. As Mr. Dean indicates in his book, we need to focus on the processes that have been compromised by administrations over the last few decades. We need to remove the secrecy they have been allowed to operate under. And we need to remove the corruption caused by special interests. This cannot be done by another Republican team — it is time for a Democrat administration to come and clean some of the mess we are in. It is time for all of us to look around and see Americans trying to make a difference, time to stop seeing whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc. It is time to unite as one nation to defend our democracy — we have been attacked from within and we need to take our country back. It may be too late to hold government officials responsible for their actions and make them clean their mess, but it is not too late to reverse course and get back on track with true democracy.
There is a CNN series called Broken Government that thoroughly covers most points about how the U.S. Government is deadly sick. There is a serious cancer inside our government, and it is killing our democracy. How bad is it? A poll on that page indicates that 90% of respondents believe government is broken beyond repair. That is serious. That is sad. That is infuriating. It is not like most of the country did not see this happening — all you have to do is read the news, think and act. But the last two parts of that equation make it a failing proposition. First, we are all so busy at everything we are busy with that we have little time to think about serious subjects such as compromised government processes. We absorb news that have been predigested by biased news organizations that tell us the gory details about tragedies or celebrity gossip everywhere, yet will barely (if ever) discuss serious topics that affect everyone daily. Second, we are so busy with "life" that we have failed to act, as the governed, to correct the mistakes made by those we have elected to office. Government officials at all levels know that even gross mistakes will go unnoticed and unpunished — they can get away with murder (literally, as has been done by the Bush administration) and it is unlikely we will do anything about it.
I am an optimist at heart and I believe that not all is lost — but time is running out for all of us. Unless we begin turning things around soon we will find ourselves with a government that needs to be scratched out and started again; history shows that to be an expensive and bloody solution. We will all be better off rolling up our sleeves now and demanding that our government officials correct the problems they have caused. As Mr. Dean indicates in his book, we need to focus on the processes that have been compromised by administrations over the last few decades. We need to remove the secrecy they have been allowed to operate under. And we need to remove the corruption caused by special interests. This cannot be done by another Republican team — it is time for a Democrat administration to come and clean some of the mess we are in. It is time for all of us to look around and see Americans trying to make a difference, time to stop seeing whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc. It is time to unite as one nation to defend our democracy — we have been attacked from within and we need to take our country back. It may be too late to hold government officials responsible for their actions and make them clean their mess, but it is not too late to reverse course and get back on track with true democracy.
2 comments:
Well spoken article. I've been watching (and writing about the path of least resistance for some time now) and mainly agree with you.
I do not, however, agree that one political party nor the other will really make the humongous effort it will take to put our government on the path we'd like to see.
The Republicans are comparatively new to the Big Government game, while the Democrats have been followers of more and more controls (from D.C.) for many more years.
I, for one, am thoroughly tired of hearing that this one or that one will "fix" the problem and then watching them ignore the need once they are in office.
Seems to me we need to begin at the beginning and utterly change the way we elect office holders.
Once I figure out how to accomplish that, I'll run for Dictator.
catmoves: I agree with you that it is almost futile to point fingers and claim that one party will be better than other at resolving the complete chaos that our government is now in. However, the GOP has proven itself to be more adept at destroying government and damaging the government processes that ensure our democracy will not only survive but flourish. Democrats are our best hope at returning balance to a very unbalanced system. It has been the Democratic-controlled Congress that has returned some order to what was quickly becoming simply an extension of the Executive. Under Republican control, Congress broke rules and laws to further the conservative agenda.
I disagree with you in that Republicans are new to Big Government. What may be new is their organized effort to make an Unitarian President a reality. They have been moving in that direction for decades. Conservatives have a game plan and they have worked that plan ever since Nixon -- perhaps even before that -- and their work has eroded all sacred institutions we have come to know as the U.S. Government. It is worth pointing out that this plan does not include the good of the people of the USA -- their plan benefits the wealthy and the GOP, not the average US Citizen. In that light, some may consider them enemies of the State and traitors of the Nation.
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