Wasn't Democracy supposed to give the people a voice in governing? Wasn't the election of Representatives supposed to take the pulse of the citizen, and with the check on too much rampant populism provided by the courts, allow the Americans to make the critical decisions that determine our future? Wasn't the US Senate supposed to be the deliberative body that has the luxury to consider the long term consequences of laws?
All of that, of course, was predicated on an informed citizenry...
What we have, instead, is a government bought and paid for by those who isolate themselves from the rank and file, withdraw behind iron gates, and scheme to amass as much wealth as they can. They then buy more legislation, and legislators, to keep growing their own personal pile, and pay for a disinformation campaign the scope of which the world has never before seen.
An "informed citizenry" was always a luxury of the well off and well educated, of course. Access to information was expensive and complicated and required effort to understand and evaluate.
Now we Google and text and "share" all hours of the day and night. The question becomes what do we "share"? Trivia. Foolishness. Porn. Gossip.
The world is collapsing around us. Just in the past 24 hours the cracks have widened. And our response?
We attack Hadassah Lieberman.
We attend to wall to wall coverage of 3 incredibly stupid peoplehiking in Iraq (something...something...about a war, wasn't there?) who, despite repeated warnings, wandered into Iran and now face imprisonment.
We have mobs of peoplein Copenhagen protesting an agreement that has not yet been reached.
The media's obsession with Tiger Woods seems to know no bounds.
Health Care Reform is falling into a pit. The Public Option is a fading glimmer.
The word of choice is "awesome". (Anyone over the age of 16 years who is overheard using the word "Awesome" should be put down.)
Over 17% of the work force is out of work or underemployed, while Thomas Friedman continues to warn that we are slipping behind in technology and education.
It has been cold here so my unenlightened neighbors mutter about the "lie of climate change", and James Inhofe jets to the climate summit to proclaim to world leaders that the US Senate will not pass a bill on limiting green house gases.
Sam Brownback and other andulevian creatures of the Far Right are trying to make Health Care Reform yet another diorama for their stupidity on abortion.
Sam Brownback wrote a note titled Brownback Decries Abortion Funding in Senate Health Insurance Mandate Bill. Read the full text here.
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But all of the misinformation, and bought and paid for astro-turfing and lies, are not the only problem. We sit, safe in our private sinecure, unwilling to take the actions that would really change things. We continue to hope that donating money to politicians will have an effect on their decisions. (It does, of course, but even collectively we can't compete with the Corporations and special interests that wield a check book that makes our efforts insignificant.)
We fuss about health care costs but refuse to all cancel our insurance, bring the industry to its knees. We fuss about credit cards but refuse to stop using them and pay them off. We mumble about misleading mortgages but refuse to read the damned contract before we sign it, afraid of looking stupid.
Democracy is a fine thing... if we can keep it. It ain't looking so good these days.