Raybin's excellent diary,
We Cannot Believe Americans Can Do These Things, offers a chilling reminder of the reality of the bloody madness that comes of a civil war of opposing ideologies. Clearly, most progressives and Democrats are rightfully appalled by the notion of the political divide between right and left escalating at some point to open, violent conflict. The consequences in this day and age of a widespread, violent revolutionary popular movement suppressed with state violence is too terrible to consider. Still, few of us are prepared to suffer life indefinitely under a quasi-fascist, theocratic police state either. What then is to be done?
I have a humble proposal that one and all should feel free to steal, refine and consider. It's called, The People's Government of the United States. Learn about it after the fold.
A Country On the Brink
Let's imagine for a moment that the worst fever dreams of the fraudsters are true, and that the Republican party has effectively established indefinite one-party rule through ownership of the vote counting process. What then is the alternative to violent confrontation? How will America -surely one of the most violent civilizations the world has ever known- peacefully step back from the brink and still reclaim its democracy?
The Unconquerable World
In his book, The Unconquerable World : Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People, Jonathan Schell tracks various successful, non-violent revolutionary movements. Schell points out that the single feature they all had in common was a "government in waiting" that had a legitimacy with the people that the corrupt, oppressive power structure had lost. That rotting power structure is eventually forced to capitulate to the demands of the popular people's movement and is eventually displaced. The Solidarity movement in Poland was designed to slot directly into the power vacuum left when the Jaruzelski regime began to implode due to massive unpopularity. At a certain point, the people's government begins taking on the functions of the oppressive regime until such time as the corrupt power structure is pushed aside.
The Corporate Government of the United States
I submit that the form of government we have today is a narrowly-defined form of fascism in which corporations and the military and intelligence services are now the definers of our national priorities, and are the de facto source of our laws and of the enforcement of those laws. This glaring estrangement of the concerns of the American people from the priorities and actions of their government has arisen over a number of decades, for various reasons, however two in particular stand out:
- Campaigns are privately financed leading to rampant influence peddling and a dramatic decrease in political representation for ordinary individuals.
- No transparent, verifiable national standard exists to count votes leading to what some have become concerned may be a decades-long over-representation of monied interests in all branches of government.
The government "of the people, by the people, for the people" was never intended to be perverted in these ways. Despite many differences of opinion, we are all now effectively involved in a struggle to re-establish democracy in this country.
The People's Government of the United States
I suggest that the time may be nearing to establish, or re-establish if you will, a People's Government of the United States. This organization takes as its foundation this nation's two great founding documents: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and a mirror of all current (Corporate Government-derived) law and sets about to sculpt from that basis an image of a truly democratic United States. This organization holds national elections - transparent, verifiable national elections that are funded entirely from a pool of donations - and elects a Congress, a Senate and a President. This organization, rigorously modeled after America's standing government yet wielding no real-world authority, has as its mandate to reflect the true priorities of America's citizenry and to make demands upon the Corporate Government of the Unites States to address issues that are of actual importance to the people of the United States. When speaking of representatives of this organization, one would refer to 'the People's Senator from New Hampshire' or 'the People's Congresswoman from Wisconsin'. Additionally, representatives of the corporate government in Washington might be identified as, 'the Corporate Senator from Texas' or 'the Corporate President'.
What Then?
Simply to have such an organization in existence to shame the Corporate Government of the United States, to illustrate by example the disconnect between the priorities of the people and their purported representatives in Washington would make creation of such an organization worthwhile. As an exercise in civic participation it would also be very much worth establishing. Finally, at some point in the future, should the citizenry of the United States decide that they would prefer a people's government to look out for their interests versus a corporate government, there is no need to fire a shot. We've already got one.
I Like It. How Would it Work?
I'm not a lawyer or an organizational tactician, but I could envision a decentralized, internet-based organization that holds national elections and communicates electronically, meeting once or twice a year. Assuming it thrived and momentum grew it could become more formalized and some form of geographic "capitol" could be established. Ultimately it's whatever people would want it to be, though. After all, it's your "government".