According to a recent poll by 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair, Americans, when asked what they would change first, the largest proportion of respondents--36 percent--chose Washington...."
If this sample poll is correct, that's more than a third of the nation would like to see their government reform.
60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll: http://news.yahoo.com/...
Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit, the poll showed....
The next most popular way--chosen by 20 percent--was to cut defense spending....
Asked which part of the world they would fix first, the largest proportion of respondents--36 percent--chose Washington....
The poll included a random sample of 1,067 adults across the United States from November 29 to December 2. The margin of error may be plus or minus 3 percentage points, 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair said.
So if we had a thousand Americans in an auditorium, 360 would say it's time to fix Washington DC.
In the Rec'd Diary about this new poll, there's this comment:
What's it going to take? (105+ / 0-)
Until the politicians fear pissed off voters more than they fear pissed off CEO's, guess who the government's going to work for? Will Social Security finally be the straw that broke the voter's back?
I'm really starting to wonder how we'll overcome the media's complicity in this corporate takeover of government. Polls like this barely get a whisper of coverage, while the Conventional Wisdom machine just grinds on directly toward Social Security cuts. Thanks, Cenk, for being part of the pushback. We're going to need a lot more of it, and soon.
by Dallasdoc on Tue Jan 04, 2011 at 05:21:27 AM PST
What's it going to take? To have politicians fear the wrath of We The People? To overcome the complicity of corporate media? It's going to take a tipping-point calling for the Article V Convention.
Over the months many have said they fear only Republicans will show up to a federal convention. This poll shows that America is not really made up of what corporate media would have us believe. There are things both the Left and the Right can agree on.
What's interesting is that some from both the Left and the Right fear a federal convention. Why would we fear a non-binding deliberative assembly of We The People? Do you really think corporate power wants to see the people legally assembled?
Yet, to break the lock corporate power has on goverance, objectively there's no other way than the Article V Convention. It would elevate political discourse by raising it above soundbites and partisan politics. We'd be looking at possible amendments to the Constitution, a profound task, so vague rhetoric and insincerity would be exposed. The process of the convention itself is a dynamic that corporate interests will not be able to control. It's their greatest fear--a runaway convention of the people, by the people, for the people.
It will awaken a sense of confidence and participation in We The People, this will flow back into and reinvigorate the regular political process. It would provide an opportunity to expose and reign in the effects of money on the political process. Can you imagine even questioning corporate personhood in the mainstream national discourse? Where else would this issue be raised? In the corporate media? By corporate politicians? It would call the bluff on those who only talk about the Constitution, and there are many folks of many different political persuasions who are sincere in their concern about the direction of our country. Do you think Tea Party folks want to let the banks run roughshod over everyone?
The Framers did not place a self-destruct button in their masterwork. The Article V Convention does not become its own authority, in fact it’s strictly limited to proposing amendments "...to this Constitution...." If a delegate or group of delegates wanted to re-write the Constitution (the Seven Articles), they’d first have to propose an amendment allowing for that, go out and get it ratified by 38 states, then come back to draft a new constitution (and then get that ratified).
Does anyone believe an amendment allowing for the re-writing of the Constitution would be ratified today? Unlike most political situations the minority controls the process: to stop any amendment is a nay in 13 state legislatures, or more specifically, a nay vote in one house of each of those legislatures, or even more specifically, a nay vote in a committee of one of the houses. As those committees are run by chairs, a nay vote can be obtained with no more than 13 people, and the constitutional proposal will await ratification in vain.
In addition to that safety--consider this: a federal convention convened would contrast sharply with the modus operandi within Congress. It would be a unicameral assembly, with no conference committees required to reconcile divergent House/Senate bills. Nor would a supermajority of two-thirds be required: rather a simple majority to propose an Amendment to the States for ratification. There would be no labyrinth of autonomous standing committees, with autocratic chairmen, to pass through; and no Filibuster to overcome. Salutary checks and balances would be deferred until proposals reach the States, and again, where three-fourths 38 States would have to ratify anything emerging from "...a convention for proposing Amendments...."
Convoking a federal convention and carrying out that constitutional process is what will re-educate us all about what the Constitution means, and what our origins are. Delegates don't need to be Thomas Jefferson or James Madison, they don't need to reinvent the wheel, they simply need to have common sense.
Then consider the process of electing delegates:
Delegates will be elected to their positions of office. In Hawke v Smith (253 U.S. 221 (1920)) the Supreme Court addressed the issue when it discussed ratification conventions saying: "Both method of ratification, by Legislatures or conventions, call for action by deliberative assemblages representative of the people...." The court thus defined what the word "conventions" meant in the text of the Constitution: deliberative assemblages representative of the people, and equates that with legislatures, all of whom are representatives elected by the people of the state.
Beyond this, the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause as well as Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution make it clear that all citizens are entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states. The Constitution requires that all members of Congress must be citizens of the United States and that they must be elected to that office. The Fourteenth Amendment creates two citizenships for all citizens of the United States: citizens of the United States and citizens of the state in which they reside or, state citizenship. Citizens, whether elected to Congress or to an Article V Convention receive, as a result of that election, the privilege to offer amendments to the Constitution and therefore the 14th Amendment requires that both sets of citizens, members of Congress and delegates to a convention must receive equal protection under the law. This means as members of Congress are elected and receive the privilege to offer amendment proposals, delegates who are given the same privilege to offer amendment proposals, must also be elected.
This is the process politicians and corporate power fears. Think about why.
The Article V Convention is how we build consensus as a nation and address the problem, instead of symptoms.
Read these articles, inform yourself, know how to talk about it.
http://www.foa5c.org/...
http://www.foa5c.org/...
http://www.foa5c.org/...
