Revolutions are like earthquakes: the brief intense upheaval is preceded by gradual, unseen shifts as the earths tectonic plates grind inexorably against one another, creating instability and pressure. - William Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe Do you have and unseen shift? What motivates you to engage in government and politics? What is the medias role in this (there are only 6 mainstream media corporations left)? Feel free to state a topic and make a position. Its ok not to know something too. Just ask. Sharing knowledge is free and it brings me great utility. Not grading for grammar. ;-) Heres a few brief examples. 1. Police state. Americas rural police forces are better equipped than some military units! The macing of peaceable protesters, my fellow students, sitting with arms locked, and the headshot of a fellow war veteran from a tear gas canister fired out of a M203 grenade launcher during the Occupy Movement comes to mind. Citizens are being shot and killed by police officers; some have actually been shot while face down on the floor in handcuffs. 2. Being on the verge of irreversible global climate change and arguing in Congress about the validity of the science instead of implementing policy to work toward the ends scientists suggest. Argue about how to go forward, not about the legitimacy of the science. The facts of climate change are to be debated within the science field and not in Congress. At the very core of science lies the unyielding demand to challenge the status quo. Always test against hypotheses to try to disprove the standing position and replace it with the most current information. This is how a body of science is built and progress made: Challenging the status quo. For something to be considered true by the scientific community, claims require a great deal of empirical data to be supported. Opinions have little place in science. Thats what politics is for. Disregarding climate science is wasting time we cannot spare anymore. Its not for lawyers and other millionaires overreprested in that auction house of a Congress to say whether or not science is correct. You cannot legislte that. The accuracy of climate science is not a motion to be voted on or ratified. 3. Rigged government. We have a campaign finance system ( thanks to Citizens United V FEC), that allows an elite few multiple billionaires to buy the campaigns in exchange for the audience and policy introduction privileges of their newly leased elected official. We have a financial system that has been so underregulated and mismanaged to the point of a worldwide economic recession. It began with the rise credit and stagnation of wages under Carter. Ronald Reagan, one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, the Republican Jesus, was the worst of all to blame for making policy (or repealing/deregulating policy) that would one day serve to tank the economy. Kissinger and Cheney are to blame too. The tradition continued with Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama. The U.S. Housing market went bust. So too did housing jobs. There was no industry to fall back on. Manufacturing had long since been outsourced by the job creators, while the biggest corporations get away with not only skirting taxes entirely, thanks to loopholes in the 75,000 page tax code, but further taking billion of U.S. taxpayers dollars in federal government subsidies. The promise from Reaganomics is the wealth at the top will trickledown to the rest of us. College is beyond the reach of many. Costs of everything goes up. Wages do not. Business lobbyists and campaign donors keep minimum wage a poverty wage. The two party system has more to do with it than you might think. The two party system and gerrymandering keeps the incumbents in power. People almost universally disprove of Congress, but most incumbents get reelected, pending recent gerrymandering and voter supression laws, of course. Ought the corporations and billionaires govern us, the sovereign? Have we become incapable or somehow unworthy of self-governance? If so, an oligarchy will be the replacement for representative democracy. This two party system, resulting from the single-member district plurality (first-past-the-post) electoral system, is a poor excuse for representation. Its like choosing the lesser of two evils because the first guy isnt as bad as the other guy. Large catchall parties result when seats are not allocated in the proportion with the vote received. Proportional representation using something like Hare-Niemeyer or dHondt formula to allocate seats in the legislatures is something that we can do. The two party system sucks! 4. Public policy is not in accordance with the general will (marriage equality, separation of church and state, prison reform, marijuana legalization, universal background checks on all gun purchases, etc.) Why? See above. Please feel free to engage. Start a conversation.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 09:22:17 +0000
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