And why not demand them?

TPTB will give up nothing unless they are forced to ... Having great ideas in hand, ready to implement, gives people the fulcrum and the focus to move forward on reforming the Congress and the Presidency ...

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There were ample indications during the primaries that Obama and his team were not so kosher and that we weren't going to get what we wanted from him.

Now that he has incontestably proven himself to be a screw-up, it's a good time to remember that Obama got where he is by cheating. He stole the nomination from the preferred candidate.

I cite the number of votes as proof. Hillary got more votes in the primary than Obama. In fact, Obama is the first nominee in American history who did not receive the most votes. The machinery is broken.

I realize this conflicts with what my fellow progressives want to believe--i.e., that the voters swung over to Obama, sweeping him to victory, etc. But it just ain't so. There is ample documentation to indicate that Obama has no more business being in the White House than did George W. Bush.

Inevitably, anyone who criticizes Obama is said to be a disgruntled Hillary supporter. This is false in my case, as I never supported Hillary. This ad hominem mode of defense tells you a lot about how Obama supporters behave.

In my view, the Democratic Party has been taken over by some bad sorts. I first realized this when Obama enthusiasts all over the web started calling anyone who criticized their sh*tty candidate a racist. That's one reason I voted for Cynthis McKinney.

See:
Race Man by Sean Wilentz, The New Republic
How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton.

Hating Hillary, Andrew Stephen, Newstatesman

"Obama's Unprecedented Attack on Free Speech - Mechanisms and Results," at http://politicalcenter.newsvine.com.


Swine

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Andrew Bacevich, among many others, points out that it's a grand delusion to think we can change things by installing some new figurehead in the White House.

He wrote and published The Limits of Power before last year's general election, but it could serve as a guide for the disillusionment of millions who thought they were "voting in change." (I suspect that many of those millions, including myself, were above all trying to make sure we -- "we" -- didn't vote in McCain.)

Same bosses are in charge, still working to further enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us, while a charade of "open government" dangles before the people.

There's only one way to open the government, and that's from below. The Modest Proposals in this article remind me of a joke:

-- What do you call 10,000 congressional reps and staffers, executive branch functionaries, and corporate fat cats at the bottom of the ocean?

-- A good start.

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to itself, marginalizes itself. There is no protective parent that looks out. Ultimately we want someone/something to tuck us in at night. Johnny Carson is dead and America was mortally wounded on 9/11 and placed on a MSM life support system of Lies.

Unless we confront a stolen election in 2000 and all that ensued we'll continue to languish in the 'audacity of hope'? What a great title, what an unfulfilled distraction.

For Obama 'show me who you walk with and I'll tell you what you are' applies, he's surrounded by the enemy of agenda, a Xerox of bush's crime syndicate w/different names.

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Obama's hero Abraham Lincoln said something to the effect that "Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."

This online voting forum is a great thing for the people, because it brings us closer to the idea of the people having the ability to determine our country's policies and the direction and posture of our government.

The government is not there to govern us, but to provide us with the tools to govern ourselves, govern the apparatus of our country, and collectively determine our own destiny as a people.

The idea of an Imperial Presidency is in direct conflict with the ability of the people to govern themselves, their country, and the foreign policy that emanates as a reflection of us as people.

This is why anti-U.S. groups often claim that the American people have blood on their hands, and are culpable for the actions of their government.

But the government is NOT us, and has never truly BEEN us - it's a corrupted appendage of powerful, wealthy individuals and corporations who do not represent the people, but instead their own self-interest.

So this online forum is a great step in providing us with the power to determine our own fate, at least ostensibly, but is it merely an illusion by which the people can be entertained into believing that they can actually make a difference, a projection of a lie, a way to brainwash the people into believing that they are being granted some type of access into our policy apparatus while the administration simply goes on serving corporate interests and drafting imperialist policy anyway?

For the administration to control what the people vote on, and remove topics from voting, or from consideration, regardless of what those topics encompass or suggest, undermines the whole purpose of the system, and becomes a way of controlling the "will of the people." In effect, behind the illusion of our own power is the machine of the Imperial Presidency, determining our choices, determining our opinions, and determining our policies. Meanwhile we are satiated and entertained by these little internet polls and things that we get to take, which become mere bread-and-circus, and have very little effective value at all.

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campaigning heavily for Obama and not giving a voice to Nader, Mckinney, Paul, etc ... and in some cases censoring or even banning people who spoke against Obama. Don't expect Obama to change his censorship ways until these sites change their censorship ways first.

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Go easy on Obama. He's got to stabilize the system first. The economy has to be corrected so that the average American feels economically secure and Bush's military debacle is contained. If Obama pushes through health care and brings any kind of closure to the Mideast conflict relatively soon, he will then be able to go back and address the other changes that must be made. Otherwise, the uber-rightists in the GOP will try to do at the US level what they have done in California: Use their wedge-minority to control the outcome of any major policy initiative.

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Why amend the Constitution to enable unconstiutional processes? The war powers act contradicts the Constitutional separation of power. so do "signing statements." So does the imperial presidency.

The election campaign made it clear, I think, that *all* of the Republican AND Democratic candidates were loath to give up the power that has accrued to the executive branch if THEY were to become president..and only objected because it was the "other guy." The Republicans at least did not even pretend to challenge the fascist elements in all of this.

Far from enacting a 'socialist' agenda, Obama seems to be on the road to a benevolent fascist form of government: a combined private sector/State aparatus (see the new plans for country-wide academic standards, joint ownership of GM, bailouts to banks and investors while jobs disappear; continued drumbeat of nationalism, militarism, continuation of State spying, lack of transparency, continued use of State privilage in trials, continuation of tribunals..and so on. Media control (Faux news) comes through the commercialization of the mass media so that news is entertainment or the restating of State press releases.

NOTE: fascism does not have to adopt the Nazi model nor become malignant. We still have "out groups" (immigrants, aliens etc) but that element can be relatively benign and still have a fascist State. We have given up one form of government and have turned to another. The only space we control is the space within the ballot box...with co-opted choices. The process, however, is not complete. we need th epolitical will...and energy..to meet this challenge and turn it around. Hence Alt-net!

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I've watched the corrosive nature of money in the political process for 40 years now and have voted for the lesser of two evils in every election since 1972. I have come to the conclusion that elective government has ceased to be representative government due to the impact of monay and paid political advertisements on the process. In order to compete effectively, a candidate must be either independantly wealthy or beholden to special interests merely to have any hope for success. In either case, we wind up sending members of the same political class to Washington and the state houses regardless of party affiliation. The MSM is complicit in this structure as they get biannual corporate welfare in the billions in the form of paid political advertisements. Therefore, merely reintroducing the Fairness Doctrine would not ameliorate the situation. So what is the Solution?

The only one I can currently envision is this:
Random computer selelction for all state and federal elective offices from IRS tax rolls under current Constitutional requirements for office. Turn it into a combination of jury duty AND National Guard Service. Here is my hypothesis on how this would work.

Every election cycle, all US citizens who file a tax return are placed in a pool of names and are randomly selected by computer for open state and federal legislative and executive offices. This means a citizen could be chosen as a State assemblyman, state senator, any of the state executive positions, Congressman, Senator or President/VP. Those so chosen take a leave of absence from ther regular jobs(National Guard Duty) and their jobs are legally required to be held for them. They take office and their expenses in office are paid by the government. Everyone serves exactly ONE term in that office. Once their term expires, they return to their regular lives when a new crop of citizens is selected. The technology currently in place can assure a fair and random selection process. Indeed, it can be programmed to provide real ethnic balance to both state and federal government so the government has the same ethnic proportions as the body politic.

Because ALL political officeholders are one term only, the seniority system would not apply. Committee Chairmanships and memberships would be decided by random selection or the flip of a coin. Corporate influence would be curbed due to the random nature of the selection process as no one would know from where the selectees would be drawn from.

There ARE those who see this as threatening and would say we want the best and brightest to run our government. To them I say we've HAD the best and brightest for over 50 years and look where we are today. I firmly believe such a process would be closer to the intent of the framers in forming a Real Representative Citizen's Government than the current system.

Of course, comments and criticisms are welcome.

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"Is irony even the word for this?"

Hasn't anyone learned yet? Marketing is the word for this, using language to convey an ideal, without any intention of upholding that ideal.

"Hope and change", "open government", cleaner whiter laundry, fresh breath.

Never forget Obama's award for most successful marketing campaign in 2008.

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the forum was for serious proposal not radical wet dreams.

Sending the children of Congress men off to war, radical amendments to the Constitution.

Wjhile a clear legal definition of signing statements is needed the rest of the "proposals" would require Obamo expending any all political capital he has with zero possibility of any return.

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It sounds like a good idea on paper, but it hasn't worked out so well in California. Granted, a lot of that would be taken care of by the public financing of elections, but there's no practical way to require people to make well-informed decisions.

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Fully agreed to all those proposals. But honestly I doubt that any of them would be passed. I've never seen any power block actually give up power. Nonetheless, I'd be willing to work to make these changes happen.

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It mixes sensible, relevant, concrete policy proposals to undo the radical, tyrranical power grabs of the Bush regime with thoughtful, substantive changes in law to couteract the US government's historical propensity for aggression, with a radical, precipitate, politically volatile and impractical, set of constitutional amendments whose relevance to the imperial presidency and ultimate effect is unclear. It's too much stuff to call it one thing and vote on it. It's a political platform, not a priority. It has to be narrowed, and my guess is that the authors of its more radical departures are refusing to sacrifice their esoteric notions for the benefit of the obvious and immediate necessity that most of the supporters of the priority are voting for. Of course, an honest moderator would have overruled their objections and removed the offending material long ago, instead of relying on the convenient expedient of suspending the item altogether and indefinately.

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Why bother to vote anymore? What is the point? For my entire life, I have always been forced to vote for the lesser of two evils, not because I wanted to really support a good candidate, but because I wanted to help stop a really BAD candidate from taking office.

Well, I thought that Obama was a really good and decent man who seemed to want to do the right thing, another FDR if you will. But I was wrong.

He has surrounded himself with the same creeps that populated the BushCo. He is pursuing another war - what is it with men anyway? Why does every god-damned president have to have a war? Did no one ever hear of "peace"?

He does not appear to be pursuing single payer health care (Medicare for all). The largest disaster - climate change - doesn't seem to be on the radar - at least I haven't heard very much in that area.

Millions of people are or will lose their homes. More than half a million people a month are losing their jobs. Our infrastructure has been decimated.

Where is the president? Where are the solutions?
Where are the remedies?

I don't know. Wish I did.

I just think there is no point anymore in voting and I have no intention of bothering with it any more. The people who win these ridiculous elections never represent me. Not once. If they refuse to support me, I see no reason on earth to support them.

People have said to me, vote for the Greens or some other third party. But that seems pointless to me. For a third party to win, millions and millions of votes would be needed. And that certainly doesn't seem very likely, now does it? Either the Dems or the GOP are in power but they are nothing more than 2 heads on the same monster's body. It's really nothing more than an illusion to believe that we actually have a choice in this country.

Because we don't.

I resign from the electorate, effective immediately.

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What the hell, everything else that is relevant and important to the restoration of meaningful governance is "off the table," why not add this one-term wonder to the list. He had much to say and raised considerable hope in his campaign but, alas, he is just another bullshit artist.

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Hey people, one of the things that makes living in a democracy so difficult is that you have to have majority to make policy changes. In order to achieve those changes you have lobby the people as well as the officials to your side.

I do not agree with the fact that this was censored by the white house. I think that was a mistake. I do on the other hand think it was done for a reason. First of all there are far to many suggestions put forth to be helpful. Policy is made in pieces over time, much as abuses of power are accumulated.

While many people who work in government may agree with much of what contained there, it would be impossible to do any kind of broad sweeping change like that.

I suggest that what needs to be done here is break this down into several smaller post. Somethings mentioned here are not even items that the executive branch even handles. Some are legislative some are judicial.

One of the greatest problems that the American people face is that they have no idea how the government works, how laws are created, and how power is actually distributed between the various branches. It is frustrating see all the corruption and abuses of power. What can be done change this? Write your congressmen, support groups that are working on causes that you believe in, make your voice heard by activism.

Change rarely comes from above. This websites real purpose is to give people a chance to have their ideas heard, an offer of incentive that you can be involved in the body politic, and it is a start, but to make real changes will require more than sitting in front of your computer voting on someones rant about policy changes.

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Now, where can a large group of people peacefully assemble in a major city like Washington, D.C., for instance, to air these ideas without the fear of getting knocked on the head by thuggish cops and possibly being dragged off to jail? How can these people get the press coverage they deserve? How likely is it that the event gets the attention of the President to the extent that he publicly comments on it? All these things have to happen, or else it'll be a waste of time.

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Sorry to shout, but it is getting frustrating watching good Citizens waste their time appealing to an Executive that has no use for them till at least 2010 and maybe not till 2012, when they will be schnookered into fearing the "right" and voting once more for the Blue Wing of the Corporatist Party.

How many of the above proposals involve Amendments to the Federal Constitution?

I count seven, but several others would seem to need an Amendment even though they don't mention it explicitly.

When you're at the point where you're calling for 7-plus Amendments, you don't need Amendments, you need a whole new Convention,and possibly a whole new Constitution!

We who care enough and are activated enough to argue about these things on websites need to realize that many, many, of our fellow Citizens don't care and aren't politically activated.

It doesn't bother them that the Federal Constitution (and likely their State one as well) has been torn to shreds, it doesn't bother them that the Republic is dying and no one in Office seems to give a damn, it doesn't bother them that the Corporatists have now fully assimilated the leadership of the Dem and Repub Parties.

And it definitely doesn't bother them that -as a poster above put it- "Elective Government has ceased to be Representative Government".

They are too busy, too ignorant, too greedy, too distracted, or just plain too disinclined to give a rat's ass.

Political stances for them are like supporting a favorite "football" team:

Support is based on upbringing, personality, location, and even apparel design. The purpose of support is to differentiate or ingratiate oneself into or from different groups of audience members -there is never a hope of entering the field of play. And while support may be continuous, overt expressions of it are mostly confined to the "season" of play, when winners and losers are decided and self-identification can either uphold or diminish self-worth.

They DO NOT CARE about the things we care about.

If the TV makes it appear that something is being done, then they assume that something is being done and go back to their atomized suburban home entertainments or their Corporate job (whether in the "We've got a teleconference with New York at 3:30" caste or the "That'll be $5.63 at the first window" caste).

It is true that the state of the Republic has gotten so bad that most people are starting to pay attention. But the Corporate media seems designed to counter this. There are now enough outrages that a new one can be presented every week, causing confusion, exhaustion, and eventually apathy. The average Citizen has so much crap going in their lives already that while they are as pissed off as any of us at the looting of the Treasury by the Banksters, the collapse of employment and the housing bubble, the shocking lack of action on the crimes of the Bush Administration, and at the ongoing craven stupidity of our Health-Care System, they can only focus on these things for a short amount of time -far too short a time to actually do anything about any of them.

Unless and until a Movement is started -amongst the few of us that are politically activated- that can simultaneously overcome ideological barriers, grow rapidly and exponentially, and maintain focus on a clear and simple to express goal, then the majority of Citizens will remain impotent or ignorant in the face of these problems and crimes.

It will take such a Movement to shine a bright, steady light through the dark, roiling tempest of the Corporate TV "Main-Steam News-Cycle". A light that will allow the majority to finally see a way out of their predicament that seems do-able enough to get off the couch and attempt to follow.

-cont'd next

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Our problem started when in the first constitutional convention we added an executive branch to our constitution and no one seems to know why other than the speculation that humans have a need to be led like sheep - while they are fed the bullshit that THEY are the government.

To correct the situation we need to:

1) Eliminate the executive branch entirely - and return the great secretariats to control by the House of Representatives - or at least strip all appointive and dismissive power from that position making it effectively a powerless constitutional monarchy like in the UK;

2) Eliminate the non representative senate debating society altogether; and

3) End the charitable deduction which only replaces the very idea of charity with a myriad of ways to cheat and makes charity a legal idea rather than a simple people to people idea. International Judaism is completely financed by fraud in the charitable contribution laws.

A careful reread of the Alternet article will reveal that the above changes will do all that has been proposed there.

One thing is for sure and that is that these changes will not be done through the voting process, they will only be done by revolution or by defeat in war, something which is becoming all too probable in this age of proliferation of nukes which are now even obtainable on the black market.

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A Vote of Confidence Amendment will give American voters the power to dismiss any elected official at any time.


VOCA, Now !!

REVOLUTIONARY (DIRECT) DEMOCRACY

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David, I have admired your reporting but on this I think you missed the whole point. All the critiques of what can change may all be valid and need thoughtful response. They address specific ideas to improve the government, presidential powers. No argument here.

But, this website was primarily set up to gather ways, techniques to set up different contexts, processes that will enable citizen participation in order to give input and ideas to the government-such as the ones you have suggested. The bulk of the responses on the site, before it got clogged with spams, was how to; facilitate public dialog; principles to guide the dialog, channels for the dialog results/ideas to reach their intended ears, departments.

We don't have the infrastructure in place in our top down government for direct, focused, citizen input on ideas, solutions, and feedback. Many of the contributers on this site are; facilitators, trainers, workshop leaders, organizational professionals who have experience in designing participatory environments.

This will not give us short term solutions. For that we have to use the traditional, often frustrating ways. This will be more long term, to shape our government processes in a way to enable active citizen participation-way beyond the ballot box or demonstrations.

Obama is a long term thinker. This is about fixing the system that fosters so much frustration and the sense of helplessness i hear in what you expressed. The Phase 2 of the discussion is to go deeper into some of the suggestions, to flush out how these processes can actually work and be implemented.

This process of Open Government should be celebrated by Progressives and all citizens wanting a voice, higher level of citizen participation. Systemic change has a longer time arc than we may be used to. We have to look at the whole picture and how interconnected everything is. Obama has values of inclusion, mutual respect, mutual benefit. It will take time for people to trust that. We each have to evolve from mistrust, anger and frustration to make the changes we want to become our reality.

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...Obama is and was always essentially a Shrub-Lite. He is a corporate whore who is and was full of platitudes that the Obamabots gladly smoked.

Maybe when they come down from their high, REAL change can occurred. Until then expect more nice talk, little action.

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It's no accident that the insistence that Bush, Cheney and other Bush Administration officials be prosecuted for their roles in torture and pre-emptive war is an insistence that is pretty much limited to progressives.

Moderates -- who I must again remind you, outnumber progressives and without whose votes Obama would not be in the White House -- do not support this, other than to prosecute the Bush lawyers who formulated the policies in the first place, in total disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law.

Obama isn't about to alienate the moderate voters who elected him by acceding to the demands of progressives on this issue. He ran for the presidency as a centrist candidate and is governing as a centrist president -- contrary to the wild fantasies of conservatives and the wishful thinking of progressives.

Prosecution of Bush and Cheney is not going to happen and progressives are going to have to accept that, whether they like it or not. Progressives once again must be reminded of the fact that they are a minority of the electorate -- outnumbered by both moderates and conservatives -- and that Obama will, out of necessity, govern from the center, whether progressives like it or not.

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There are several comments on this page about appealing to Obama and citizens to evoke change. I think it would be worthwhile for these people to read the above mentioned book. One may as well go ahead and educate oneself and face the hard, frustrating facts concerning what has and hasn't worked in the past.

I feel compelled to write about these things, like it or not, whenever I read posts that talk about how wrongs things are and how we need to "get together," "work out solutions," "appeal to people's intellect and emotions," "pressure Obama," "pressure the democrats," etc. It makes me wonder how people could be so unaware of how impotent these strategies are. Even w/o reading the above book, for instance, it's plain to see to anyone concerned with U.S. imperialism, multiple wars and wars to come, deaths of civilians, the ruling corporatocracy, the seemingly endless stream of lies and deceit coming from all angles: direct from the government, media, and corporations, global warming, water shortages, hunger, and on and on. It's plain to see because there are many, many people concerned with these things, there is plenty of information, and there are plenty of people signing petitions, joining groups, and whatever other what-not in the world to change the course of things, yet it seems there's almost zero to no progress achieved. By the time you read about one problem and then educate yourself, much less attempt doing something about it, seven others have popped up, as well.

In the book above, Gelderlos goes through the official state stories concerning MLK, Ghandi, and others. MLK is normally given all the credit for civil rights legislation, but as he points out, there were other violent groups at work as well. To say they exerted no influence whatsoever is silly. Also, it's worth bearing in mind when The State started actually doing something about these problems. Was it after a moving MLK speech? After a peaceful march on Washington? No. It was after the weeks-long riots in Birmingham. The story of Ghandi and Indian independence is equally distorted: there were others that were violent and they certainly exerted influence, and there was the fact that Great Britain was already having trouble keeping a grip on their colonial possessions. It's not as if an empire that had dominated everything the world over, exploiting anyone, killing anyone, etc., was suddenly "moved" by Ghandi's efforts and thus realized the err or their ways and relinquished control of an entire country.

One strategy employed by non-violent protestors is "educate people and leaders." I've certainly given it all, personally . . . yet I & the historical facts attest to this not being so easy. Every step taken by alternative media and such is thwarted intentionally by corporate media, for they simply take such information and use it to tweak their own . . . so that the effort is defeated before it even really gets anywhere.

Another strategy is appealing to others through standing on the "moral high-ground." This might mean something like circulating pictures of kids injured by war. One can read the book for examples of how this normally just doesn't work.

There are two other strategies as well, one of which is "alternative society model building." This is where people come together and try to "live like they would have the world live." Once again, these in and of themselves have almost never wholly worked.

The State only responds to violence. It's not a sympathetic entity; it's not apt to correct itself once it "has the facts" on how what it's doing is hurting others. In the book there are examples of groups of that use violence to achieve their ends - although few succeed completely in getting everything they want, the governments almost always start really doing something in the way of change, if only to placate them.

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Bear in mind that this isn't something I'm happy to point out, but I feel it ought to be pointed out. I mean, before the Iraq war even began there were over 35 million protestors world-wide; this was unprecedented . . . it set a record world-wide and in the U.S. These were the biggest protests since the dawn of the solar system, and what did they achieve? Absolutely nothing. Probably all it helped achieve was an escalation of government/corporate propaganda pushing for war.

Also bear in mind that he seems to be in favor of non-violent protest on some level, but he simply points out that non-violent protest is normally waged by middle class whites as a way to help placate their conscious . . . and that they're disillusioned about what it can feasibly accomplish . . . I mean we live in under the most powerful empire planet earth has ever seen . . . just a decade ago, we intentionally committed genocide in Iraq with the sole target being children - up to 1.5 million dead. Think of the Iran-Contra affair, think of 1 mill dead civilians in Iraq due to the current war . . . do you really think that the government responsible for this gives a good fuck about peaceful protestors? How can one really believe that by showing them better ways, etc., that they'll suddenly become enlightened.

Presidents are like CEOs. The CEO of WalMart will never not act in WalMart's best economic interest no matter what it means socially, environmentally or otherwise. I mean, it clearly doesn't matter whether we have a dem or republican in office. I've read blogs lately about the Green party, and while I do like them, it'd damn near take a revolution to see one in office . . . one that wasn't a leveled off, white-washed sell-out.

All this being said, I do sincerely believe in non-violence nevertheless . . . there's always the lingering metaphysical belief that violence cannot lead to peace . . . but clearly something is not working. I do believe in an evolution of conscious that would one day lead to more enlightened people, leaders, etc., but it's hard to figure whether or not there's time to wait on this very slow evolution to take hold on a massive enough scale . . . hopefully so . . .

there don't seem to be any revolutions soon to take place . . .

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One more note:

just in case one wonders how what I've written relates to the article, I can only say, "of course, he censored any thoughts on an end to the imperial presidency." This reaction by the state is typical and to be expected . . . and the article will likely do nothing to change it.

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You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can fool liberals all of the time - if you are a pathological liar and a psychopathic narcissist like Obama or Clinton.

With LBJ, Carter, Clinton, and Obama, you have an unbroken string of sociopaths promising heaven on earth with no cost and no consequences.

from lucianne.com

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should have know this was coming when he did not retract the Patriot Act, has kept Gitmo open, has approved of "Prolonged Detention", is sending more troops to fight, laughed at the people who asked about cannabis as medicine, and given away trillions of dollars to companies who should perhaps be allowed to sink in this "capitialistic" culture, but instead it seems the only ones allowed to sink are the poor and middle class--nothing new, once again.

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thanks for your post.perhaps you will like abercrombie ed hardy mortgage rates tiffanys ed hardy Is not it?

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