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The Republican Party is killing itself from the inside. That is what corruption does to an institution, it rots from the inside. The Party does not attract the best educated most socially responsible people anymore. The Party does not attempt to show that it cares about the American public. This so-called Tea Party wing behaves as though they are domestic terrorists. They fight establishment members of their own Party just as hard as they fight Democrats.
In California, the Republican Party has diminished to insignificance. Fewer than 30 percent of registered voters consider themselves Republicans. I live in Irvine, in the heart of Orange County. In the city of Irvine, approximately 32 percent are Democrats, 34 percent Republicans and another 30 percent decline to state. Many of the Decline to State use to be Repubicans but they can no longer stomach the policies and politics of the leaders of the Party so they opted out. The end of the Republican Party as a potent force in American politics is near.
Does anyone disagree that when we say "democracy" that we mean a constitutionally limited democratically represented republic? It is just so much easier to say democracy.
ezwriter -- However, I prefer a democracy to our current state of governance. In our current state of goverance (based on the Ben Franklin quote) one of the wolves enslaves the other wolf to serve him the sheep for lunch. If the sheep had a gun, the oligarch sheep would have a tank.
I've written about the importance of society organizing into democratic institution like unions for a long time now.. I have blog post here at Thom's blogs, as well as, my own blog.
https://richgrisham73.wordpress.com/2014/11/04/consumer-unions-my-reply/
https://richgrisham73.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/responding-to-positive-feedback-on-consumer-unions/
https://richgrisham73.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/consumer-unions-questions-addressed/
This is just a handful if anybody is interested - Here is link to my blog with a lot more on unions and democratic organizing along with other opinion pieces and forum responses from other activities.
https://richgrisham73.wordpress.com/
If I were a Republi-con, I would want the teabaggers to go back to their Libertarian Party and get elected on their own instead of hiding behind our coattails.
An idea to circumvent Citizens United: Change the rules of both houses of Congress so that the members that get the least money donated from particular industries are the ones that get appointed to the committees that oversee those industries. Such a rule wouldn't make corporate whores less likely to get elected, but it would keep them away from powerful positions of influence over relevant legislation. (The corporate loophole would, of course, be to disguise their donations.)
Since ezwriter feels like repeating himself, I will too.
The senses of "republic" and "democracy" have evolved in the last 200 years. In modern parlance, a republic has an elected executive, and a democracy has an elected legislature. These are much more useful definitions.
Acting as if the prototypes are the only legitimate uses of the terms annoys me. The people in the Roman Republic elected exactly 2 officials--the consuls. The legislature worked the same as it had under the Roman Kingdom (in which one person--the king--was elected for life by the senate and the curiae). The Senate was unelected, and the people (only those within the city itself) were divided into 30 curiae, each of which had one vote. By the way, the USSR was a republic (that's what the 'R' stands for), but it didn't have anything like representation of the popular will. Nor did Saddam's Republic of Iraq or Kaddafi's Republic of Libya. The Athenian form of democracy can be fitted into the definition I gave above. Due to the small scale of that nation, a citizen with certain qualifications could elect himself as one of 6,000 representatives of the entire populace in something like a proportional representation system (each qualified citizen being a different party).
Our system is unlike feudalism (or rather manorialism), in that manorialism started with a firm division of classes--land owners and everyone else. The only way to rise in class was through marriage or murder.
The U.S. is more like the fading stage of medieval times when the aristocrats had amassed enough wealth to rival the power of the nobles and kings, to make the official government their puppets. This had nothing to do with manorialism or feudalism; it was a replacement of them. Democracy was supposed to make that wealth irrelevant, and it has failed at it.
I have the deck of cards put out by Greg Palast about 10 years ago. It's called simply "The Joker's Wild" (G.W. Bush is the joker). The suit of hearts represented the good guys, and the other three suits the bad guys.
@chicagotim,
Obviously you've missed the change with most White Collar jobs being outsourced over the Internet to foreign companies with highly educated employees working for much less money and no benefits. Your very expensive college education, that has led to the creation of an array of economic classes that are increasingly dividing us as a country, now qualifies you to get first dibs on those jobs at 7/11 ! Current statistics show that 40% of recent college graduates are still living at home after months, and sometimes years, searching for a job that will allow them to live independently and payoff their massive college debt. Your Right wing, 'Every One For Themselves', mantra is rapidly leading in one direction, the descent of this country into a third world economy competing to be the lowest cost provider of labor for the rest of the planet. Once the TPP is signed off, and it will be because there's no unified groups left to stop it, you and many others will finally see those expensive degrees for what they are, just another con to get your money ! Unions were our last chance to do what the oligarchs have long fought against, organizing average working Americans into a unified group that was able to demand safe and stable living conditions that promoted what we once cherished in this country, freedom from the economic tyranny that now threatens the very existence of this Constitutional Republic.
@ johnbest, They're called family Dynasties and the Right in this country continues to support their existence with ongoing reductions of inheritance taxes that insures the continued existence of future generations with the same family name and objectives, Thom is right, this system is identical to Feudalism where the leaders of these Dynasties amass and retain great wealth that is generated by the work of their serfs under them yet the leaders maintain full control over all the wealth and the lives of the serfs.
Really? Millions of us have never been in a union and somehow seem to eek out a very nice living by having something better than a union card... it's called a college diploma. When I don't care for how I've been treated, I get another job. I've worked at places that were decimated by people quitting for greener pastures. I'd much rather chart my own course than wait for "big daddy" to bend to the demands of the union. I think that's how the vast majority of white collar professionals operate in this century. And as America is rapidly becoming white collar...
I grew up in a "right to work" state. My father voluntarily belonged to the union where he worked because he felt like it was the right thing to do, and he wanted a say in what the union did. Others chose not to join and would only go along with the union on walk outs or strikes if it seemed just to them. How is that not a democracy in action? Does mandatory membership somehow make it more democratic?
John the Koch bros made a lot more money than their father did. Yes it was easier with the start they had but many families blow their inheritance. Kings only loose their wealth to other kings. This goes both ways. The Kennedy's made there money bootlegging hooch and it was passed down. The Clinton's made money, well who knows how, and their daughter is all ready worth millions.
The Koch Bros. are a perfect example as to why we need to raise the inheritance tax. Once these 2 SOBs die off, what kind of empire might they leave behind to their progeny? America was not founded on the principles of royalty and their continuance and the Kochs are a perfect example of why this practice must be stopped.
Thanks for catching that error. Her
website is at: dianeravitch.net
Thomas Jefferson said: "The government is the srongest of which every man feels himself a part."
Does anyone know that our government was intended to be a republic? Check out Aaron Russo on youtube, the difference between a democracy and a republic. I prefer the sovereignty of a republic.
Ben Franklin said, "A democracy is when two wolves and a sheep are deciding what to have for dinner, and a republic is when the sheep has a gun"!
Unions are a form of representative democracy, vital to the workplace. Only a fool, or someone who has never worked for a living, would trust and believe that a common characteristic of a non union workplace is benevolent dictatorship. Greed requires intervention, without collective bargaining you end up with Walmart.
The Fascists especially hate unions because we are a voting bloc to be reckoned with, a voting bloc that rarely sides with their Republican Party.
Mr. Hartmann clearly knows the great good unions have done for us and why they are more vital than ever. I know those facts too, as do most visitors to this website. But most of today's U.S.citizens, their minds locked down by Ayn Rand public schools, have no clue: a genuine Moron Nation, they reject the truth of class struggle just as vehemently as they reject the truths of evolution, terminal climate-change and racial or gender equality. And we ourselves are not without guilt in this dismal process, for too many us have forgotten unions would never have won human rights for workers here were it not for the fact the Soviet Union with its threat of global Marxism terrified the U.S. Ruling Class into making the (minimal) humanitarian concessions our capitalist overlords have now all but abolished...forever.
debcef--
assumed you ment. 'compilation'
Do you have Diane's website?
Kend -- Do you know what social mobility is? Before raygun the US was among the top, maybe 3rd, in social mobility Now with raygunomics we are near the bottom. These stats are among the OECD nations.
The US is not at absolute feudalism yet. The trajectory is headed that way. Us lefties what to reverse that trajectory.
Chi Matt -- I would be curious why you think problems arise when you go to the federal level. When complaining about problems at the federal level, remember (paraphrasing W. Churchill) healthcare at the federal level is the worse approach, except for all the others. Since insurance and healthcare are commodities, one is faced with competition between entities without tariffs to balance out the choices.
The articles of confederation, charter mongering and the Eurozone demonstrate that federal oversight of healthcare would be the only workable solution.
That doesn't make sense. If one cannot rise to the top in feudalism then how did they get so rich? The Cock Brothers got rich inheriting their father's millions he earned building refineries for Stalin in the 1930's. Many of the other billionaires also got rich through inheritance. They are the greedy 1% who have reduced us to feudalism. You see, it all started with Saint Raygun. Some of the 1% like Buffet earned their millions and are decent human beings. The ones who inherited it are assholes.
As a 6th generation Wisconsinite I live daily with Walker's damaging actions. As a retired educator I am appalled by his attempts to destroy our public schools. I implore readers and listeners of yours to read Diane Ravitch's blog where you'll find a complication of articles and insights on Corporate attempts to
to privitize our schools. Also, please read Robert Putnam's new book "Our Kids."
It is eye-opening and gut-wrenching!