.
Of course it's the money that has perverted our government. Of course the Supreme Court's decision on protecting private donors' self-interest further poisoned it. Of course nothing will change, actually will get worse, until the corruption of private money is driven out of the system. Of course the necessary change will require citizen action. BUT positing all this does not a strategy for change make.
.
The question is not so much WHAT is required, but HOW can it be accomplished.
.
Yes, voters should be aware that they are being misrepresented by those they pay and entrust to operate their government, but their individual actions indicate: (1) Enthusiasm to support one of usually only two major candidates for any elective office. (2) Or recourse to a splinter candidate who appeals to too few for any chance of winning an election. (3) Or resignation that a corrupt system is beyond any effort on their part for participative correction. (4) Or are simply unaware or incapable of determining what their best interests are. (5) Or simply cannot be bothered to participate.
.
The question is not so much WHAT is required, but HOW can it be accomplished.
.
Yes, voters should be aware that they are being misrepresented by those they pay and entrust to operate their government, but their individual actions indicate: (1) Enthusiasm to support one of usually only two major candidates for any elective office. (2) Or recourse to a splinter candidate who appeals to too few for any chance of winning an election. (3) Or resignation that a corrupt system is beyond any effort on their part for participative correction. (4) Or are simply unaware or incapable of determining what their best interests are. (5) Or simply cannot be bothered to participate.
.
Getting back to the need for a strategy: Any strategy for change -- no matter how beneficial to the people -- which attempts to operate and succeed within the current corrupt system and by the permission and tolerance of such a system is doomed to certain failure. The incumbent system will simply not permit this to happen, by the -- however unjustified, unconstitutional, immoral or criminal -- suppression of such change by the indentured government incumbents.
.
Moreover, any outsiders' attempt to create a sea change in the political persuasions or the participative interest of the huge electorate to effectively deal with perverted governance would be tantamount to expecting a mouse fart to counter a hurricane.
.
The constitutional means to effect such change simply require too massive a proportion of nonexistent and impossible-to-promote active public support to override the indentured institutionality. No action outside the current partisan arena, including both major and splinter parties, and no activist endeavors, no matter how moral or "necessary," will now succeed in an effort to effect the required change, but rather it will be put down simply by those currently indentured to manage our governance to their and their masters' best interests, OR by those currently outside of the current indenture who desperately wish to join into it. In summary, we can forget any strategy that requires massive (majority or near majority, or even twenty or ten percent) support of the electorate.
.
Such change agents who have tried doing the right thing (e.g. Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson, the latter who lost after but one term as a congressman in 2010) have eloquently and tirelessly tried and failed. And the activist orgs -- however noble their endeavors -- have also failed under the current controls or in the pursuit of gaining the massive public support required by the current rules and tolerated by the incumbent rulers.
.
In short, the mono-issue advocates have a strategy without a strategy to muster support, which is about the same position of the multitude of activist orgs which resist initiatives from outside their own organizations in contributing to massing for the common cause, apparently paranoid that such would contaminate the purity of their own particular message and objectives, or degrade the station of their leaders.
.
The required changes to achieve decent governance, then, must proceed with less than the most modest participation level of the general electorate thus far cited.
.
There are ways of overcoming this difficulty however. Revolution, for instance, does not initially require majority or even sizeable minority support. The Russian Revolution of 1917 for example (not to be confused with the subsequent Russian Civil War) was ignited by one company of naval cadets from the local military academy.
.
The problem with revolutions, however, is -- even if they initially succeed -- one can never be specifically certain what nature of leadership and governance will emerge from them. And in today's U.S., the very mention of the "R" word can elicit fearful reaction, not to exclude government attention, which is quite bizarre considering its celebrated role in the founding of our once world's oldest republic.
.
Another method of non-majority supported change, one that has quite often been employed by our Latin American neighbors, and not infrequently with our covert support, is the military coup. Here again the what-comes-next scenario can lack predictability and has often not produced the best situation for the citizens.
.
Now where are we and what's to be done? Some would choose 1980 as a start of marked decline in our constitutionality, the stagnation of economic progress for the middle class, disproportionately large rewards for the upper several percent, and the steeper escalation in the indenture of our government to moneyed interests -- all of which accelerated through the succeeding thirty years regardless of which major party enjoyed the presidency and congressional majorities.
.
We also now see scant hope of beneficial change emerging from our corrupted government nor through elections dominated by two tweedledee-tweedledum political parties, each sparring to gain the larger share of the spoils. We realize, however, that America is broken, needs to be fixed, but we lack the stomach for revolution, and distrust the coup as a solution.
.
Also there is a growing disappointment with the fragmented activist organizations which across the past ten years -- their lofty rhetoric, symbolic actions, and activist celebrities notwithstanding -- have made not the smallest dent in our government's lust for historically disgraceful lying wars and endemic corruption. (At least you activists could get your shtick together, guys!).
.
But there is a solution that requires less than major-party support, and even less than a decent third-party endorsement, or even that of the single-issue advocates' ten to twenty percent of the electorate. This one takes less than one-half of one-percent percent of the entire population of the United States, or as little as one-percent of the voters that actually cast a presidential ballot in 2008.
.
This solution requires the participation of as little as one million people, no major partisan support, but perhaps a margin of tolerance by the activist orgs in the subordination of their individual nuance of message and the celebrity of their leaders. Its requirements for participation are quite demanding however, simply put: to camp a minimum of ONE MILLION citizens PASSIVELY in place in D.C. (the Mall would be excellent) and there to STAY until just TWO issues were to be resolved: the assurance the American WARS WILL STOP, and our BILL OF RIGHTS RESTORED.
.
But would there be difficulties and hardships with this approach? Adequate shelter? Sufficient food and water? Sanitation facilities? Sickness? Adequate medical provision? Risks of police and even military actions? Yes, all of the problems that can be imagined in such an arena.
.
But for the first time, there would be the exposure theretofore lacking from America's controlled media and in fact from the world's. There would finally be the sympathy and support from America's sleepy electorate and movement away from habitual partisan dedication and the establishment's engineered propaganda. Americans and the international community, including the support of the world's decent governments, would rally behind those MILLION ON THE MALL. Perhaps even the voice of the too-long-silent church would emerge from behind its thick oaken doors. And the more that million suffered and the longer that million endured, the greater that support would be. The elected incumbent but indentured politicos -- after initially opposing the campers -- would finally recognize the jeopardy to their own situation and -- if from cowardice if nothing else -- perhaps slowly at first, but then ultimately move to support the campers and their advocates from elsewhere.
.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? Sounds tough? Absolutely! Doable? Yes!
Why, then, after thirty years of deterioration in our democracy and the economic subjugation of our middle class, why after the past eleven years of lying wars and unprecedented constitutional abuse, why have we yet not done this?
.
We have not done this because this strategy has not been elevated as a remedy, has been rejected by any substantial political faction, and has in fact been rejected even by the very activist organizations and celebrated personalities who would cheer for its ends but insist upon defining the means (indeterminately), maintaining their individual nuance of message, and who will not -- one must consider -- subordinate their leadership to the common endeavor.
.
The invitation is now here extended to those seeking the peace and the restoration of our Bill of Rights, to participate in this solution. Yes, your ancillary issues, nuance of your message, and the station of your leaders will be subordinated to the common cause. Small costs to pay indeed for the high rewards and necessity of Peace and the resurrection of our Bill of Rights.
.
This writer personally promises to participate to the full extent of the correction and to endure its rigors. I also promise no personal ambitions, and to be nothing more than just one of the nameless million who finally prevail in resurrecting decency in America's governance and respectability among the decent governments of the world. .
Now get to work. The citizens need to hear your voices in unison for their cause and humanity's.
