(Article changed on September 2, 2013 at 16:22)
Progressive
Strategies Tried
and
Policies Recommended
Congress by Rasmus Knutsson
By
Roger Copple
It seems that the Occupy Movement, like the former
Peace Movement, has come and gone, but I hope both can be resurrected in some
form. As I surf the Internet, I find
hundreds of excellent progressive websites, many of which I have added to my Favorites
List on my laptop. There must be
thousands of excellent articles to read on a daily basis, but who has the time
to read but only a small percentage of them, even on a full-time basis.
Many articles say similar things, but if the right
words are put in a search window, one can find a cornucopia of political ideas. For example, in doing a google search on local
self-determination with a global focus, I revisited the Institute for Local
Self Reliance and Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT), which I hadn't
considered for a long time, but then I discovered a new one: EarthHolocracy.org,
based in Australia. I visit conservative websites too such as
HumanEvents.com in order to read what people such as George Will, Patrick
Buchanan, and Charles Krauthammer have to say. And I turn on mainstream TV news for brief
periods every day.
By visiting alternative-news websites, one can even
find coalition-building groups that focus on social justice. But despite the numerous progressive websites
and activities, it seems that the wealthy one percent is still entrenched in
its improper influence on Congress, foreign policy, the mass media, and even
the workplace.
In my political activism, I have always tried to take a solutions approach. For example, years ago, I emailed several third parties. I thought why can't all the third parties unite and have their own political primary? They could vote on a presidential candidate, who would make certain promises to all parties if elected (that sounds familiar), and then all the third-party members could agree to vote for that candidate in the later election. A third-party president, once in office, could emphasize the importance of getting the ballot access laws for third parties changed for all future elections. But no third party responded to my request for a primary.
When third-party candidates Ron Paul, Cynthia McKinney, Chuck Baldwin, and
Ralph Nader during the 2008 presidential race found four points of agreement
regarding foreign policy, privacy, the national debt, and the Federal Reserve--I
was delighted. But it seems that not
much became of that either. The problem
is that third parties still cannot overcome the two-party monopoly of the political
process.
In a few of my previous articles, I mentioned how there have
been over 700 state petitions over the years calling for an Article V
Convention. At an Article V Convention, state legislatures could bypass the U.S. Congress altogether
and have their own national convention to pass various proposed
amendments. But the Article V Convention
still hasn't happened yet.
For awhile, I thought that getting various
progressive amendments passed, such as reversing the Citizens United ruling in
2010, could be an effective strategy, but even if that amendment passed, there
are still many amendments that need
to be passed simultaneously to create a socially just, democratic society.
We have the longest existing constitution that is
the hardest to amend. So, I thought,
what if the focus was on amending and revising Article V itself, so that in the
future we could not only amend the constitution more easily, we could actually
abolish it in a very democratic and orderly way. I even wrote my version of what the Third
Constitution of the United States (I'm counting the Articles of Confederation
as the first constitution) should look like.
But both the political Right and the Left were shocked and apprehensive
about it, judging by the online comments that my articles generated.
I still take pride that I was one of six delegates representing
Indiana at a national Green gathering at Hampshire College, Massachusetts in 1987. At that 4-day conference many of us felt we
were making history. A few years later,
while living in Florida, I remember attending a state Green conference there. We were working on developing the state
platform, and at one of the forums on Education, I advocated neighborhood
control of neighborhood public schools.
Though the Greens normally support grassroots democracy, decentralization,
and respect for diversity--they seemed to make an exception when it came to the
public schools.
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