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What Democracy means

At a time when we are losing our democracy to the interests of the rich and powerful, we should be reminded what Democracy is, how we got it, and what we must do to keep it.

With that in mind, I offer this video, from a few years back, narrated by former MP Tony Benn:



I think Benn is correct. We have never really had much democracy, we have had to fight hard for what little we do have, and we better keep fighting hard to stop losing it and to get more of it.

The Case for Elizabeth Warren

Nothing can stop this train wreck!

The Great Bill Moyers

Ken Burns: Beauty is Democratic

I was unable to see all of Ken Burn's National Parks: American's Best idea on PBS, I watched 3 of the 6 Episodes. I did manage to see clips from the other episodes and plan to watch them all when the Public Library gets a copy.

I'm mixed on Ken Burns. His documentaries are far too long, too sappy at times, and can have long stretches of sheer boredom (The exception here is Burn's Baseball, which was fantastic from start to finish). On the other hand, his documentaries always include fine interviews, great images, and remarkable observations. They are always worth watching despite the problems. National Parks is standard Ken Burns in all respects.

Two things stood out for me. First, there was a great deal, particularly in the first episode, about finding God in nature. John Muir played a large part here. The nature mysticism in the first episode was never sufficiently developed, but it was quite well done. Americans like John Muir and Walt Whitman developed a particularly American theology in which God is to be found right here in the beauty, power, and sheer grandeur of nature. That Burns touched on this tradition at all is remarkable, for Americans have lost much of it. As the documentary stressed, finding divinity in the land is the defining feature of Native American spirituality. A continent as beautiful as North America naturally gives rise to such a theology of divine immanence.

Second, the major idea of the film is that "big government" is not always bad. In fact, Burn's documentary makes a strong case that only a strong federal government can protect the public good.

James Poniewozik, writing for time Magazine, captures this perfectly:

The miniseries starts in the mid — 19th century, when nature lovers began urging that the expanding nation set aside areas of wilderness to remain undeveloped and unspoiled. Their cautionary tale was Niagara Falls, which by the 1860s was "almost ruined" — overrun by hucksters and tourist traps, with nearly every good view privately owned. Unless the government acted, advocates like naturalist John Muir warned, Yosemite and Yellowstone would end up the same way. "To Europeans," reads narrator Peter Coyote, Niagara "was proof that the United States was still a backward, uncivilized nation."

Government intervention! Private-sector-bashing! Americans trying to impress Europeans! These and other pinko motivations would secure a permanent federal handout for Yogi Bear and his picnic-basket-redistributing comrades. You can imagine how the proposal might go down were the parks starting from scratch today. Socialized nature, controlled by tree czars?

And in the decades that followed, there were battles — with drillers, ranchers, developers — over and over (and over: The National Parks is gorgeous, but at 12 hours, it sometimes gives new meaning to the term geologic time). When FDR created Jackson Hole National Monument in 1943, a Wyoming Senator likened the plan to Pearl Harbor, while a local journalist compared it to Hitler's Anschluss.

Burns and writer Dayton Duncan make plain which side they're on. (The subtitle is a hint.) A section on the battle to create a park in the Smoky Mountains contrasts schoolkids collecting pennies for the effort with logging companies bankrolling ads and "frantically cutting the old-growth forests ... to extract everything they could before the land was closed to them." Speaking to critics this summer, Burns said, "If there were no national parks, [the Grand Canyon] would be a gated community."

The national parks — and The National Parks — are based on ideas that are classically, if not radically, communitarian: That the free market doesn't always act in the public interest. That it's good that every American shares ownership of and responsibility for the most exclusive properties in the country. And that it is right for people — through government — to protect them from business interests and even from the people themselves (like the early visitors who shot game and scratched their names on ancient rocks). A series on a public-TV network that calls a government program America's best idea? Has no one alerted Rush Limbaugh?

It is a good time to remind Americans that federal government is not always bad. To the contrary, big business is a serious threat to Democracy. Privatization puts power, wealth, and property into the hands of a few, public services and resources - like National Parks - spread power, wealth, and property to all of us. "We the People" own the national parks. This is a truly democratic idea. And that idea makes Ken Burns new documentary well worth viewing.

Town Hall "Angry Mobs" undermine Democracy

The Town Hall protesters are all over the news. They are scary, irrational, and loaded with false and misleading information.

We are, nevertheless, told that they are simply expressing their opinion and are allowed to do so by the first amendment. Well .... it is certainly true that these protesters have a right to speak. They should not be legally forced to shut up.

But please, let us call nonsense for what it is. Talk of "socialism," fears that Obama will "kill Grandma," or screams that the government must "leave medicare alone," and other far worse and even more ignorant remarks cannot and should not be taken seriously.

These "protesters" are ignorant folk who are duped by advertisements and think tanks. They are truly sorry and pitiful specimens. They don't have a "point of view" or a "position," they just have irrational, unfounded, and stupid fears. I'm not sure if we should cry for them or laugh at them or perhaps suggest a medication for them, but we must not pretend their views are worth taking seriously.

These people are ignorant and should be called ignorant. And some of them have gone beyond "free speech." Some protesters are now bringing guns, and shouting death threats. And even when these protesters don't go so far as to actually threaten life and limb, they shout down congressmen and opponents, effectively silencing debate, discussion and discourse. This spectacle is neither civility nor democracy, but an angry mob - wielding its torches to pursue the creature.

Here is a sampling of the hatred, irrationality, and ignorance of these mobs:

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This is not a debate. The town hall protesters are ranting, raving, factually inaccurate, angry people. They do not have evidence and argument. They do not have a "point of view." These people have nothing more than rage and ignorance.

By all means let them rant and rave. But don't pretend they represent anything more than ignorant people who irrationally hate Obama and fear "liberals." Nothing more.

NPR has covered the issue of "health care mis-information" quite well:

Independence Day

I have never been a patriot. Every 4th of July I cringe when I hear that horrible nationalistic "Proud to be an American" song: no offense to Lee Greenwood. In fact, for several years now I have paid no attention to the fourth of July.

This winter, however, I spent a week in Philadelphia reacquainting myself with our founding fathers. Yes, I know all of their flaws. Though Benjamin Franklin and a few others were abolitionists, slavery was legal when this nation was founded. I know of the horrible crimes we committed against the Native Americans, the indignity and inhumanity of Jim Crow, the interment of the Japanese, and now the sad reality of American Imperialism throughout the world today.

Despite all the horror in and dark side of our legacy, I have come to think our founding fathers really did give us something remarkable. A Constitutional Democracy, a representative Republic, a system of checks and balances aimed at maximum freedom of the individual and protection of his or her rights.

When I read the Preamble of the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence I am deeply moved by the spirit of freedom. Once again, I am sadly aware of the limited application of freedom in our founders' day and our own. But it is not for nothing that nations the world over, and even oppressed groups here, have appealed to those founding ideals when fighting for their own freedom (just read King's speeches, they are filled with allusions to the founding fathers).

So, despite their many flaws and shortcomings, our founders sought to bring the spirit of freedom into their country, indeed they fought to do so. I have come to believe they were right about this, and that they were right to fight for it. But the battle for our freedom cannot be restricted to rebellion against the British long ago. The Battle for freedom, rights, and democracy is perennial; we must keep up that fight today.

Democracy is currently either dead or in critical condition in the United States. As Bill Moyers notes "Money is chocking Democracy to death." Basically Corporations sponsor - or better buy - our politicians and expect that their interests, not ours, are what the politicians work to protect. They are not let down, our politicians do not work for the people, but for the vested interest - those with the cash.

Corporations own our newspapers and TV news stations, they own our politicians, and our entertainment .. in short, they have bought our government at our expense.

The rallying cry of the Revolutionary War was "no taxation without representation." Once again we are not represented. Our Politicians do not represent us, they represent their corporate sponsors. We the people are a minimal factor in the minds of lawmakers. Laws are passed and enacted for the benefit of multi-national corporations, and we the people are forced to foot the bill for it.

If we would claim our liberty, enjoy our freedom, and have real democracy in our lives, then we must work to end this intolerable situation. We must, like our founders, demand our Independence - not through bloody rebellion this time, but through demanding we are heard. Fighting for Public Schools, Public Television, Public Radio, Public Health Care, and - perhaps most importantly - Public Campaign Financing. Let us reclaim our country from the moneyed interest and let freedom ring again.

In the all too often unread words of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

Let us read these words very carefully, and, this July 4th instead of merely getting drunk and hearing that awful Lee Greenwood song, let's start to ask ourselves how we can win our country back.

Public Campaign Financing: The way to Save Democracy

Our politicians are owned and controlled by wealthy private interests. Bill Moyers explains what we the people must to stop it:

"Centrists" threaten health care reform

I am not sure what a "Centrist" actually is. So far as I can tell it's a social liberal or social moderate who believes that big corporations have more rights than ordinary people. These Centrist Democrats in the Senate are a real threat to health care reform. They must be taken to task. Please everyone call the office of your senators and find out where they stand on the inclusion of a public health care plan as part of health care reform. If they do not support a robust public health care plan, then tell them they will not be re-elected; tell them they have lost your vote.

These senators are a real obstacle. They are playing with people's health and lives. Please, let them know that this will not stand. We cannot let them ruin our lives to fill the pockets of the health insurance industry.

Here is a video clip in which Senator Bernie Sanders explains the problem with "Centrists" Democrats:

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As you can see, this is scary. The Republicans will probably filibuster this. Republicans do not want to help people; then only want to hurt people. They will stop at nothing to be sure health care is defeated. So these Centrist Democrats who might side with the Republicans must be told that they will not be re-elected if they do so.

A fine article in the Milwaukee Express list a number of Democratic Senators who oppose the public plan, and that they do so because they are bought off by big health insurance companies:

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has simply stated, through her flack, that she refuses to support a public option. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who has tried to fashion a plan that will entice Republicans, warns that the public option is a step toward single-payer health care-not much of an objection, considering that it's a model that serves people in every other industrialized country with lower costs and superior outcomes. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) feebly protests that her state's mismanagement by a Republican governor must stall the progress of the rest of the country. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) says he has a better plan involving regional cooperatives, but they would be unable to effectively compete with the insurance behemoths or bargain with pharmaceutical giants.

The excuses sound different, but all of these lawmakers have something in common-namely, their abject dependence on campaign contributions from the insurance and pharmaceutical corporations fighting against real reform. Consider Louisiana's Landrieu, a senator from a very poor state whose working-class constituents badly need universal coverage (and many of whom now depend on Medicare, a popular government program). According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog outfit, she has received nearly $1.7 million from corporate medical interests, including hospitals, insurance companies, nursing homes and drug firms, during the course of her political career.

The same kind of depressing figures can be found in the campaign filings of many of the Democrats now posing as obstacles to reform, notably including Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who has distinguished himself in the most appalling way. The Montana Standard, a news outlet in his home state, found that Baucus has received more campaign money from health and insurance industry donors than any other single member of Congress. "In the past six years," the Standard found, "nearly one-fourth of every dime raised by [Baucus] and his political-action committee has come from groups and individuals associated with drug companies, insurers, hospitals, medical-supply firms, health-service companies and other health professionals."

The Failings of Obamanomics

Very informative interview from Democracy Now. The importance of this interview is that it offers a very different perspective than the clash between Obama and the Republicans gives us. This more nuanced position is critical of both those parties. And rightly so. After all both parties assume the same system and don't think outside of it.

Watch and learn:

Bedtime for Bonzo: The Gipper failed

For those out here who still think deregulation and tax cuts can help us out of the current economic crisis: Rachel Maddow gives us a history lesson about the failures of over privatization and too little regulation:

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Remember this simple Tidbit: the goal of private enterprise is solely to maximize profit. The goal of public services is the common good. Public services don't always serve the common good, but private enterprise seldom does so, and when it does so serve it is accidentally.

February 12th: 200 years later and 100 years later

On this date, February 12th, in 1809 both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were Born.

Interestingly, Lincoln freed the slaves and Darwin was a fervent abolitionist. The world is different because of these men.

There are those who do not hold either man in esteem. Many Biblical Literalists see Darwin as little better than an agent of deception and perhaps even the devil's stooge. And there are those who think "Honest Abe" had no genuine interest in freeing the slaves.

I do not share the views of these critics. In place of scepticism and scorn I suggest that we take some time today and reflect on their lives and influences. What both men have done to better our world and further our knowledge.

Here are some good places to start:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/opinion/12thu4.html?partner=permalink&
exprod=permalink

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_11679532

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/brad_hirschfield/2009/02/lincoln_darwin_and_gay_marriag.html

It is also important to note that today is also the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the N.A.A.C.P, which was founded quite intentionally on Lincoln's 100th birthday.

Remember Dr. King . . . but really do so.

This Martin Luther King Jr Holiday is obviously extra-meaningful. Tomorrow we swear in our first African-American President. Clearly this a quite a step forward for the United States of America.

We are a step nearer to the realization of King's "dream." Though we are still far from the whole of that dream. If you'd like to know just how far, do a little research on King the man. Read some of his speeches and sermons against the war in vietnam and American foreign policy generally. Learn what King meant by "economic democracy".

He was far more than a guy who just objected to segregation. King sought a radical reconstruction of society, a massive change. A world in which all people had not only the right to vote, not only did not suffer segregation, but had control over their economic plight; freedom not only to be left in peace, but to flourish. He was more radical than the tame image of him we are exposed to would let us believe.

So with the dawn of a world in which a Black man holds the most powerful office on earth, let us remember Dr. Martin Luther King jr. But let's move past the domesticated and tamed version taught in grade schools and remembered in history.

Study the man's writings and sermons, speeches, and letters, and find a man whose vision is far more radical than we suppose, and whose dream is far larger than we had imagined.

His speeches against the war in Vietnam is a good place to start - note his claim about America's arrogance - I share some of these here:

Freedom and Democracy

I spent five days in Philadelphia at the end of December. It was quite remarkable. I stood in a the house where Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, saw the first congress where that same declaration was read and signed, and the constitution was ratified. I stood at Ben Franklin's grave, and at Washington park, sight of revolutionary war battles, and now a burial ground for soldiers who fell in that war.

Two words - constant in American rhetoric - haunted me: "freedom" and "democracy". I think we use those words too cheaply, to vaguely, without sufficient meaning.

Democracy is government by the people, a government where the rights of everyone are legally protected, and all have power to have their voice heard by government. Democracy is far more than the right to vote and free speech. Democracy is nothing less than the freedom to matter, to make a difference. to have one's voice heard, one's life and interests protected, one's worth affirmed.

Likewise with freedom. We cannot simply proclaim that we believe in freedom. We must say what freedom means. Freedom from what? Freedom to what? Freedom for whom? How much freedom? what kind of freedom? Freedom to be simply left to ourselves? Or freedom that requires the help of others?

The founding fathers of our nation were flawed and faulty men, but they did create something quite remarkable. They did give us a democratic republic.

But it is not sufficient merely to wave our flags and chant stock phrases. Let's ask ourselves what democracy and freedom really mean, what liberty really consist in, what rights really are. What is this gift that the founding fathers tried to provide us?

If we do not come to understand what these concepts really mean, then we will lose them. Even now we are not really fully free, not really fully democratic ... and how could we be, if we don't know what it means to be free and democratic?

Food for thought as a new administration comes to power.

Unity and Dialogue? Could it be?

Bishop Robinson was on Rachel Maddow tonight. What he had to say was quite interesting:

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equally interesting, Rick Warren has reached out to Bishop Robinson and seems to approve of Obama's choice here:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/01/14/rick_warren_reaches_out_to_gen.html?wprss=the-trail

I confess that this news has lifted my spirits. Is it possible that we might see real dialogue? Real growth and change? Do we dare to hope??

Human Rights Day

Today is the 60th Anniversay of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.

The original declaration can be found here:
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Remember that the principle behind Democratic governments is that the only legitimate function of government, the reason it exists and the way it remains a valid government, is to promote, protect, and ensure all it's peoples' basic human rights.

This view of government was not always accepted. It is a result of the radical thinking of the 17th and 18th century philosophers who invented the very concept of human rights and abandoned the older idea that the primary function of government was to enforce order and keep everyone in their proper place.

It's also worth reflection that we have not only rights to life, liberty, propety, and security - so called negative rights -, but also rights to a basic standard of health care, education, standard of living, and equal opportunity.

Let us take this Human Rights day to remember the rights we do have - that only emerged after centuries of struggle - but also to remember what we still need to work for.

The immorality of Proposition 8

California's supreme court is set decide whether or not the passing of Prop. 8 will stand.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/us/21marriage.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Let us hope that they decide it will not. No doubt many will argue that it is a violation of democracy for the court to simply overturn the voters decisions. That may sound high and democratic but it really is not. Democracy does not allow us to vote on human rights issues. Would anyone in this country seriously allow voters to decide if a particular religion was to be outlawed? Or if segregation, slavery, interracial marriage, due process, trial by jury, free speech, free assembly, free press, and other such fundamental human rights should be permitted? Nobody would stand for these matters being put to a vote!

You do not subject basic human rights and fundamental human dignity to a majority opinion! If you allowed such things to happen, imagine the rights the majority would deny the minority in many cases!