Distractions from Democracy

It's not big government that is the problem, but bad government. We all have a right to be pissed at what's going on in so many different areas. But let's focus our ire--our righteous indignation--and focus our work for change on the root source of the problem.

Let's connect some dots, and put issues in their larger context. We must stop granting distractions offered by proponents of the status quo the power to guide our actions.

Did an immigrant move your factory or call center overseas? Did an immigrant steal your pension? Did an immigrant cut your health care? Did an immigrant destroy American workers' right to organize? Did an immigrant crash the financial system? Was it immigrant workers who wrote the trade laws that have led to wage depression on both sides of the border while bonuses to banksters and corporate CEOs have grown to even more obscene levels?

The simplistic mantra of "What part of illegal don't you understand" must be turned back on those who utter it. Under American immigration law, being in the United States without legal status is a civil violation, not a crime. If we're merely a society of laws that must be upheld regardless of context, why don't these same people call for the immediate arrest of BushCheney for starting two illegal wars and eviscerating the American Constitution?

The American dream is not one in which only a few of us get insanely rich at the expense of the rest of us. The American dream is one where we all have a fair portion of the good things in life. Quality time with our family and friends. Opportunities to pursue our interests. Time to enjoy a natural world that is healthy and vibrant. The ability to further our education. Where our laws protect us, not oppress us. Where we have quality leisure time instead of spending one billion working hours per year in order to buy leisure wear. We must quit confusing standard of living with quality of life.

We cannot achieve economic prosperity by lowering wages and increasing consumption. The only way this can possibly come about is by increasing debt, which devalues our economy. Our future is now in the hands of foreign banks. Increasing poverty and debt levels, both personal and government, are contributing factors to America now qualifying as a third-world nation. America has become a debtor nation that cannot meet the needs of its own people without imports that exploit the people in developing nations and degrade and deplete our finite global store of natural resources.

This has all come about because we have allowed the fiction of a corporate person to overrule democracy. We have handed our sovereignty to a legal fiction. Corporations, which are supposed to be a tool of society, not the ruler of society, have bought our government, control our regulatory agencies--and now to add insult to injury--an activist Supreme Court has ruled corporations can buy our elections with impunity with the further fiction that money is speech.

It's long past time for we the people to reclaim our democracy and assert our sovereignty. We can and must do so. Relocalization--a rational, practical, affordable process to develop a sustainable future--provides a framework to support the opportunities to do so.