Morning, hippies. Happy Weekend. Remember, if you HAVE a weekend, thank a Union! As the desperation among the average citizens of the USofA becomes more palplable, cries for reform grow louder and more varied. Decisions by the SCROTUS such as Citizens United, which effectively turned Corporations into 'citizens,' and other set-backs limiting the range of legal redress through class actions, have l;ed people to propose a variety of theoretically possible but practicably impossible remedies, the latest being a Contstitutional Convention.
Y'r Ob'd't S'v't will vehemently oppose any proposal for remedying our current social ills and dilemmas which includes a Constitutional Convention.
I sympathize deeply with the sentiment, but, man, think about it!
Unless you want--or are at least prepared-- to see the ENTIRE Constitution scrapped, a ConCon is a really, terribly, terrifically, horrifically, horribly BAD fucking idea.
I understand the impetus to "do" something.
But in this hyper-mediated, public environment, direct democracy isn't a practicable alternative.
Why? Or rather, "Why not?"
Think "Prop 8." In California, a couple of years ago, amending the CA Constitution by initiative--direct democracy--to exclude gays from the rights accorded BY THE STATE to 'straight' couples. It passed, due in most part--most people rightly believe--to massive, focussed expenditures of disinformation cash by political interests OUTSIDE California. It was enough to sway the results, which are STILL being adjudicated, and the big outside money is still bankrolling the obstructionists, who may ultimately fail, but in doing so will have STILL have collected MILLIONS in donations.
Now multiply the influence of outside money in CA on Prop 8 expo-fuuking-NENTIALLY!
Then remember that, as influential as that interference has been, it is still WITHOUT the HUGE tidal-waves of cash the CorpoRats will be able to unleash through their wholly-owned, lap-dog CorpoRat/SCUM "press" to sway any such deliberations in the context of a Constitutional Convention or any other venue in the future.
And you cannot limit what may be discussed, reformed, or eliminated. You can't have a ConCon and say, well, we're only gonna talk about corporate citizenship. Everything's on the table. Every year, some Poli Sci class at Dear Ol' Siwash U conducts 'man-on-the-street interviews in which they translate the 18th Century diction of the COnstitution and rewrite it in more contemporary vernacular, and ask people if they'd accept it, or the Bill of Rights, and routinely about half of them are rejected by citizens today.
It's what the Greeks usta call an "apoeria," an irresolvable contradiction: The people cannot order their representatives to over-ride the power that placed their representatives in office in the first place. The CorpoRats, as "persons," have the "right" to expend ANY resources in ANY amount to secure the end they desire. And their resources are essentially endless and boundless.
The CorpoRats would/WILL have a fuuking FIELD DAY with direct democracy. They own ALL the media through which it would necessarily be conducted.
You do NOT think the CorpoRats wouldn't use the ALL power that CU gives them to defeat any effort to revoke or repeal it, by WHATEVER means?
And there would be no way to prohibit it.
Or do you really, truly, truly BELEEVE! there REALLY IS a difference between Miller and Bud?
See the problem?
We'll talk when I see ya at the beach!!!
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Here's the vid in which Cenk Uygir leads the appeal for donations:
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