The nature of our government.

[Warren Stupidity]

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Do you believe that Lincoln's characterization of our government as "of the people, by the people, for the people" remains an accurate description of the primary nature of our government in the year 2010?

[90-percent]

1. Our current State

Benito Mussolini himself would be proud of what we've accomplished in the last decade!

-90% Jimmy

[Warren Stupidity]

4. But is it really 'the last decade'?

[geckosfeet]

6. Good point. They laid low after WWII, but planned well to avoid similar mistakes.

[izquierdista]

7. Make that 3 decades

[90-percent]

8. Last decade

Well, from a historical perspective, it seems there's a consensus here it started with Reagan.

It just got really really blatant with the advent of GWB, starting with the TREASONOUS Supreme Court Ruling.

I think the power brokers are all saying to themselves; "Holy Shit! You can do anything to these Americans and they just sit there and take it! We should begin Phase Two of the Patriot Act this year!"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=418705&mesg_id=418740

I highly recommend the ON THE EDGE with Max Keiser episode the above is a part of.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7374924&mesg_id=7375267

Some links of me enjoying all of the internet freedom of speech that I still happen to legally enjoy!

-90% jimmy

[Warren Stupidity]

10. "What's good for General Motors is good for the country"

Charles Erwin Wilson CEO GM, Defense Secretary in the Eisenhower government.

[chrisa]

More regulation is needed.

But we can get there.

[chrisa]

2. More regulation is needed.

But we can get there.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. And I would welcome opinions about when our government stopped being " by the people"

My personal opinion is that ironically it was the Civil War itself that ushered in the start of Wall Street's domination of Washington, and that the current arrangement was more or less in place by WWI, with brief interludes of reform interrupting an otherwise continuous feeding frenzy. The last era of reform was the Watergate Congress, and the current situation is a more pervasive corporate reign than any prior point in our brief history.

[blueworld]

9. It was a confluence of changes, but one thing stands out to me

When the nature of journalism changed radically. Rather than waiting for a daily newspaper & and evening newscast, 24-hour cable news created "entertainment" news. I'm not saying it's necessarily all bad, but I am saying that I believe a free press is the engine of democracy, and our free press has been infiltrated, reduced and compromised.

When news organizations stopped being well-educated watchdogs and became well-coiffed celebrities we lost our main advocates. Now they're embedded shills & propagandists rather than courageous adversaries (which is a new cuss word like "Liberal").

Business always exists for profits, there have always been corrupt politicians (I grew up in Hudson County, NJ; 'nuff said), but real, aggressive, passionate, honest journalism helped keep the focus on the American "ideals".

Saint Reagan's buddies began "reforming" controls on corporations, however when the news/cable mega-corps were created & began cutting staffs & salaries that's when I heard the big flush.

[izquierdista]

13. Fascist fine-tuning

World War II taught the fascists that out and out genocide was a real no-no that would bring the whole world down on you. You notice that the fascists who took a bye on WWII, like Franco, Peron, and Salazar all died as old men in power.

Vietnam and Watergate taught them that they needed to control the mass media, so they controlled it by advertising dollars. They could get anything by the people if they poured enough advertising dollars into it. And just to make sure, they poured money into lobbying, which is about the most targeted advertising (435 Congressmen and 100 Senators) that can be crafted.

[Warren Stupidity]

14. yup

[Captain Hilts]

5. Healthcare reform irrefutably showed the govt. to be bought off. nt

[Warren Stupidity]

16. Certainly. And so far the consensus of this board.

I wonder how far this concept has spread into the general population?

[The2ndWheel]

11. A people of the government, by the government, and for the government

[Warren Stupidity]

12. Well yes but that follows from

a government by the corporation, of the corporation, and for the corporation. At least in my opinion.

[The2ndWheel]

20. "In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first."

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1911taylor.html

In the hierarchy of power, I'd say government always has more power than corporations, because it's a single entity. Then corporations. Then people. The more of something that there is, the more variables, the more diversity, the less power it has against a more organized, less diverse opponent.

Why do corporations have so much power in the reality we currently live in? They're multi-national. On the other hand, there are a few hundred regional governments around the world. The more governments there are, all acting in their own interests, the less power each one has in a global reality. Copenhagen being a recent example. It works the same as unions. It's why we want universal health care. It's why corporations merge. A single system for everyone. As soon as everyone starts doing their own thing, everything falls apart.

So maybe it should be; a people by the system, of the system, and for the system. When you break it down, what are we here for? We're here to prop up both the government and the corporations. Our energy and money and time is funneled toward the political and economic system. We're here to pay our taxes. We're here to go to work. We're here to consume. You might have a hobby, but your primary reason for existing on this planet is to help the government and the corporations hold, and expand, their control, over you, and life in general. If we don't consume, nobody has a job to go to. If nobody has a job to go to, nobody can pay their taxes. If nobody pays their taxes, everything starts to crumble.

[90-percent]

15. Our Founding Fathers

All the good stuff they came up with to make a great country with liberty and justice for all is being dismantled in front of our very eyes.

The journalism comments above exemplify that fact. The Founders created the framework for an independant and free press to check the powers of government.

A lot of the laws that gave us a free press over the last 200 years have been SYSTEMATICALLY DISMANTLED (almost completely within the last 20 to 30 years) to the point where we have the CORPORATE MEDIA we all enjoy today.

Remember the good old days when there was competing newspapers in major cities and media ownership was actually RESTRICTED! If you owned the local newspaper you could not also own the local TV or radio stations. Not so today.

One recent precedent I would like to know more about is that one down in Florida a few years ago where the court ruled it was PERFECTLY FINE to knowingly LIE in a news broadcast? Interesting that it was a local Fox station that was a party in the Court case, huh?

-90% Jimmy

[Warren Stupidity]

17. I'm going to break one of my own rules. Could the unrecers please explain why?

C'mon, don't be scared. Explain why you are unreccing this opinion poll.

[sendero]

19. I un-unreced..

.... one. If I had 10 sockpuppets I could get this thing rec'ed.

That said, let me speculate on why someone would unrec this. There is serious, deep denial here among a certain contingent of folks, about just how bad it has gotten.

That anyone could even argue that our government has been completely and totally co-opted by business and financial interests is ludicrous. It couldn't be more in your face than it is, some people just cannot face reality so they don't want anyone else talking about it.

[Peace Patriot]

18. My view of our democracy can be summed up in one word: Diebold (aka, Premier; aka, ES&S).

Well, eight words.

This country stopped being a democracy, and was robbed of its chance to remove a Fascist Junta from the White House and to recover aspects of "of, by and for the people," in October 2002. That is when the Anthrax Congress appropriated a $3.9 billion electronic voting boondoggle, to fast-track 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines all over the country, with the programming code owned and controlled by far rightwing corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls.

This has not changed. In fact, things are worse. ES&S buying out Diebold means that by far the worst of the handful of private corporations that now control our vote counts--ES&S--has a 70% monopoly of the U.S. "market."

We don't really have a democracy any more until we change this and restore transparent vote counting. This is still doable, since control over voting systems still resides at the local/state level, where ordinary people still have some potential influence. But it will take a big citizen effort, with large scale election integrity movements in every state. Such efforts are in progress and making news in New York and Tennessee (ones I've heard about, recently). And there are groups almost everywhere, but it hasn't reached critical mass as yet, and likely won't until leftist activists grasp how important this matter is. We need to restore the FUNDAMENTAL condition for democracy: that everyone can see and understand the vote counting.