Michael writes:

"Nothing So Mean Could Be Right"

Once again we enter that silly season in the lives of Americans when
numbers, oratory and brightly colored balloons substitute for thought,
probity and rational discourse. The political convention epitomizes this
circus approach to choosing those we laughingly and unthinkingly refer to as
"leaders."Whether we need leaders or not is never up for discussion. Politics is
as American as, well, bakshish in Istanbul. We never think about it, we
endure.

Our relative lack of public participation in the great panoply is not
due to apathy or the decline of our national moral fiber. Rather, we send a
clear signal to those who would lead that they are unwanted, unneeded and
worse, they're keeping us from achieving true democracy. The children's game
of Follow the Leader is unsuitable for such important decisions as keeping
our air and water clean, preserving essential non-human habitat and
protecting at least a representative sample of wilderness, our true home.

Our leaders follow their noses, firmly affixed with corporate nose
rings, attached to the long tether of "campaign financing." The fix has been
in for a century or so, the entire process carefully crafted to guarantee
that those elected to "high" office are well controlled, documented,
indoctrinated and disciplined. They have a heavy responsibility, insuring
the continuance of corporate domination in the United States and all of its
imperialist conquests. The world must be made safe for hypocrisy.

Rather than continuing this quadrennial spasm of false and servile
patriotism, let's throw the whole mess into a cocked hat and return to the
big D Democracy of our greatest statesman, citizen and thinker, Thomas
Jefferson. To hell with national politics, what do we need a national
government for anyway; to make lives miserable for people thousands of miles
away in the desert?

Let's practice democracy where it does the most good: in our homes, our
neighborhoods, our communities and villages. Let's make decisions about
things that matter: the education of our children, the blaring of ground
penetrating sound systems set on stun, our local branch libraries, clean
water, fresh air and preservation of the wild.

If we must, and only when absolutely necessary, we can choose delegates
to deal with our neighbors over yonder hill, when they get too uppity and
disrespectful. We can form ad-hoc groups of intelligent citizens to deal
with those few problems that transcend local juris-diction (talking about
rules) and disband them when no longer needed, so as to return to more
productive pastimes at home.

No need for standing armies, militarized constabularies, domestic spies
and national regulators. These are tools of the tyrant and have no place in
a democracy where the people rule their own lives.

Yes, this will take some time. Once domesticated, a species is long in
returning to its basic feral nature. It will take one generation living in
freedom to forget the whip and the chains of central rule, once those chains
have been broken and the whip forever unraveled.

Now would be a good time to start, when the puerile posturing of our
national "leader" is laid bare for all to see. There's no mistaking now how
the United States government works, who guides the ship of state, and where
they are taking us, in tow. It's time to cut our lines, cast ourselves
adrift and set our own course.

Democracy starts between the ears.

Michael

"Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the
capital sins." -- Ed Abbey