Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Do-It-Yourself Democracy - Jim Hightower
January 7, 2019 4:38 am
What do the workaday majority of Americans want their lawmakers working on? Check any legitimate poll or just listen to most any barstool conversation down at the Bottoms Up pub and youll hear them saying clearly and consistently that they want such basics as middle-class jobs, health care for all, a fixed-up infrastructure, a government uncorrupted by corporate cash, a little less greed and, you know, the Common Good. And what have they been getting from their national and (most) state governments? Tax giveaways for the superrich, a relentless shredding of the social safety net, union busting, privatization, a 2,000-mile border wall, racial and gender repression, dark-money politics, paranoia and xenophobia, voter suppression and well, the building blocks of an American plutocracy. In short, our elected representatives have been bluntly ignoring what we want and routinely delivering precisely what we dont want.
How can we get lawmakers to reverse that perverse agenda and produce public policies that serve the people? Not by pleading with entrenched incumbents. Thats as hopeless as trying to teach table manners to a hog: It annoys the hog and wastes your time. The tried-and-true way of influencing them is to target, expose, challenge, and un-elect the bastards. Thats not easy, and it takes several election cycles, but it has been done periodically throughout our history by organizing and mobilizing big grassroots movements, including in the New Deal years, the 1950s and 60s civil rights struggle, and the anti-war movement of the 1970s.
Dont look now, but were in the midst of another progressive political uprising thats been coalescing since about 2010. And, ever since Bernie Sanders showed the way with his barrier-busting run in 2016, this movement has been steadily expanding, maturing and gaining electoral strength. Indeed, in Novembers congressional, state and local elections, hundreds of the plutocracys servile officeholders were defenestrated by progressive forces and some promising new voices for the people were added.
Recruiting, training and electing good reliable candidates, however, is not our only route nor the surest route to getting the policies and laws we want. Heres another way: Have the people themselves be the lawmakers.
Why should congress critters, lobbyists and other political elites have monopoly control of the public agenda control that allows them to refuse to introduce, debate and vote on much less pass measures that are crucially important to the larger public? A way around them is the dual democratic process of initiative and referendum. When a state or local legislative body obstinately ignores the peoples will, the initiative process allows grassroots citizens to step in and put a law up for a direct vote by the people. On the other hand, when a legislature passes a special interest law the people oppose, the referendum process lets citizens put it on the ballot, giving voters a chance to veto it. Both processes require a prescribed number of registered voters in a particular jurisdiction to sign petitions to put any of their wants and needs on the ballot, and bingo! Their measures will be there for a popular vote at the next election. It lets rank-and-file citizens bypass the middlemen, mitigating the power of increasingly autocratic and plutocratic elites.
more
http://www.nationalmemo.com/do-it-yourself-democracy/
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
0 replies, 751 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (8)
ReplyReply to this post