Thom Hartmann: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'?

Whatever Happened to 'We the People'?

By Thom Hartmann, Berrett-Koehler Publishing. Posted November 23, 2007.

Will our nation continue to stand for the values on which it was founded?

The following is an excerpt from Thom Hartmann's new book, Cracking the Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision.


The traditional American liberal story is the story of We the People.

As Americans, the most important part of our social identity is our role as citizens. To be a citizen means to be part of, and a de- fender of, the commons of our nation. The water we drink, the air we breathe, the streets we drive on, the schools that we use, the departments that protect us -- these are all the physical commons. And there are also the cultural commons -- the stories we tell ourselves, our histories, our religions, and our notions of ourselves. And there are the commons of our power systems (in the majority of American communities), our health-care system (stolen from us and privatized over the past twenty-five years, our hospitals in particular used to be mostly nonprofit or run by mostly city or county governments), and the electronic commons of our radio and TV spectrum and the Internet.

Most important for citizenship is the commons of government -- the creation and the servant of We the People.

Franklin D. Roosevelt understood this commons. In his "Four Freedoms" speech, he said, "Necessitous men are not free men." Hungry people aren't free people, no matter what you want to call them. Hungry people can't be good citizens: they're too busy taking care of the hungry part of themselves to care about the citizen part.

Republicans don't want to fund FDR's social safety net because they fundamentally do not believe in the concept of We the People collectively protecting all of us in anything other than a military/police way. They don't believe that "the rabble" should run the country. They want big corporations to run the commons of our nation, and they think that the most appropriate role for citizens is that of infantilized consumers -- of both commercial products and commercially produced political packaging.

This is the fundamental debate in our society: Are we a nation of citizens or a nation of consumers? Are we a democracy run by citizens, or are we a corporatocracy that holds consumers locked in dependency by virtue of their consumption?

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http://alternet.org/rights/67944/?page=entire

on the GOP side, they've amended it to
"Where's the peephole?"

On the Dem side, it has become
"Wee, the pips." describing their own spines.

republicans thought it said "Wee on the people"!

and yes we are locked into the dependency of the corporation.. Remind of the old stories I heard about the people being dependent upon the "the company store".. No matter how hard or long they worked, they could never get out from under the grips of the company store..And that's exactly what we have today only in a modern version.. Most American's couldn't go one week without a paycheck and that's a sad fact..

Corporate "Persons" are immortal, can be bought and sold, and by law can be forced to maximize profits by passing their costs to the commons. Wouldn't you like to see the candidates and office-holders wearing NASCAR racing suits with their corporate sponsorships proudly displayed? There are unenforced laws, such as Taft-Hartly, against some of the abuses. Much more about this at http;//www.reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/

everything. Including most of the politicians who do their bidding.

The people are an artifact. Time for change.