#a wake-up call#

435 members of the House of Representatives, one hundred Senators, one President, nine Supreme Court Justices and a Vice-President are legally, morally and individually responsible for all the domestic woes and many of the foreign problems plaguing our nation today. With over 300 million people in the US, those 546 citizens wield the most of the power in our country.

Assuredly, the Military Industrial Complex, several billionaires and a wide assortment of other special interest groups exercise some control over these leaders with donations or outright bribes but it's the 546 leaders that accept the money and vote.

For the most part, that gang of 546 claim to be against inflation, deficits, high taxes, unsafe borders and the occupation of Iraq.

Who created these problems and why don't they simply correct the issues? When will we decide that new leadership - on both sides of the isle - is the only solution?

is on its face undemocratic.

Representative government is a sham, for how does someone represent me if they don't even know I exist?

Welcome to Rome where a castrated Senate bows to the rule of Juniorus Caesar.

No matter how many Dems get elected to Congress. It won't be over until the American people regain control of their government.

This is just one more battle.

I agree that representative government is a sham. I also agree with both Parenti and Meiksens Wood's analysis of American democracy.
From day one the idea was to limit people power:

The Federalists thus faced the unprecedented task of preserving what they could of the division between mass and elite in the context of an increasingly democratic franchise and an increasingly democratic citizenry. It is now more generally acknowledged that it was not very long ago that US democracy was deeply flawed in its very foundations by the exclusion of women, the oppression of slaves and a genocidal colonialism in relation to indigenous peoples. What may not be so self evident are the anti-democratic principles contained in the idea of democratic citizenship itself as it was defined by the Founding Fathers. The framers of the Constitution embarked on the first experiment in designing a set of political institutions that would both embody and at the same time curtail popular power, in a context where it was no longer possible to maintain an exclusive citizen body. Where the option of an active but exclusive citizenry was unavailable, it would be necessary to create an inclusive but passive citizen body with limited scope for its political powers. (Ellen Meiksins Wood - Democracy against Capitalism, p.214.

Men like Hamilton were even clearer about who should represent the people.
From Federalist #35 - Alexander Hamilton
The idea of actual representation of all classes of the people, by the people of each class is altogether visionary…Mechanics and manufacturers will always be inclined, with few exceptions, to give their votes to merchants in preference to persons of their own professions or trades…they are aware, that however great the confidence they may justly feel in their own good sense, their interests can be more effectually promoted by merchants than by themselves. They are sensible that their habits in life have not been such as to give them those acquired endowments without which, in a deliberative assembly, the greatest natural activities are for the most part useless…We must therefore consider merchants as the natural representatives of all these classes of the community.


The bottom line is that the Founding Fathers redefined the meaning of democracy as it evolved from the Greeks. Their aim was to keep the people away from the political institutions and only allow them to vote on their terms.

When folks start to realize that the two party solution as currently constructed is a farce.

When folks realize that a true progressive voice MUST at times be independent of perverse party loyalty.

That would be a nice start, I think.

It really changes nothing for them. We can elect anyone we want to office and they know that where the real power lies.

I've come to the sad conclusion that we the people have been sold a very nice scam: The idea that elections are a method of changing the course of the country.

The only thing that changes for the vampire elite is the position of the decimal point on their extreme wealth. It moves a bit to the right or to the left, but in the end they still remain obscenely wealthy and firmly in power.

Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
We have the chalice to light up Jah fire!
When i and i catch them vampire
i and i have to set them on fire
i man trod up down unity lane
see the dread locks runnin' down the rasta man
swear if that he catch he will kill them dead
dread locks couldn't catch the rasta man

Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
We have the chalice to light up Jah fire!
When i and i catch them vampire
i and i have to set them on fire
true rasta man

true rasta man
does not gamble
true rasta man
does not play card pack
true rasta man
always humble

Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
We have the chalice to light up Jah fire!
When i and i catch them vampire
i and i have to set them on fire

true rasta man
long gun
true rasta man
home made bomb
true rasta man
does not drink a drunk
true rasta man
does not gamble

Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
I have the chalice to light up Jah fire!
When i and i catch them vampire
i and i have to set them on fire

babylon the sea
and they blame it on the rasta man
babylon the sea
they blame it on the rasta man

Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
Obediah Obediah, Jah Jah sent us here to catch vampire…
I have the chalice to light up Jah fire!
i an i have catch vampire
catch them on fire

true rasta man does not gamble


true rasta man always humble

I couldn't find the song so I did this really fast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kikDmb7Er0s

I liked how it morphed.

what, are we all on "survivor" now?

It's right next to the Isle San Looty.

We simply seed all power to our king for federal highway funds.

K&R