Imagining government of the people, by the people and for the people.
If we had a functioning democracy we would own our energy supply. We would build publicly-owned solar & wind and provide the electricity to each other and our businesses for free. Our economy would BOOM.
We would tax & redistribute the highest incomes & profits that result from this. Healthcare, education, transportation…
I was very moved reading Isaiah Poole at Campfire Politics, writing, “What, to the American Black person, is the U.S. 250th anniversary?” Please go read the whole piece!!!
We will not “get over it” until the nation commits itself fully to the work of healing our collective wounds and reconciliation. The first step, in fact, is the recognition that the wounds of some affect the health of all. The ethos of Trumpism is individualism, that each person rises or falls on their own and no one owes anyone else anything. Your successes are yours alone, and so are your problems and failures. But the same Bible hoisted by Christian nationalists tells a different story. The apostle Paul said that we are all part of one body, and each part depends on the health and well-being of every other part. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’” Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians. King made the same point when he said, “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
It is so brilliant and spot-on: “the wounds of some affect the health of all”. It is one of the best analyses of America’s situation I have read.
This line really resonates and says so much about why the US is where it is: “Instead, we are the cancer patient who took too low a dose of treatment and stopped the treatment too early.”
I would add that after every attack by the disease the nation refused to exercise and take other preventative steps to ward off the next one. They could have stamped it out after the Civil War but the warfighters were so relieved thinking the fight was over and stayed home while the South rose again. Rachel Maddow’s Ultra series talks about how America just forgot about fighting its internal Nazi collaborators after winning WWII, allowing them to grow into what we are seeing now.
As he wrote, “We will not “get over it” until the nation commits itself fully to the work of healing our collective wounds and reconciliation.”
A “moral revolution”. The country needs a full Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Full accountability for the crimes and corruption. Preventative measures to protect the future.
And finally, the country must come to full recognition of the “disease,” coming up with a preventative prescription to fight inevitable future attacks from the fascists, monarchists, psychopaths and the rest of that crowd that infect humanity. Maybe use tests at birth and move them to a well-guarded, secure island where they can enjoy being cruel to and fighting with each other. Maybe give them toys to accumulate and hoard and fight over. That is MY vindictive “light that shows the way forward.”
The old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. – FDR
In 1932 FDR campaigned asking for help so he could win and “restore America to its own people.” After taking office his administration began working to help the population start to recover from the ravages of depression caused by unregulated banks and stock market speculation. Campaigning for reelection in 1936 he delivered his final campaign speech at Madison Square Garden. He talked about the changes his government had made, and the struggle that lay ahead to continue with that struggle. He described the struggle he and the public faced, saying,
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
The old enemies of peace are back. Business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism and war profiteering.
Let’s welcome their hatred and send them off.
I haven’t posted here at Imagine Democracy for a while because it is hard to imagine democracy with everything that is happening. I’ve been writing a LOT over at Government Cheese: Chronicling the collapse of democracy because … the collapse of democracy.
So imagine democracy. Suppose We the People manage to get control of the United States again. What’s it going to take to get America back on its feet?
The World Will Need An Ironclad Guarantee It Can’t Happen Again
We the People are going to have to make changes that provide the entire world with an ironclad assurance that this all cannot happen again. Can. Not. The level of systemic reform required before any country, business or anyone dares to trust the US again will be enormous. The damage done by tariffs, threats, withdrawal of assistance, bombs and otherwise is just huge.
Why would any country agree to any kind of arrangement with the US without some kind of ironclad guarantee? This is real. Right now the EU is talking to the UK about deals opening up more trade, and a few other things. In those talks the EU is asking for the agreement to include reparations payments if the right gets control of the UK again and undoes these agreements – again.
Even domestically. Suppose you’re thinking about joining (or rejoining) the Dept of Justice. Without such a guarantee you are not only facing the possibility of being tossed out in 4 years if the nutcases get control again, you are also facing the possibility of being indicted for trying to help the country recover! Suppose you’re a scientist thinking of coming back to help fight the climate crisis. Same deal. You could get indicted for that – or worse – if they get back in.
That’s a lot of work there to undo the ways the system is rigged against the public. How do you get government back under the control of We the People? Most important: Get money out of the election system. Ban it. Ban corporate money from being used for any purpose other than running the corporation! Getting the money out might give the public a chance to start righting the ship.
Get rid of the Electoral College – it’s a leftover from the slave-state system. Make the Senate represent their share of the population instead of two senators for a state with the population of one county in a state like California! Bring in some kind of preferential/ranked-choice voting system to stop current vote for the lesser-of-two-evils system. Get corporations under control – re-regulate them and put “stakeholders” on Boards. Completely reform and expand the corrupt Republican Supreme Court. Somehow restore an honest system for the public to get reliable news & information that stops the ability to propagandize the public. (Maybe a super and expanded version of Public Broadcasting? Govt funding for news outlets and local news outlets?) Implement ironclad ways to make sure democracy is understood, respected and protected, including a Department of Democracy.
So many things will have to be done. But seriously why should anyone trust the US “system” again without this level of real reform?
After what happened with Japan and Germany this is the level of change that had to happen. Complete transformation. It didn’t happen after the Soviet Union fell, and look where they are now!
“Welfare” and “entitlements.” These words are examples of the power of propaganda over reason.
For people who didn’t learn what a dictionary is: ‘Welfare’ means the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group. Putting it in the US Constitution’s first sentence was a way of providing a clue as to the point of the country they had founded. (The first three words being HUGE was another.) The POINT of the Constitution was to form a self-government that took care of the public (and protected the public from the rich and powerful.)
‘Entitlement’ literally means things We the People of the United States are entitled to from our shared prosperity – the fruits of self-government that protects the people from having their wealth drained by the rich and powerful.
How could ‘welfare’ and ‘entitlements’ have come to be applied negatively? You’re supposed to be ashamed if you – and look down on people who – benefit from the fruits of democracy? Decades of well-crafted “Conservative movement” anti-government, anti-democracy propaganda reversed people’s understanding that the POINT of the founding of the United States was to STOP the world’s long history of systematic oppression of regular people by those who would seize control of the systems of power for their own benefit.
Words from one of the better summaries of the POINT:
“… a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal … that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
And another:
The UK has ended an experiment in “conservative” governance. Backed by private investors, the government withdrew support for public services, public investment, public everything. They pretended “private” investment would pick up the slack. Instead and of course the wealthy staged a “bust-out” of the country. “A fraud tactic, commonly used in the organized crime world, wherein a business’ assets and lines of credit are exploited and exhausted to the point of insolvency.”
The privatized water companies are a good example of how the country was managed under conservative governance. Public assets were turned over the private “investors.” The “investors” borrowed heavily with those assets and their income stream as collateral. They paid themselves handsomely with minimal investment in maintenance and capacity. Eventually there was insufficient water supply to support increasing housing stock and raw sewage was being dumped into the country’s rivers. Of course there was no government enforcement of rules that would have prevented this – or prevented the resulting pollution. That would be labeled “interference” in the private sector.
Private investment does not provide public returns. The only interests of private investors is private return.
The Only Way Forward For UK Governance Is Public Investment
The way forward for UK governance is public investment in infrastructure, education, healthcare, services, law enforcement, addressing inequality. Investment.
Over time public investment will result in a booming economy and a prosperous public. It always does, everywhere. Look at the countries that follow this formula. The infrastructure is maintained and modern; education and healthcare are first-class, the economies prosper. The people are more equal, happier and prosperous.
Take all the propaganda labels (socialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, etc) out of this equation and look at it for what it is. PUBLIC investment pays off for the PUBLIC. Private investment only pays the already-wealthy private investors.
For The Many, Not The Few
Investment pays dividends down the road. Let the public collect those dividends.
There is a NYTimes Guest Essay, What Kind of Country Do You Want? Start With Taxes. Supposedly a progressive answer to Republican tax cuts for the rich & their corporations nonsense, it actually reinforces conservative arguments about government spending.
The essay amplifies conservative propaganda about the “price tag” of government tax cuts and spending. It uses conservative terminology like “revenue,” “borrowing” and “fiscal crisis.” This wording keeps people trapped in a medieval/conservative “gold standard” thought system about money that limits what governments can do to make people’s lives better.
The US dropped the gold standard some time ago. In a modern economy the government issues currency, period. The US government is not “funded” and certainly doesn’t have to round up or borrow gold before it can do things. It is not “in debt.” Think about what “bankrupt” means to a country that prints its own currency. It certainly doesn’t mean we can’t find enough gold to hand over and have to sell off the Washington Monument or the US Capitol. (Actually Congress has already sold itself but that’s another post.)
Taxes Are Not Revenue
Taxes do not “raise revenue.” Taxes balance income and wealth distribution and bring fairness. They incentivize desired behaviours. But they do not “fund” the federal government. The US government is not a family around a kitchen table scraping together a few dollars to pay for food, it manages a modern economy.
Instead of the current medieval-based system of superstitiously limiting spending “in case” doing so might “trigger” inflation, governments must do actual work to plan spending according to production capacities, available labor, available resources, etc in order to keep inflation at bay.
Free Your Minds
Understanding how modern money and budgeting works frees progressives to be able to get things done to make people’s lives better. Why can’t government guarantee a well-paying job with benefits to people who want to help solve society’s problems. For example teacher’s aides, elder or child care, insulating homes, etc? Why can’t government do what is needed to fight the climate crisis and transform to a green economy? Once you understand how money works the possibilities reveal themselves.
However
However, the public is not caught up with an understanding of modern budgeting, and these concepts could scare people and leave them vulnerable to conservative fear-mongering about “government spending” and “debt.” Wall Street and conservatives do everything they can to scare the public into thinking progressives will “bankrupt” the country. For now please just stop reinforcing old fashioned terms that limit what we can do while we wait for people to catch up with understanding how money really works. Do not use terms like “funding” and “revenue” and “borrowing” and “deficits” and “debt” in your discussions of budgets and taxes. We can say the same things without reinforcing those harmful concepts.
In the UK people are getting more and more upset as the NHS is increasingly defunded, and the resulting problems get worse and worse.
Survey shows high levels of abuse of UK doctors by patients,
Long delays for care and staff shortages are cited as the main triggers for what NHS leaders say is an increased readiness by the public to be aggressive towards frontline staff.
The UK conservative strategy is to defund the health system to make people hate it, so they can privatize it.
It is a STRATEGY. Recognize it.
Democratic government is about making regular people’s lives better. But you have to fight to keep it.
People think that government spending is like a “household budget” (it isn’t.)
So try this out. If a household INVESTS by putting solar panels on the roof (with a battery for storage) and converts appliances to electric it no longer pays for energy. Never again. After the investment is paid off (from the savings) energy is free.
“Spending” thereby SAVES. “Borrowing” thereby lowers spending.
If a household INVESTS in preventative healthcare it lowers spending on overall healthcare.
If a household INVESTS in making sure everyone has enough to eat, then the household members are more able to prosper.
The list goes on.
Democracy is the idea that government’s JOB is to spend (allocate resources) to make our lives better. Cutting “government spending” is cutting democracy.
And cutting democracy is the point behind efforts to convince people that “government spending” is somehow a bad thing.
The idea behind America was that finally regular people would have a government that works to make regular people’s lives better – and protects regular people from the things the rich and powerful do to enrich themselves at the expense of regular people.
Think about who benefits from convincing people to hold back on doing things to make regular people’s lives better, and from protecting regular people from harms and scams that enrich the wealthy and powerful at the expense of regular people.
Neoliberalism (conservative economics) is the idea that “markets” should decide things for society. It literally means One-Dollar-One-Vote.
Democracy is the idea that decisions should be made by and for We the People. It means One-Person-One-Vote.
PS Neoliberalism is heavily promoted by the wealthy because they have more dollars. Examples: “Business does everything better than government.” “Government is wasteful and inefficient.” “Make government smaller.” “Get government out of the way of businesses.” Deregulate to unleash businesses.”