Obama has been a major disappointment to me....thus far, at the very least. He seems to have been 'captured' by the Wall Street oligarchy. I have expressed my agreement with those analysts who have said that breaking the financial oligarchy in this country is the only way we could even possibly have any chance of 'resurrecting' the middle-class-oriented America that all of us here grew up in.

On plenty of occasions, I have expressed my deep pessimism about the future of America. I am, almost entirely, in agreement with your key statement here:

The system can't change; it can only break down.

Leroy: I am far, far from being convinced that a new constitutional convention would, in the end, generate a 'product' that is superior to the constitution we now have.

Isn't this tantamount to admitting that you no longer believe in democracy (majority rule) if you fear what the majority is capable of coming up with?

I'm not saying I disagree with you, but if the "will of the people" ever were to deviate too much from the constitution, one of the two would have to be amended, and I think I know which one.

Saluto te, amicus!! Just stopped by for a breath of fresh air.

Yes, I think the new convention would be dominated by TBs and SeaSs.. and the Christian far right.

Shepjack

I think the TBs, Jiminy's and Sea's (the Bottomliners won't know who you we are referring to, so let's just say they haunt the Kausfiles Special board) lose in raw numbers what they make up for in zeal. I'm not worried they are in the majority, and if I were, I'd leave the country.

Sure it would bring all the wing nuts out of the woodwork, on both ends of the spectrum, it would also bring all the special interests out in force.

But I believe there is, here anyway, a general consensus that the current system is unworkable. The idea of a U.S. coup seems to come up here regulary enough, is the idea of a convention more radical than that?

If we want to have any faith in our better natures as a people at all it seems the most civilized option. We are so poisoned by inane rhetoric and lies that it becomes almost hard to imagine our ability to do such a thing. Still people in countries with far fewer resources are making this struggle over and over, are we to say that we don't have the abilities of Ukranians?

Yes the far right will be there more vocal than ever, and as I mention the divide may be too deep, but perhaps it is time for that. I dont want to raise my family where handguns are as common as toilet paper, but I am not ready to say that people shouldn't be able to do that, just as long as they dont do it in my backyard. Let's face it there are almost as common as toilet paper already, and while tragic deaths occur because of that, civilization hasn't ended. Favoring the wealthy has been damaging but if half this country wants to do it on their own turf more power to them.

I would like to believe it wouldn't come to that. But the system we live under is deeply deeply flawed, and unable to fix itself. It needs to be remade so that its worst aspects can no longer go on uncontested.

No I didn't, but are we looking at any level of violence what so ever? The Juntas of Latin America featured violence more as a means of holding power than gaining power. What has happened in Russia has involved very little violence. I mean you can have a minimal level of violence over very little, but what we are really talking about is civil war type violence. Have oligarchies been overthrown without this type of violence? I would almost say that is more likely than, lets say dictatorships. After all the only friends oligarchs have are the bourgeois, and they dont readily take up arms.

One shouldn't mistake noise for power. How many efforts to make creationism part of public school curriculum have been successful, etc. etc. Yes gay marriage has been banned pretty frequently lately but I dont think anyone will argue that the U.S. is slightly right of center, but slightly is the key word.

In any rate if there were a convention I doubt it would be chaired by members of the local arm of Southern Bapists, it might have a large conservative contingent, but conservative is different from reactionary.

That is why they did not want a 'pure' democracy. The system that they gave us is a constitutional, democratic, federal republic. I happen to believe that each of those four words is crucial in describing our system of government. I also happen to believe that it is the best form of government ever devised by the mind of man. If you can think of something better, I am all ears. Our government, and indeed our society, has been 'taken over' by a powerful and self-serving financial oligarchy. That is the current 'flaw', I believe, and it may be that nothing short of a revolution would overthrow them. [I was hoping Obama could bring it about peacefully---no such luck, evidently.]

Sometimes simple majority rule is wrong, and even dangerously wrong. The public is fickle. Sometimes the public is an ass. During World War II, the public would have been very much in favor of FDR's internment of loyal Japanese-American citizens. Even though we now understand that those actions were decidedly unconstitutional, and have felt compelled to apologize, and even offer monetary restitution. I have seen polls in which a large percentage of the public would be willing to throw out the Bill of Rights. Too much freedom of speech in this country, apparently. I have seen videos of people being shown the Bill of Rights, and thinking it was some kind of subversive Communist document. Very frightening to someone like me, who values his constitutional rights. At times, a majority of Americans would have been willing to imprison homosexuals and atheists. Should we obey their wishes???

The Founding Fathers did (wisely) provide a method for amending the Constitution. They also (wisely) made that procedure very difficult, precisely to prevent a fickle public from amending the document in a willy-nilly fashion. We have come close to having an amendment that would make reciting the Pledge of Allegiance mandatory in public schools. If that amendment had passed, it would have been the first time we would have seen fit to amend the Bill of Rights. Such demagogic and populist notions can be exceptionally dangerous.

On the other hand, I agree with Phil's proposed amendment to declare that corporations are NOT 'persons', and have none of the constitutional rights pertaining to individuals. The chances of such an amendment passing, of course, are very minimal.

I still see no reason to withdraw my argument that a new constitutional convention would bring out ALL the crazies, and that it is to be feared.

" During World War II, the public would have been very much in favor of FDR's internment of loyal Japanese-American citizens."

I always wondered why we didn't also imprison German-American who, for obvious reasons, would have made much better spies and saboteurs in a country with a large European-originating majority.

This was a very well thought out post, Leroy. We can't have government by referendum or by mob rule (which is even worse), and an emotional majority is often a short-sighted and wrong majority. But still, we need to do something about the parasitical sectors which have become a cancer on the economy: the FIRE and military sectors. We need some chemotherapy for these leeches, or we need to starve them of resources, and disconnect them from campaign financiang and mass media. Corporations ought not to have the same rights as persons. We need New Rules, as Bill Maher would say.