Letters to the Editor
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Change is not Slow
Or Fast. Change occurs in response to conditions, developments, actions. Time, in isolation, is not a causative factor in change. The rate of change in any system--be it natural, cultural, legal--is variable.
Rather than assuming (falsely) that change has only one speed (slow), it would be much more productive to understand why the system is not changing. Why have there been no new conditions (one could call them "forcing conditions" or "new or changed variables", what have you) entered into the system to cause change. We would be better served to view this issue analytically than through emotional navel-gazing or inadequate naval-metaphors.
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To Che Pasa
You're wrong. The right didn't come to power overnight, it took them between thirty and forty years to get to where they are today.
If you look back at recent history and the origins of political movements, you can see that thirty years is about how long it takes: the modern progressive movement began in the years after the Civil War, and reached an apex of sorts during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. And building on what they had already done, the founders of what would eventually become the New Deal had just begun.
It may seem like it's been a while, but the current movement on the left is still in its embryonic stages. The Internet is a wonderful tool but it hasn't yet reached its full potential. We're disorganized and unruly and unfocused, but that's to be expected at this point. And of course the right wing machine is operating at peak levels right now.
But their problem is that the only way they can maintain power is t o keep ramping it up and ramping it up. Eventually, they'll go too far, because "too far" is the only place they can go.
I'm pessimistic, yes. Because the right has a lot of power now, even without holding Congress. They have a stronger control of the mass media and have no sense of morals or scruples. They never give up, and they never stop. But I guarantee you all that eventually they will fall. I won't say when or how, but it;s inevitable. Other regimes have had far more power and they, too have fallen.
So we have to be ready. When they fall, we have to fill that power vacuum, which means we need to use this time to help each other survive the tough times ahead and to have a purpose and a goal once we retake power.
It's not defeatism to recognize a battle is lost and to regroup. If you look at recent history you'll see the ones who thought they could win by sheer will alone (the Germans at Stalingrad, the Japanese in their long, slow retreat across the Pacific) were the ones that eventually lost.
Which is why I advocate spreading the contribution money around a bit more. In this fight, every soldier counts, and we're going to need as many hands as possible to help rebuild our country, and probably our world.
-Joe Vecchio
host, the Cup O' Joe Radio Show
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kovie:
"all is lost?" Moi? No sir. You're way, way off base.
Try reading my post again. You might see something different the next time around. I know you've been very concerned about the nation's continuing spiral into the abyss, and like many others -- I'd say most of the people who post here regularly -- you have been trying to figure out what to do about it. So far, we have not come up with a consensus.
The issue I'm getting at is that the problems we're attempting to deal with may actually be at least partially inherent in the structure of the Constitution itself. There are many people who are exploring that question right now, and it is a worthy one for discussion.
Glenn posits a fine structural legacy bequeathed by our Founders, and I tend to agree with him. In the ideal, the Constitution should work relatively well most of the time. Until recently, "progress" seemed not only possible but inevitable under our self-governing Constitutional system. It seemed to be working.
As I said (echoing others, including Glenn), that system has been subverted by the Busheviks; the Constitution has been hollowed out by them to the point where it is little more than an empty husk. They have been largely enabled by a Supreme Court that installed them, and by a Congress that has been astonishingly supine. For our part, We the People have been stunned by the rapidity of the transformation to Autocracy. It has happened so fast, and with so little resistance from any quarter, few of us have been able to get our bearings let alone fight back in any coherent and effective way.
Glenn is right when he says the governing system our Founders came up with is intended to operate slowly with due deliberation and that corrections can take a long time. Just ask anyone who lived through Jim Crow. A gross error instituted through the mechanisms provided by our Founders, reinforced again and again by courts and legislation, not corrected for generations, and then only at the cost of numerous innocent lives. But though the correction took generations, the institution of Jim Crow laws didn't. In fact, it was very fast.
Just so, the subversion of our Republic has been sudden.
In other words, where there is a certain kind of Will, the Stately Majesty of the Republic and its slow-moving processes can be simply set aside. "Revolutions" can occur in a twinkling.
That's what the Busheviks have done.
Is there a flaw in the Constitutional set up that allows this to happen? We need to ask this question.
Furthermore, I don't think we need to accept the premise that correcting what's been done by the Busheviks will require decades or generations. It may be true, and then again...
If they could do what they did in a veritable moment, correction can come -- if it is to come -- in a similar time frame, if there is the Will to do it.
Right now, there isn't that Will in more than a few places.
That's not defeatism, concern trolling, or "all is lost-ism". Far, far from it.
Inherent in my observation, though, is the promise that the situation can be rectified, and it needn't take generations. Perhaps the time isn't right at the moment, but one should always be prepared, and never give up.