[FairfieldLife] Re: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, lurkernomore20002000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'? Lurk: We became wee the people. And our handlers are pushing Wii for the people to keep us distracted. Do they French see this happening? And, to add insult to injury, GyPSee is now GyPSii! :(
[FairfieldLife] Re: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'? CALL DR. RON PAUL to revive the patient: [http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1363/909256900_50edce3132.jpg?v=0] OffWorld By Thom Hartmann Alternet, November 23, 2007 http://www.alternet.org/story/67944/ We the people 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 defender 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? Consumerism appeals to the greedy and selfish child part of us, the infantilized part that just wants someone else to take care of us. The core message of most commercials is that you are the most important person in the world. Commercial advertising almost never mentions we or us. What is at stake today is the very future of our democratic republic. If we accept an identity as fearful, infantilized consumers, we will be acting from our baby part and allowing corporate America and an increasingly authoritarian government to fill the role of a parent part. The story we are told is that we should surrender all of our power to corporations and just let them govern us because a mystical but all-knowing godlike force called the free market will eventually solve all of our problems. That story fits in very well with the conservatives' other story: that we are children who need to be protected from evil humans; and because corporations are amoral and not human, they are intrinsically and morally superior to evil humans. To save democracy we must crack that code and bring back the code so well understood by the Founders of this nation: that we're a country of barn-builders, of communities, of intrinsically good people who work together for the common good and the common wealth. We begin this process by speaking to the responsible part of us, the part that enjoys being grown up and socially responsible. The story we have to tell is the story of citizenship derived from our best and most noble parts. It's the story of We the People. We talk a lot about the features of citizenship, like the right to vote, but we sometimes forget what the benefits are. The main benefit of citizenship is freedom -- not freedom from external or internal dangers (although that is included in the package, it's only one of the six purposes listed in the Preamble to the Constitution) that conservatives obsess on, but freedom to think as we want, to pray as we want, to say what we want, and to live as we want to fulfill our true potential as humans (the other five things listed in the Preamble). The question, ultimately, is whether our nation will continue to stand for the values on which it was founded. Early American conservatives suggested that democracy was so ultimately weak it couldn't withstand the assault of newspaper editors and citizens who spoke out against it, leading John Adams (our second president and our first conservative president) to pass America's first Military
[FairfieldLife] Re: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'? Call Dr. Ron Paul to revive the patient: http://tinyurl.com/2frtdf OffWorld By Thom Hartmann Alternet, November 23, 2007 http://www.alternet.org/story/67944/ We the people 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 defender 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? Consumerism appeals to the greedy and selfish child part of us, the infantilized part that just wants someone else to take care of us. The core message of most commercials is that you are the most important person in the world. Commercial advertising almost never mentions we or us. What is at stake today is the very future of our democratic republic. If we accept an identity as fearful, infantilized consumers, we will be acting from our baby part and allowing corporate America and an increasingly authoritarian government to fill the role of a parent part. The story we are told is that we should surrender all of our power to corporations and just let them govern us because a mystical but all-knowing godlike force called the free market will eventually solve all of our problems. That story fits in very well with the conservatives' other story: that we are children who need to be protected from evil humans; and because corporations are amoral and not human, they are intrinsically and morally superior to evil humans. To save democracy we must crack that code and bring back the code so well understood by the Founders of this nation: that we're a country of barn-builders, of communities, of intrinsically good people who work together for the common good and the common wealth. We begin this process by speaking to the responsible part of us, the part that enjoys being grown up and socially responsible. The story we have to tell is the story of citizenship derived from our best and most noble parts. It's the story of We the People. We talk a lot about the features of citizenship, like the right to vote, but we sometimes forget what the benefits are. The main benefit of citizenship is freedom -- not freedom from external or internal dangers (although that is included in the package, it's only one of the six purposes listed in the Preamble to the Constitution) that conservatives obsess on, but freedom to think as we want, to pray as we want, to say what we want, and to live as we want to fulfill our true potential as humans (the other five things listed in the Preamble). The question, ultimately, is whether our nation will continue to stand for the values on which it was founded. Early American conservatives suggested that democracy was so ultimately weak it couldn't withstand the assault of newspaper editors and citizens who spoke out against it, leading John Adams (our second president and our first conservative president) to pass America's first Military
[FairfieldLife] Re: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'? They went to live in Brazil.
[FairfieldLife] Re: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shempmcgurk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'? They went to live in Brazil. Dodging the issues again, eh? Predictable. Hey, Magoo, how about that great right winger economy? Are you and your wacko wingnut pals still bragging about BushCo policies now? Consider: The stock market has given up all its gains for the year; the SP500 is now down 0.11%. A barrel of oil is about $100; the price of a gallon of gas is well over $3.00/gallon. The housing market is in the worst condition it's been in since the Great Depression. Delinquencies on mortgages, credit cards, and even auto loans are growing. Financial companies are in severe distress; worse is to come; we've not seen the bulk of ARM resets. Home foreclosures are soaring, literally rising at unprecedented rates. Real income has only recently begun to grow (at a glacial pace). Consumer confidence numbers have plummeted to recessionary levels. The dollar is at record lows despite the happy talk from administration bobbleheads about a strong dollar policy. There is no easy fix (and not even many hard ones) for all of the above. Corporate profits (the economy's mother's milk) for the third quarter were actually down from last year's third quarter. All links here: http://www.blah3.com/article.php?story=20071122162101836
[FairfieldLife] Re: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'?
In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, do.rflex do.rflex@ wrote: Whatever Happened to 'We the People'? Lurk: We became wee the people. And our handlers are pushing Wii for the people to keep us distracted. Do they French see this happening?
