Take it Back? You Don’t Have It

© 2008 Stan Spire


What a load of bullshit.

TeeVee snooze news, boring coverage of the Iowa presidential primaries. One candidate spews crap about how the people have to take back their democracy.

Some Americans feel that along the way they lost control of their government. After all, they’ve been told that the people, not their government, run things.

That’s been a lie from Day One. The Elite – the fortunate ones with wealth and influence – have always called the shots. The American Revolution was basically about a bunch of well-to-do landowners trying to keep control of their turf. They needed the common people to help them fight off British. And the stupified fell for it, the “all men are created equal” spiel.

And the stupes are still falling for it. A politician proclaims, “We have to take back our government.” Cheers, applause, grateful drooling.

Ever look at a sample of the US citizenship test? Immigrants who pass that exam know more about this country’s power structure than people who have spent all their lives here. I’d like to see native-born Americans take the test. How many of them would correctly answer this question: “What kind of government does the United States have?”

If you answer “A democracy,” you’re clueless and should be deported. When you perfunctorily join in the Pledge of Allegiance, do you utter, “for the Democracy for which it stands?”

The US is a republic. And a wide range of governmental systems can be described as republics, including dictatorships.

But most Americans think they live in a democracy because the pols keep saying it like it’s really true. If we really lived in a democracy, Al Gore would have been president back in 2000 because he won the popular vote. A democracy shouldn’t have a rigged system like the Electoral College.

So don’t listen to someone bloviating about taking back your democratic government. You don’t have one.

If you want to push for change, demand more control over the political process. A good place to start is to get rid of the Electoral College. A democracy means one person, one vote, no bullshit.