[occupy] Article V to the Rescue!
Nov. 27th, 2011 04:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flamingswordI've been thinking about the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, the passing of the STOCK Act and the likely consequences of halting Congressional insider trading, and whether addressing these individual concerns is enough to stop this cycle of failure from happening again in 70 years when America has forgotten to be watchful and the lobbyist buy the legislation back to its current regulatory laxity. We put Glass-Steagall in place in 1933 and it was weakened in 1980, again in 1982, and repealed in 1999. It only took 50 years to forget and 20 to slowly get rid of the protections we had against large-scale gambling with the homes and savings of anyone using a bank. We Americans will forget again, because that is human nature. We need something more permanent than a bill that can be repealed by enough consecutive financial lobbying. In fact, we need to put our democracy out of reach of being bought with money. Americans know that we can't trust lobbyists and that lobbying is the reason we don't trust Congressmen to be honest.
With a deeply entrenched for-profit culture, Congressmen will likely be unwilling to hamstring their own ability to turn a larger profit from civil service. But the framers of the Constitution left us a route to navigate past such a top-down threat to Democracy: we can demand a new Constitutional Convention. Other protest movements have used the threat of an Article V Constitutional Convention to force concessions out of Congress, including four Constitutional Amendments. But whether we can or should trust them to write legislation that targets their own behavior is uncertain due to the current problems our country is having with the loosening of interpretation of its laws and the lack of clear language in many bills. What could be worth the risk of letting this happen again? If it is so important for Congress to save face, why have they not proposed and moved forward their own solutions? Can it be that the system is so gridlocked with competing financial and legislative concerns that public intervention is the only clear path?
Next year is the 225th anniversary of our first and only constitutional convention. Don't you think it's time for a new one?
With a deeply entrenched for-profit culture, Congressmen will likely be unwilling to hamstring their own ability to turn a larger profit from civil service. But the framers of the Constitution left us a route to navigate past such a top-down threat to Democracy: we can demand a new Constitutional Convention. Other protest movements have used the threat of an Article V Constitutional Convention to force concessions out of Congress, including four Constitutional Amendments. But whether we can or should trust them to write legislation that targets their own behavior is uncertain due to the current problems our country is having with the loosening of interpretation of its laws and the lack of clear language in many bills. What could be worth the risk of letting this happen again? If it is so important for Congress to save face, why have they not proposed and moved forward their own solutions? Can it be that the system is so gridlocked with competing financial and legislative concerns that public intervention is the only clear path?
Next year is the 225th anniversary of our first and only constitutional convention. Don't you think it's time for a new one?
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Uh...
Date: 2011-11-27 01:04 pm (UTC)We have so many special interest groups who want to put their wants over everyone else's needs that if we tried to do anything with a constitution they'd swarm like dogs to a breach of the Alpo factory to get their little bit. And I think this is the root cause here -- it's not greed that's the big problem, it's selfishness, of which greed is a contributing factor, that's causing all of this. Opening that door runs the risk of using a bazooka to kill a mosquito, and subsequently destroying the whole house.
Instead of a constitutional congress we'd be better served by calling for a return to currency based on something solid like gold or silver and an end to the Federal Reserve system with its shifting money supply. This will do more to end the financial instability than potentially giving every special interest group a chance to take a run at the brass ring on an open field.
Re: Uh...
Date: 2011-11-28 07:28 am (UTC)But this is no passing financial instability. Public servants are suppressing the First Amendment, creating a police state to continue not fixing the system they don't know how to admit is broken, and have no training or practice in achieving non-partisan goals have no hope of being able to fix themselves. The corporate back-stabbity hypercompetitive go-team-us attitude that belongs to Washington and Wall Street is partially caused by the thing we must fix, and they've been drinking the Kool-Aid too long to remember how to play fair. They think that the system is supposed to be like this. They can't see it at all.
How are they supposed to decide what to do about the Fed if the gridlock is so bad that nothing gets done? How are we going to deal with the Robot Economy if there is no government intervention into the market? How do we fix institutional problems inside a system that being part of makes you blind to if we can't impose rules from outside?
Re: Uh...
Date: 2011-11-28 04:55 pm (UTC)Let me get this straight. You trust congress, who has to participate in this process, to somehow not do something nefarious if we give them the power to re-write the constitution? This same congress you've already stated you can't trust? Yes, it has to be vetted by the people, but it wouldn't surprise me, as a survivor of several corporate environments, to see a memo like the following one circulating:
"To all employees of Conglomo,
We feel the need to bring attention to the current amendment, the Corporate Governance of American Territory Amendment to the United States Constitution. This is an important piece of legislation for the company's interests, and if it does not pass we will have no choice but to lay off at least 25% of our workforce. To this end we are suggesting strongly that you register to vote (voter registration cards are available in all break rooms and the receptionist has a box for them at her desk) and vote for this act. Failure to do so will put future employment and the stability of the nation's economy at risk. We hope you will take this very serious matter to heart."
I for one don't trust any of the folks involved in our political process from the two major oppressive institutions (Dumb-o-crats and Repugnantcans) to do anything besides pander and sell us down the river.
As to blocking special interest groups, the mutual back scratching can quite effectively get things passed, even with a four fifths requirement, if enough of these special interest groups band together. That's business as usual right now. The whole idea of opening up the constitution in this political climate scares me a lot.
Re: Uh...
Date: 2011-11-29 05:33 am (UTC)Second, the *state* legislatures would be the ones voting on ratification of amendments, not the U.S. Congress itself. Ideally the process goes like this: The states propose a limited constitutional convention restricted to the need for an amendment formally restricting the ability of money to interfere in any voting process. Then each state elects a delegate to represent the state at the convention. How much pressure the public can put on its state to send a delegate appropriate to the need for the passing of such an amendment should determine the quality of the future legislation. Then the convention actually takes place, and while each delegate will have Congressional members of their parties breathing down their necks, those Congressmen won't have votes. This is the sort of historic thing many would be willing to risk political careers on, because either way you vote, you're going to have people lined up after to give you a job.
And if they fuck it up, we can always have an armed rebellion! :D
If your reader can handle .pdf files here's a link to a Constitutional scholar explaining the process. http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No3_Rogersonline.pdf
Can you read pdf files?
Date: 2011-12-01 07:03 am (UTC)http://teddeutch.house.gov/UploadedFiles/DEUTCH_036_xml.pdf
Re: Can you read pdf files?
Date: 2011-12-01 01:45 pm (UTC)