Updating the Constitution

1787 undid 1776

On July 4, 1776, the thirteen American colonies declared independence from Great Britain. After five years of war, with the help of the French, the United States made good on that. Then in 1787, after a period of experimentation under the Articles of Confederation, we abandoned that system of decentralized government centered on the sovereign states and stepped into a governmental framework built on the model of a constitutional monarchy. Under that Constitution, a minority government of a Republican controlled Congress and Supreme Court has now put those monarchical powers into the hands of the American oligarchy and a deranged, greedy ignoramus. Independence has become a travesty and we mired in domestic and global turmoil.

The economic, political and moral crisis facing the United States today cannot be resolved by returning to the past. For years now, income disparity and inequality have been increasing, wars proliferating, politicians squabbling. Government has become overbearing, inefficient and beholden to money. The American people’s growing sense that things need to be fixed has energized both the Right and the Left.

Change is necessary but we the people cannot trust others to do it for us. Our politicians, once elected, spend most of their time and energy raising money in order to get re-elected. They do not lead because taking necessary actions might lose this or that constituency.

We must start the change ourselves by altering the way our government functions to ensure it better serves the 99%: a government lean, more responsive to our needs in the 21st Century and focused on achieving economic prosperity with justice and liberty. That means updating the Constitution per Article V, either through electing a Congress and state legislatures that will pass and approve amendments or through a Constitutional Convention.

Leaving constitutional changes to the current Congress leaves it in the hands of the professional politicians. We need to clean house and focus on electing those who understand what must be done to get us through the rest of this challenging century. Or it may be necessary to work towards a Constitutional Convention. That would surely be a hotbed of democracy. Whether Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, everyone would come into it with different ideas. Reaching agreement on amendments to the constitution would probably be difficult and require equal measures of consensus and compromise. But such a convention would offer a real opportunity for the people to once again assume control of their government. The process of reaching agreement and then ratification by 3/4s of the states would offer further opportunities for democratic participation.

Some are no doubt afraid of direct democratic participation. There are good reasons for concern, especially as the mass and social media companies in the hands of the oligarchy would seek to promote division and extremes. They benefit from the current dispensation. But if we are alert and respectful of each other, the great law abiding majority, we 99%, have little to fear from coming together to discuss and enact change and much to lose by continuing to subject ourselves to this travesty.

So in my next posts, I will suggest the kinds of changes we might might to update our governing institutions. I’ll begin with the Supreme Court.