by Ben Tanosborn in Turkish Daily News ...If Americans want change and they really mean it they must force it at the local and state level and forget about the people they've sent to the Capitol in D.C. It's the small towns and big cities that need to make declarations rebuking U.S. foreign policy and its byproduct: war, war and more war; rebuking jointly the president and the vice-president and calling for both their impeachments. Until there is such a groundswell of public opinion, and it becomes conclusive that we must stop beating around this Bush, there will be little hope for change and definitely no end to the involvement in Iraq....
Ben Tanosborn is a lawyer and political commentator based in Vancouver, WA, United States
If the US had a British-style system where allowances are made for a change in leadership of the country when citizens express a "no confidence" vote (and certainly, Pres. Bush has a big "no confidence" vote right now), we might be witnessing a regoranziation of our government. But we have a stable two-party bureaucracy in which calls for impeachment are rhetorical at best.
The groundswell of public opinion is already here, but we must be organized outside the two parties. Independents must speak out on behalf of the American people, and we need to organize at the grassroots. -NH
28 comments:
The British system of "no confidence" resulted from King Charles II's original creation of the two party system. Charles II was a weak king owing to the beheading of his father Charles I for treason. In his search for ways to weaken Parliament's control over him, Charles II's attention was drawn to two disruptive factions in Parliament which called each other by the names of Whigs and Tories. Charles II announced that he would appoint all of the ministers of his cabinet from the faction which held a majority in Parliament, so accordingly, he appointed all of his ministers from the Whig faction. Charles II's idea for weakening Parliament was so successful that it was written into English law and is the reason today that when a party has a "no confidence" vote in Parliament, the government dissolves and an election is held.
The American system of government is based on a different idea, that people elected to public office represent the will of the people. So the American people say, George W. Bush represented the will of the people in 2004, but not in 2007. It does not appear that the people have much of a will if it changes that easily.
Actions such as impeachment or recall always have a good effect on elected government. My suggestion is that if the people want dishonest public officials, which seems to be the case, they should select the most honest public officials and remove them from office. That establishes that it can be done. They will need these processes for the people they so admire when they have made the situation bad enough that they have no other choice but to try to make improvements in government. A half measure such as Clinton's impeachment greatly reduces the control of the people over their government. Now if they want to remove George W. Bush from office, it is much more difficult.
There is no such thing as a "stable two-party bureaurcracy". Party controlled governments are always unstable and divide the people. As Abraham Lincoln once said, A house divided cannot stand. Actually, that was not an original statement. It comes from the Bible.
Political parties are really only effective at one thing, destroying free elections and putting in their place party controlled elections which continue to remove the people further from participation in government.
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Magnific!
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actually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass that on to a couple of people.
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Wonderful blog.
actually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass that on to a couple of people.
actually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass that on to a couple of people.
actually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass that on to a couple of people.
actually, that's brilliant. Thank you. I'm going to pass that on to a couple of people.
Please write anything else!
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