The First Reform

[Corrected re Article One. Sorry about that — I must have had a brain meltdown.]

Unfortunately any democratic process for choosing delegates to a constitutional convention would need to include the folks who voted for DeMint, Inhofe, McConnell and the other Neanderthals currently warming Senate seats. (My apologies to the early hominids.)

Yes we should eliminate the Senate, and increase the number of House members, and probably cut Pentagon spending in half, and withdraw all our overseas military personnel. But if we can't even get a watered-down public option when we desperately need single-payer health care, what chance do we have to actually doing any of these other things?

I find it very difficult to remain optimistic.

Well, this would be welcome and radical change of the sort we need.

As for Charles' difficulty in remaining optimistic, I would ask how in the heck he can be at all optimistic in times like these? We can try to change things. We can holler from the rooftops. We can take to the streets. But we cannot, I say, be optimistic. At least not really. Now, a bit of delusional optimism or chemically induced optimism... That I can't argue with.

The situation is a real, very real, mess. One that stinks.

Cynicism is in my bones now. Some who know me say it always has been.

[Let's take the long view, secure in the knowledge that history will prove us right. g.]

Got a better idea...Lets give DC back to the British, again.....

Re: Let's take the long view, secure in the knowledge that history will prove us right. g

Huh? Prove "us" right? What exactly does it mean for "history" to prove one right? What is so surprising about the fact that a regime built on fantasy and depredation should eventually fail. Greater empires have failed and scarcely left a trace. Compared with those men, the men in power today are intellectual and moral pygmies — or rather, simply criminals. Did you think the US was an eternal entity? All things decay and disappear — especially when they are built on sand.

[Don't give up quite yet, Sam. One EP listener in Switzerland reminds me that they've just celebrated their independence day — from 718 years ago... Anyway, I still think that here in the U.S. we've got a chance at fixing the thing. g.]

Thought you might be interested in this article:

"The Real Problem with The Senate's Small-State Bias"
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/08/real-problem-with-senates-small-state.html

[Thanks! g.]

Personally, I don't view the long-term survival of the US as anything desirable — hate to rain on you patriots' parade. I think, as someone said, that the world needs a very long vacation from the US. It has ruined a good many cultures and exported its disgusting pop culture globally. Smedley Butler had it right. We are simply a very predatory commercial nation, without any interest or value, and now, the sociopaths are in the saddle — which is what you get when you worship Mammon. The creature comforts we worship (and that is really what we worship, we narcissists) — fruits of our depredation — will soon be taken from us. Well deserved.

[I like my creature comforts of fresh, farm stand cantaloupe, etc. g.]