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General News    H3'ed 10/2/13

Government Shutdown vs Democracy Shutdown

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People should be very upset about the current government shutdown, the first one since 1995-1996.
People across the nation are becoming increasingly upset about our centuries long "democracy shutdown" -- the immobility and stagnation of government to represent the interests and need of the public. The disconnect between what the public wants and what laws and rules we have widened as corporations have acquired never-intended constitutional rights and money has been defined constitutionally as "speech" -- thus, in both cases, beyond the reach of public regulation and definition.
The consequences have been many: many public officials who respond with cheetah-like quickness and flexibility to their corporate and wealthy donors and corporations who sickeningly shield themselves with the US Constitution to proclaim their "rights" to evade oversight or to force their way into communities in usurpation of democratically-enacted local laws.  
Government shutdowns stops funding for non-essential federal services and places non-essential government workers on furlough.
"Democracy shutdowns" transforms our entire system of government toward a corptocracy and plutocracy -- government ruled by corporations and the 1%. 
But while the government shutdown will soon be resolved when Congress and the President end their stalemate, our on going "democracy shutdown" will never end through mere regulations or laws. 

(Image by We the People Amendment)   Details   DMCA

by We the People Amendment

Only the We the People (https://movetoamend.org/wethepeopleamendment) Constitutional Amendment declaring that corporations and other artificial legal entities has no inalienable constitutional rights and that political money is not equal to political speech can we begin the opening up of a real all-inclusive democratic form of government. 
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Greg Coleridge is Co-Director of Move to Amend. He previously worked for more than three decades with the American Friends Service Committee in Ohio where he educated, advocated and organized on a range of justice, peace, environmental and (more...)
 

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