Good Lord, this is naive. The Democratic Party is intellectually dead, has no understanding how deep and complex are the factors which, after 250 years, have allowed an idiot like Donald 'Epstein's John' Trump get nominated and elected, twice, and take advantage of the 250 years of accumulated weakening of the Republic. No one in the Party has called for, let alone carried out. a situation analysis (or audit) of the American Republic, its strengths, its weaknesses, what explains the weaknesses and how they developed, what the current risks are, alternative ways in which they might be addressed, understanding the attitudinal, informational, and skill needs of maintaining a democracy, how the present context for our democracy differs from its beginning through it's initial trials, its gravest threat (the War between the States, and the failure to come to grips fully with its aftermath), in sum,, all the huge differences in America since Paul Revere's ride. That analytic failure is manifest in dozens of different ways -- most notably in the failure of the Congress (Article I) and the Court (Article !!!) to carry out their roles and responsibilities and the decline of America's demos to carry out our individual ressponsibilities in the larger Democratic scheme of things.
America's Republic cannot be maintained where the nation's civic responsibilities fail to be addressed without an ongoing POLITICALLY NEUTRAL and CONTINUOUS effort to evolve an ongoing and contextually sensitive continuing effort of civil education gradually evolving commensurate with the changing context for the changing world. Assigning blame for the apparent decline is far less important that doing something about it. Failing to address it guarantees its demise.
At this point in my life I feel like a 90-year-old 'little engine that could' who has spent the last three years working into a one-aging-man's singular effort to undertake a lonely situation audit after Democrats lost the presidency in November 2024. I have sent out evolving versions to handfuls of political leaders and journalist types to dozens and dozens (approaching nearly 200 evolving versions in all) trying various media approaches. This time I'm advertising to Democracy Rnbovator that all requests sent to me containing YOUR e-mail address to MY address [gideonse@midmaine.com) will receive by return e-mail the latest version, an essay titled "One if by Land . . ." Thank you. As those of you rising to this opportunity will learn so long as I live, I remain a faithful message returner. :-)
Excellent reminders! Thank you! And also, keep in mind that the enactment of an independent nation did not wait on finding a procedure in the British constitutional system through which to write a new constitution. You describe the mechanisms in our constitutional system for initiation, proposal, and ratification, and I completely agree that we should use them. But our constituent power, bypassing existing authority, is always available to us. People exercise such power, constituting themselves as collective entities, in many ways of course--sometimes completely independently of political authority, sometimies partially acknowledging political authority. There are many thousands of associations that work together for all kinds of purposes, many incorporated under state laws, often registered under federal law for tax reasons, and many not formalized through the any legal system at all: Fraternities, sports leagues, professional and religious associations, hobbyists, political clubs or parties, trade unions, schools, homeschooling networks, street organizations, and many more. Many such associations end up wielding significant power through state and federal constitutional structures, but their power is to an extent independent of those structures just as each individual's power is to an extent independent. My personal concentration is in the question of education, of how children are brought up. And I believe for a variety of reasons that the mechanisms of our constitutional system are not practically available for a relatively rapid amendement of state or federal constitutions to break through the educational impasse. I also believe, however, that we can exercise our constituent power (independently of political authority, but likely intertwined with it) in ways that could unite large numbers of us from varied political backgrounds behind a common, practicable strategy. We (that is, whoever wants to) can conceive of ourselves as constituting a polity for the purposes of helping young people grow up democratically and equitably. People already do so on small scales. We could do so on larger scales, including on the scale of states or the nation. Beginning a process to draft a new Constitution for Public Education is itself a democratic act: writing and communicating, convening local gatherings, holding local, district, or state-level "constitutional" conventions, and eventually national conventions is, of course, the very process colonists used as they practiced democracy in the attempt to constitute themselves as a new nation. The King's political arrangements were in force all around them, but they went to work anyway. Thanks again for your extremely important article!
I focus on education hereas well. A long time ago I prepared for that field (it felt like forever!), then almost immediately and quite unexpectedly at 27 got wrenched into public policy, but eventually came back to teacher education and after retirement (30 years ago now) undertook a couple of decades plus of volunteer public advocacy within my own town and the Maine legislature . . . and, over the past three years, s my own post here indicates, for the nation. In the last couple of days I've been ruminating .on on the differences and similarities of teachers (those of us charged with assuring the nation could perpetually reinvent itself), politicians, presidents, judges. and so on. I don't think I have enough energy to pursue that theme now but it is fun to be able to press the accelerator with the gears unengaged and feel that engine want to rev up., you know?
Good Lord, this is naive. The Democratic Party is intellectually dead, has no understanding how deep and complex are the factors which, after 250 years, have allowed an idiot like Donald 'Epstein's John' Trump get nominated and elected, twice, and take advantage of the 250 years of accumulated weakening of the Republic. No one in the Party has called for, let alone carried out. a situation analysis (or audit) of the American Republic, its strengths, its weaknesses, what explains the weaknesses and how they developed, what the current risks are, alternative ways in which they might be addressed, understanding the attitudinal, informational, and skill needs of maintaining a democracy, how the present context for our democracy differs from its beginning through it's initial trials, its gravest threat (the War between the States, and the failure to come to grips fully with its aftermath), in sum,, all the huge differences in America since Paul Revere's ride. That analytic failure is manifest in dozens of different ways -- most notably in the failure of the Congress (Article I) and the Court (Article !!!) to carry out their roles and responsibilities and the decline of America's demos to carry out our individual ressponsibilities in the larger Democratic scheme of things.
America's Republic cannot be maintained where the nation's civic responsibilities fail to be addressed without an ongoing POLITICALLY NEUTRAL and CONTINUOUS effort to evolve an ongoing and contextually sensitive continuing effort of civil education gradually evolving commensurate with the changing context for the changing world. Assigning blame for the apparent decline is far less important that doing something about it. Failing to address it guarantees its demise.
At this point in my life I feel like a 90-year-old 'little engine that could' who has spent the last three years working into a one-aging-man's singular effort to undertake a lonely situation audit after Democrats lost the presidency in November 2024. I have sent out evolving versions to handfuls of political leaders and journalist types to dozens and dozens (approaching nearly 200 evolving versions in all) trying various media approaches. This time I'm advertising to Democracy Rnbovator that all requests sent to me containing YOUR e-mail address to MY address [gideonse@midmaine.com) will receive by return e-mail the latest version, an essay titled "One if by Land . . ." Thank you. As those of you rising to this opportunity will learn so long as I live, I remain a faithful message returner. :-)
Excellent reminders! Thank you! And also, keep in mind that the enactment of an independent nation did not wait on finding a procedure in the British constitutional system through which to write a new constitution. You describe the mechanisms in our constitutional system for initiation, proposal, and ratification, and I completely agree that we should use them. But our constituent power, bypassing existing authority, is always available to us. People exercise such power, constituting themselves as collective entities, in many ways of course--sometimes completely independently of political authority, sometimies partially acknowledging political authority. There are many thousands of associations that work together for all kinds of purposes, many incorporated under state laws, often registered under federal law for tax reasons, and many not formalized through the any legal system at all: Fraternities, sports leagues, professional and religious associations, hobbyists, political clubs or parties, trade unions, schools, homeschooling networks, street organizations, and many more. Many such associations end up wielding significant power through state and federal constitutional structures, but their power is to an extent independent of those structures just as each individual's power is to an extent independent. My personal concentration is in the question of education, of how children are brought up. And I believe for a variety of reasons that the mechanisms of our constitutional system are not practically available for a relatively rapid amendement of state or federal constitutions to break through the educational impasse. I also believe, however, that we can exercise our constituent power (independently of political authority, but likely intertwined with it) in ways that could unite large numbers of us from varied political backgrounds behind a common, practicable strategy. We (that is, whoever wants to) can conceive of ourselves as constituting a polity for the purposes of helping young people grow up democratically and equitably. People already do so on small scales. We could do so on larger scales, including on the scale of states or the nation. Beginning a process to draft a new Constitution for Public Education is itself a democratic act: writing and communicating, convening local gatherings, holding local, district, or state-level "constitutional" conventions, and eventually national conventions is, of course, the very process colonists used as they practiced democracy in the attempt to constitute themselves as a new nation. The King's political arrangements were in force all around them, but they went to work anyway. Thanks again for your extremely important article!
I focus on education hereas well. A long time ago I prepared for that field (it felt like forever!), then almost immediately and quite unexpectedly at 27 got wrenched into public policy, but eventually came back to teacher education and after retirement (30 years ago now) undertook a couple of decades plus of volunteer public advocacy within my own town and the Maine legislature . . . and, over the past three years, s my own post here indicates, for the nation. In the last couple of days I've been ruminating .on on the differences and similarities of teachers (those of us charged with assuring the nation could perpetually reinvent itself), politicians, presidents, judges. and so on. I don't think I have enough energy to pursue that theme now but it is fun to be able to press the accelerator with the gears unengaged and feel that engine want to rev up., you know?