Article V

In Joel Hirshcorn's Why Has Congress Failed Americans he argues that Americans should take a stand and against government and rebel. But not in a sense of violence, but to take action by using their right to a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution also referred as the The Article V Convention. The framers of the Constitution granted us a fourth temporary branch of government , to give us direct democracy.

Hirschcorn accuses Congress of being to cowardly to do whats right, to protect America's health, security, freedom, and safety. He then writes "Even the most distracted and cynical Americans now see Congress has done next to nothing to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities."
Hirschorn also goes on to literally bash the members of House and Senate, calling them names (that I might add, sums up Congress quite well) such as: "mental midgets, embarrassing blowhards, chronic liars, outright crooks, corporate lackeys, and elderly buffoons. "
He writes that to many of the members of Congress want to be sitting in the executive office, and could care less about defending democracy.

Hirschcrons discusses examples to support his argument that Congress has done nothing but continue to ruin our nation such as:

"the failure to protect the rule of law; the failure to control spending and reduce our debt; the failure to control our borders and protect our national sovereignty; the failure to stop the insane Iraq war; the failure to stop the many forms of corruption of Congress itself; the failure to restore public confidence in our elections; the failure to stop the excesses of globalization that is destroying our middle class; the failure to address rising economic inequality; the failure to fix our broken health care system; and so much more."

I agree on many levels with Hirschcorn even though it seems that he is just bashing Congress, it's all sadly true. He doesn't beat around the bush he just says it plain and clear. His "name calling" might seem a little harsh but from all these years one can only suspect that yeah, they are all political idiots because if their weren't then we wouldn't be in a war right now, we wouldn't have had Bush serve in the Executive office for so long, our economy wouldn't be in debt, and right now Americans wouldn't be in the position they are in now: questioning their confidence in Congress and loosing faith.

So, what should 86% of Americans do? All the Americans who lost faith in Congress.
Hirschcorn advises the public to stop re-electing members of Congress , that only (in his words) "a handful of incumbents " deserve to be re-elected. Then he goes on to say this: "Now is the time to elect independents and third party candidates to Congress. When one objectively sees the utterly low quality of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress it becomes clear that even a random selection of ordinary Americans would probably do better" that made me really think and question, that how dumb can Congress be?! That even "I" or my next door neighbor can do a better job?? So why is that those supposably super intelligent politicians be doing such a crap job.
It is time to realize and take action into our hands because frankly I think we ALL had enough of these old quacks running this country.

Americans have let this country fail them, so now I think it is time for us to use the Article V to our advantage and take back what once was ours.

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/2249/81/

Democracy for Dummies

After reading the article Democracy for dummies by Joe Hirschhorn, it reminded of when my psych professor pleaded to my class that if we are not politically well informed to not vote at all. Or to "not vote stupid". And well, I think he's right.

The public is so easily influenced by propaganda, political lies, and the mass media's "interpretations". It's all psychological really, when the public watches reports such as Keith Olberman's rant about Senator McCain, people who watch "reports" such as this start to formulate new opinions about candidates and allow other peoples perceptions influence their decisions. People's minds deluded so deluded by the mass media.

While reading this article I found it astonishing that the public still thought Iraq was in the blame for 9/11 even after the 9/11 commission report said that Iraq was not to blame. Still, 50 percent of us still believe otherwise.
How many of us really read newspapers, watch the news, or even read about current events on the Internet? Do all people really know about candidates they vote for is from their 30-second commercials? Does the public really know or comprehend how misleading those campaign commericals can be?
When you look at us 18-25 year old voters, who had an an increased interest in the presidential campaign. Yeah, sure "interested" is the key word here, but do half of the "young voters" even know what their voting for or why? Are young people up to date with the nation's economic situation or other current issues.

Honestly, this past year I didn't want to pick a candidate. Because all the dumb kids in my high school only wanted to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin and others for Hilary because she would be the first female in the executive office. Sadly, some of those dumb kids were registered to vote, and that is why my psych professor said what he said. I refused to pick a candidate just based on those reasons. I rather know everything there is to know about a candidate before I make a final decision.

In my opinion, this article is a very good read. It opens your eyes and makes you realize how politically stupid America is, Sad but true. Hirschhorn makes a good point and argument. He lists different examples that really help to understand where exactly he's coming from.

So, when the public says their either "left-leaning" or "right-leaning, well lets put it this way:
Just because you own a piano, doesn't make you pianist.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/democracy-for-dummies.html

"Political Ideology"

So as i embark upon a new experience of blogging about politics, in which is something i have never talked about openly by the way. I admit i felt a little intimidated because it isn't really my cup of tea. I prefer hibiscus instead of chamomile, and politics is my chamomile.

When I took the survey on finding out my political ideology, my results were that I was a "liberal". Maybe I do agree on some levels but I prefer the term, Independent. They are just some things I don't agree with democrats. And plus, I hate labels anyways. I have my own outlandish ideas about this country’s government with many speculations. I chose to take this class to help me better examine government, to encourage me (or force me) to research on government issues, to know the definitions of democracy, autocracy, aristocracy, and plutocracy, to learn more about the “sacred documents”. Something that I do hope to get out of this class is to gain more knowledge and to hopefully grasp a better understanding of it. I believe that to be well educated about all the aspects of the subject will help me in the long run. In high school I refused to show any kind of interest in it at all nor did I ever show an interest in voting. Of course it seemed boring to me and a waste of time.

It wasn't until the end of the second semester of my junior year at Lanier High School when I started paying more attention in my AP US history class, learning about how women rights activist fought so hard for equality and many other great accomplishments in history. Then my teacher Mrs. Bisset showed me a book: "The Things They Carried" by Tim O’Brien. Probably one of the best books I have ever read.

It's a collection of stories by Tim O’Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War. While it was based on some of O'Brien's own experiences, the title refers that the book is obviously fiction. One of the stories, "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" (one my favorites) was made into a film in 1998. Entitled "A Soldier’s Sweetheart". The author makes a distinction in "Story Truth" verses "Happening Truth". Though he creates stories that are false yet truthfully portrays the war. Instead of just going on and on about facts and actual events, by inventing stories he creates emotion. His own way of telling the stories of the thousand of soldiers that were silenced. Its mind blowing reading the stories, I immediately became fascinated with the Vietnam War. I began comprehending the damages of war, not only disfiguring soldier’s bodies but how it tarnishes and destroys them psychologically.

The story "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is a prime example how war can change people in a scary way. How you can lose yourself, and become something else, something even terrifying. A very good read, I think everyone should go out and buy it.

And in cause of this war, I began thinking about the thousands of families whose fathers and sons did not come home, that in fact the cause of any war is based on fear. How LBJ feared that if one nation would fall to communism, so would another. Which brings forth the “domino theory”. Because of fear, the government can easily influence the American public into agreeing to war as a course of action. Fear and paranoia inhabits the people of America, it controls us. It's the way the media help put this nation in a black hole of fear. And as time passes, deeper and deeper the rabbit hole gets.