Question of the Day

This is our country.

We seem to have forgotten. This country does not belong to its president, or its Congress, or even its judiciary. It is not the possession of corporations, of special interest groups, of lobbyists, of any religion. It belongs to us. And it’s time for us to take it back.

Last night, Robert Reich was on The Daily Show, and he referenced one of the most dire problems in our government—that members of both parties are beholden to greater forces than the will of their constituents. Our needs are lost among the chaos and noise of a feeding frenzy which has seemingly immutably taken over the Beltway. We shake our heads, we gripe, we moan, we bitch at the water cooler, we blog. We bemoan the lack of our elected representatives to counter the assault on the safeguards which have carefully and deliberately been put in place over two centuries, and we turn our eyes to the mid-term elections, to the next presidential election, beyond…

We steadfastly hold ourselves to the democratic process, waiting for our next chance to vote, even though we (rightfully) complain that voter intimidation, dodgy and suspicious machines, corrupt election officials, poor election coverage by the media, the electoral college, and on and on and on have turned the voting process into all but a perfunctory ritual with little result other than to keep the sheep from storming the gates. And perhaps even more damagingly, we ignore that voting is not our only democratic option. We have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly—those freedoms were granted for a reason. We have the right, and the responsibility to make ourselves heard, to reclaim this country for its people.

So, my question is, what do you think it’s going to take before we make some noise?