Off With Their Heads

So the country is over 200 years old.

Some areas are just worn out and out of step with today’s world. As important as it is, we can’t just worship the old constitution to the point where it is no longer valid. It needs to change to survive.

Let’s talk about areas where the old body of government has developed canker sores, flat feet and bunions.

First thing out of the shoot is the United States Senate. Originally it was meant to be the elite educated aristocracy that was to keep check on the rabble kids over in the House of Representatives.

The Senate has long ago outlived its purpose. It has become a retirement home for the wealthy and the soon to be wealthy. They are all bought and paid for by the wealthy to do their bidding. Any idea that the Senate serves the American people is ludicrous. It serves itself and its members. It eats up billions of dollars every year without providing a single useful purpose

The House of Representatives is the true governing body and reflects the ideas, color and intelligence of the American people. They alone should be rightly responsible for legislation.

Voting by proxy as we do now needs to go. It is cumbersome, expensive and corrupt. Eliminate the gerimandered districts and have direct vote my mail or electronically for every citizen. No more electors and electoral college; both are ripe with corruption and the potential for manipulation.

We must get money out of the voting and legislation equation. We must pass laws that forbid any participation in government by anyone but representatives of the people. No one should be able to buy a government position.

The Judicial system needs to be overhauled. Lifetime appointments are ridiculous. Prospective judges should be submitted by their peers and approved by Congress and serve a limited term and then return to their prior positions.

The department of Justice must be a stand alone arm of government free from influence by anyone, including the president or Congress.

The United States Postal Service needs to be reorganized as a vital arm of government as the original framers intended. It should be expanded, modernized and allowed to perform it’s original intent; to provide mail service to citizens far and wide. It should be expanded to include broadband service, banking and packaging. The wealthy old club members on it’s board need replaced by young, smart, progressive people who have fresh ideas.

The post office is dying of cancer and no one is willing to call the surgeon to cut out the old, corrupt, festering tumors.

The military is completely out of control both financially and administratively. The power of arms manufacturers to influence military purchasing or tactical decisions is out of control.

When you have a military that can’t even account for what it spends its too bloated to be effective. BEWARE THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX said our most famous General/President. He know where we were headed back in 1961.

Taxes are ridiculously unfair. The workers pay for everything while the rich have their accountants and lawyers get them off by paying nothing.

Religion has become so intermingled with government that so called mega churches and their millionaire preachers rake in money without paying any taxes on it. If everyone just got ordained I guess no one would pay any taxes.

Non-religious citizens and citizens whose religion isn’t recognized by the state are burdened by the additional tax support they have to pay so the religious can freeload. This situation was anticipated by the founders so they kept religion totally out of government.

If we as citizens can not wrench the power of elections, judges, government and the postal system from the decaying festering fingers of the oligarchs, greedy, billionaires then our beloved country is finished and revolution by the poor, cast out, silenced majority is inevitable. Remember July 14!?

Guillotine

The French Revolution took place in the last quarter century following the U.S. revolution.  I am not a historian but there do seem to be many parallels to what is transpiring in the United States today.

In late 18th century French people were grouped into three “estates”, the aristocrats, the church and the rest of the people.  Neither the aristocrats or the church paid taxes although they had all of the money and wealth.  Only the third estate, the people, paid taxes and were burdened with doing most of the work and military representation in the country.  The third estate was about 80% of the population but had almost 0% of the money and property.

It only took a crop failure followed by bread shortages to light the whole thing aflame.  One of  my favorite images is that of the burly, tough fish monger women with their fish knives marching on the palace along with a thousand or so other women forcing the king and queen to return to Paris where they were put under guard.  Just imagine it.  Hard working, smelly, dirty women from the fish markets wielding their sharp gutting knives marching through the Palace in search of the King and Queen.  After that the blood of the aristocrats and religious flowed.  Religion was outlawed.

Look at the United States today.  The similarities are overwhelming.  The top 1% have all of the wealth, the big religions and churches are tax-free and in the meantime about 80% of the population is struggling to pay for housing, food and school for their kids.  Debt among that 80% is staggering and is  rising.

Just one match like a food shortage, financial breakdown or other catastrophe could set the entire country ablaze.  The wealthy, the banks and the churches should give this some thought….it COULD happen.  Greed could make it happen.

Visualize the lowest among us, perhaps the homeless or those working three jobs descending on the white house or the capital in Washington DC demanding to be heard.