In These Times

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• • 07 Sep 05
  • 5:44 pm

  Adding insult to injury, FEMA's Brown has ordered the media not to photograph the dead bodies in New Orleans. He's blocking cameramen from accompanying the search crews. He's had enough bad press. Reasonable? Of course not. It's a slam-dunk violation of the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press. Anyone, dead or alive, can be photographed in a public place. Although morbid, a wide-ranging collection of dead-body photos would simply be part of the truth of what happened in New Orleans. So here we have the chief of the same agency whose inaction and murderous policies -- turning away many relief …

  Posted to Katrinas Racial Wake

• • 11 Sep 05
  • 7:35 am

  Ibyland -- What you want can be done, if we act fairly quickly. Working in the states, away from corportism's zone of national govt control, there are 17 states in which the people have the CAI (constitutional amendment initiative). One of the immense powers available to the CAI is the reduction of the state legislatures from corrupt political-party-controlled bicamerals to nonpartisan unicamerals, on the successful 1934 Nebraska model. With the people forcing nonpartisan unicamerals in about 4-6 states, political sophistication of the civil society will advance from its present stone-stupid to Reform-Era-competent. Along the way, helping to increase the level of …

  Posted to Katrinas Racial Wake

• • 11 Sep 05
  • 8:19 am

  GhostRabbit & Ibyland -- My "hundred million" was hyperbole. All we need for openers is the number of citizens in any one CAI state who are required to formulate and file the CAI petition to reduce bicameral to nonpartisan unicamreral. That's about FOUR. As the CAI's civics lesson proceeds through the petition process in just that one state, growth in numbers of like-thinkers across the country will, I think, be astronomical. Point is, civil society has the power to change this mess around, but its political sophistication is so stone-stupid that hardly anyone understands. If you're a like-thinker, see the index …

  Posted to Katrinas Racial Wake

• • 11 Sep 05
  • 4:39 pm

  Jon B -- Thanks for taking a look at "TRG Polity" and for the thoughtful respone. Please be patient with the site. It is still very much under construction. In the meantime, you can find many of my essays on my documents site for the DDL at ddleague-usa.net. I've been at this constitutional renewal project, with the help of many small "study groups", for over a decade. Yes, Michigan is a CAI state. Michigan citizens also have the statute initiative, statute referendum (veto of leguislature-made law), and the recall. It is not surprising that you did not know. Most I&R state …

  Posted to Katrinas Racial Wake

• • 12 Sep 05
  • 9:02 am

  Rabbit -- Thanks for registering at TRG Polity. Oz has a farsical direct democracy system that is dictated to by representative govt. I look forward to discussing your views on how to change that around. There are three reasons that I've laid out the TRG Polity board in a systemic issues fashion. First, our Constitution started as an elites short-circuiting of the people's demands for direct democracy's citizen lawmaking. For the 200+ years since, the elites have employed many engenious thinkers to create anti-DD sophistries, convoluted polemics, vacuous arguments, out-right lies, and emotions-triggering propaganda. The anti-DD material is woven into the …

  Posted to Katrinas Racial Wake