What is happening in Washington, DC these days could lead not to anarchy but to monarchy, says political philosophy professor Michael Lynch in a New York Times op-ed piece today.
“Should shutdowns, debt-ceiling fights and the radical political legislative gridlock they represent really become a fixture of American political life, it will be more tempting, more reasonable, to think that someone should “step in” to make the decisions,” Lynch says. “The chorus calling for action — for the president, for example, to go around the Congress — will only increase. If you are on the left, and Obama is still in power, you may even tell yourself that is a good thing. But it is a bad precedent, the type of precedent that causes democracies to erode.”
To me it seems clear that the someone who should be stepping in here is WE THE PEOPLE!!!
Judging by the Republicans’ abysmal and rapidly sliding approval rates, the obstructionists in Congress no longer represent the will of the people. It’s up to us to show them the door and get on with all the much more important issues that face us.
Where is Occupy when you need it? Why haven’t any progressive groups been calling for a march on Washington to demonstrate on behalf of what we believe and what we want to see our elected representatives doing for us?
It seems like social media has frozen us in the sidelines as spectators rather than actors in this political tragi-farce that is unfolding day by depressing day.
Expressing one’s outrage to one’s circle of Facebook friends is like looking at one’s own reflection in a hall of mirrors.
Let’s get out of the funhouse and go march on the State House!
And not a tame weekend march, either. Let’s march on a weekday, calling a general strike of work and school and civil business as usual until the Congress gets its act together and unclamps its stranglehold on Federal business as usual.
If there was ever a time when the President needed us to turn out and support him it is now. Not just in donations, not just in approving tweets, but in the flesh.
Let’s Occupy Congress and stay there until the job is done. Who’s in?
Transition Times 
Carole Spearin McCauley
/ October 16, 2013In three days, most people in The United States of America will have this message. This is one idea that really should be passed around. *Congressional Reform Act of 2013 1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office, and receives no pay when they’re out of office. 2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the CongressionalRetirementFund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose. 3. Congressmen/women can purchase their own retirement plans, just as all Americans do. 4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. 5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. 6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 7. All contracts with past and presentCongressmen/women are void effective 12/31/13. The American people did not make this contract withCongressmen/women. Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Don’t you think it’s time? THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS! If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete.You are one of my 20+ Please keep it going, and thanks.Dear Jennifer, Here’s an important email from one of my friends here–Alexandra Corwin in Etna, NH. Hope you’re doing well.Best wishes from Carole Spearin McCauley Writer–Editor 53 Lyme Road, #26 Hanover, NH 03755 603-643-4411
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 11:49:26 +0000 To: mccauleycarole@hotmail.com
Margaret Randall
/ October 18, 2013I like your posting today, Jennifer, and I like Spearin McCauly’s response. I would add to Corwin’s list the simple, workable, money-saving and all-encompassing healthcare solution of universal single payer care: just use each citizen’s social security number to automatically sign us all up at birth and save the immense expenditure of endless paperwork and insurance company morass. It would be great if Occupy marched to Washington on a weekday and said its piece. Unfortunately, I think the country is polarized to the point where the tea partiers and their ilk would also march… and without a carefully-thought-out action strategy we could have a senseless and extremely costly civil war. We have the well-place rage. Now we need a real political organization.