Bob and All who think Term Limits would be a positive move.
I would urge you to reconsider the thought that term limits are the
way to go. Such a limit on an elected official's term in office does
nothing to solve the underlying problem. It's not a particular
person. It is who "owns" the mind of a particular person. Just look
at the line of eager Trumpsters, waiting to do the bidding of our
Empire's Ruling Class. As fast as one individual wears out his/her
welcome, two more crowd into the office. What we Americans need to
do, and I'm speaking of the Working Class Americans, is to get
involved and take over the running of our government.
Why would we limit a good person to a short term in office if they
were doing the job we sent them there to do? We think in negative
terms, wanting to protect ourselves from the officials who serve
themselves at our expense. The solution is to set conditions so that
sort of person never gets elected in the first place. Someone is
putting these people in office. If it's not us, then how do we put
together the kind of representation that serves us?
Until then, this government will go on serving the people who bought it.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/11/18, Bob Hachey <bhachey@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi all,
Here’s an interesting article from the Boston Globe. I believe that Kinser
is right on target here. Given the rank corruption of Trump as well as that
of the leadership of both sorry excuses for parties here in America, I am
coming to believe that we need term limits in Congress and perhaps in our
state legislatures as well. In the past, I have always opposed term limits.
I have always believed that elections should be effective term limits. But
given that our corrupt system is flooded with dark money taken together with
the sad fact that too damned many Americans shirk their duties as citizens,
I’m afraid short of revolution, term limits may be the best way to throw the
bums out of office.
Bob Hachey
Make America more like Ethiopia, New Zealand, and Costa Rica By Stephen
Kinzer opinion stephen kinzer . By Stephen Kinzer . For decades, Americans
have accepted rule by a mendacious and meretricious elite. Today we have
reason to believe that our situation is worse than ever. Our president is a
hate-mongering bully who promotes foreign wars, the destruction of our
natural environment, the further enrichment of the rich, and the
impoverishment of everyone else. Republican and Democratic leaders in
Congress are cynical money-grubbers who grovel before corporate power. The
Supreme Court twists the Constitution to promote the most anti-democratic
forces in our society. Founders of our republic would howl in anguished rage
if they could see how fully our political leaders have defiled their
liberating vision. The decline of democracy in the United States might
logically lead us to conclude that our political system has failed - that
democracy is intrinsically unable to resist the power of those who profit
from undermining it. That view, however, is contradicted by what other
democracies have recently achieved. With hardly any notice in the American
press, three very different countries have recently produced leaders who are
unapologetically pursuing policies that benefit their people and the world.
They are magnificent examples for the United States - unless they lead us to
weep in envy. Eight months ago a 37-year-old firebrand named Jacinda Ardern
emerged unexpectedly as prime minister of New Zealand. Upon taking office,
she pledged to create "a country where our environment is protected, where
we look after the most vulnerable, where we support our families, where we
make sure people have the most basic of needs, like a roof over their head.
One of her first and most shocking decisions was to stop issuing permits for
offshore oil and gas exploration. "Transitions have to start somewhere," she
said. "We have been a world leader on critical issues to humanity by being
nuclear-free. . . Now we could be world-leading in becoming carbon neutral.
Ardern has also challenged other taboos in her country. She supports
legalizing marijuana, is the first prime minister to march in a gay pride
parade, and promises that women will soon make up half of her party's caucus
in Parliament. More than any of her predecessors, she has promoted the
rights of the indigenous Maori people. Perhaps most provocatively, she has
asserted that the homelessness problem in her country proves the "blatant
failure" of capitalism. "If you have hundreds of thousands of children
living in homes without enough to survive," she reasoned, "what else could
you describe it as? New Zealanders have rewarded Ardern's truth-telling with
a 73 percent approval rating. Thousands of miles from New Zealand, voters in
Costa Rica recently chose an exciting young leader, Carlos Alvarado, as
their new president. One of his two vice-presidents, an economist and
environmental activist, is the first woman of African descent to reach such
a high post in Costa Rica. Alvarado, who is 38, has declared a transcendent
goal: to end all use of oil and gas in his country by 2021, the 200th
anniversary of its independence. "Decarbonization is the great task of our
generation," he said. "We have the titanic and beautiful task of abolishing
the use of fossil fuels in our economy to make way for the use of clean and
renewable energy. Just one day after Alvarado was inaugurated in Costa Rica
on April 1, another exemplar of democratic will became prime minister of
Ethiopia. Abiy Ahmed, 41, comes from the country's Muslim minority and also
from a persecuted ethnic group, the Oromo. He took over a country that has
long been ruled by repressive tyrants, is divided along ethnic, religious
and regional lines, and has been in constant conflict with neighboring
Eritrea. "Expect a different rhetoric from us," he said upon taking office.
"If there is to be political progress in Ethiopia, we have to debate the
issues openly and respectfully. In just three months as prime minister, Abiy
has cut a radical swath through Ethiopian politics. He fired five senior
officials who were known for corruption and brutality. Then he announced
that he would accept the ruling of a border commission as a way of making
peace with Eritrea, even though it requires handing over territory that many
Ethiopians consider theirs. He ordered the release of more than 1,000
political prisoners. When a member of Parliament protested that his order
was unconstitutional, he replied: "Jailing and torturing, which we did, are
not constitutional either. . . Does the Constitution say anyone who was
sentenced by a court can be tortured, put in a dark room? It doesn't.
Torturing, putting people in dark rooms, is our act of terrorism. On June 25
Abiy's enemies tried to kill him in a grenade attack. "The people who did
this are anti-peace forces," he said afterward. "You weren't successful in
the past and you won't be successful in the future. Over the brief history
of the United States, Americans have shown ourselves ready to seize anything
we covet, anywhere in the world. If we could maintain that tradition, we
might now arrange an "extraordinary rendition" operation to kidnap Jacinda
Ardern, Carlos Alvarado, or Abiy Ahmed so one of them could be installed in
the White House. Lamentably, that is impossible. The alternative is to
concentrate on encouraging homegrown leaders who share their humanistic
vision. Americans once believed that we could inspire and lead the world.
Now we can only hope to catch up with New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Ethiopia.
Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for
International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
