Thom Hartmann: Join the Parade for We the People

[marmar]

from CommonDreams:


Published on Monday, January 29, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
Join The Parade For We The People
by Thom Hartmann

This weekend I was in Washington, DC. Prior to the antiwar protest, I went to interfaith service Saturday morning at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation and heard breathtaking sermons from Rev. Robert Hardies, Sister Carol Miller, Ms. Khalila Sabra, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Rev. Graylan Hagler, and Bhante Suhita Dharma.
My old friend Rabbi Michael Lerner (disclosure: I was on the advisory board of Tikkun for years) highlighted the gig with a rousing call to action in the streets, and he and I marched partway to the demonstration together.

But what all the speakers knew, and the people in the (literally) overflowing church knew, was that it wasn't about any "big names" or "leaders." It was about the people marching. The people sitting in the pews. The people who went largely unreported in the mainstream media, but ultimately will transform this nation. The people who comprise the Parade.

Ultimately, it's all about the Parade - "We The People." The ultimate question for Americans - one we've been debating since 1787, is: "Do we run our country, or do our politicians?"

This issue - the power of the Parade, of We The People speaking up and speaking out and participating in the political process - was the primary debate in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention. Tragically, it will again be hotly contested as the House of Representatives begins to investigate potential crimes by the Executive branch and the Bush administration begins to push back and claim executive privilege (a doctrine that appears nowhere in the Constitution).

Now, as then, the cleavage will be between the liberal vision of a nation "Of the people, by the people, for the people," versus the conservative vision of a nation with a thin veneer of democracy over a government run by an elite meritocracy (with the governing merit being "wealth").

In 1787, the debate broke out into the open when Alexander Hamilton, on a hot June day, gave a long-winded speech about how America should be an elected monarchy. He said, as James Madison transcribed in his notes on the Convention, "The British Government was the best in the world: and that he doubted much whether any thing short of it would do in America."

Hamilton added, according to Madison, "Let the Executive also be for life." .....(more)

The rest of the piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0129-27.htm