CBulla once bubbled...
My only question is that if these elected officials are doing a bad job or are not listening to the peoples voices who put them there, why are they re-elected?
Politicians draw voting districts in the US. The term "Gerrymandering" describes the process of drawing these districts for political gain. This process is "business as usual" in effectively every State in the Union. In local and most Federal elections below the Senate level this process is in control. The re-election rates due to political machine manipulation of the districts, and other methods, are over 90%. Most of those defeated are done so in PRIMARY elections. As a case in point check the changes in the Broward County Sheriff's Office in the 90's. It took a stealth campaign orchestrated by Broward county LEOs to 'unelect" a
very crooked sheriff, in the Democratic PRIMARY! The odds of getting a Republican or Libertarian running against an incumbent Democrat elected to a county wide office in Broward or Palm Beach county is about the same as hitting the FL lottery twice in the same month! In the US it's not only possible to elect a dead man to office if he runs with the 'correct' party for the area, but it has actually happened several times. In Louisiana Edwin Edward's "winning" bumper sticker in his last statewide election was "VOTE FOR THE CROOK!" BTW Edwin is now vacationing at a "Club Fed."
The only good thing you can say for this system is that we get what we deserve in elected officials. The world is run by "Those who show up." Unless the "little people" actually start showing up we will continue on this route until it's necessary to do another "King George" eviction. This country is based on the "three boxes."
The "soap box" we have allowed to fall to the control of the big media conglomerates. The recent (98) debate and vote on concealed carry in MO shows the power of the media in local politics. Both the KC Star and the St Louis Post-Dispatch ran a significant misinformation campaign on the issue and presented the "anti" side's emotional fantasies as fact. Those two papers also "neglected" to carry any information on or from the "pro" side. The "yellow" of this journalism made the Kansas sunflower appear lilly white in comparison. Inside the circulation areas of those two papers the vote went 80% "against." Outside their circulation areas where a more balanced discussion was presented the vote went 80% "for." The "Media" claimed this was a "City Vs Country" thing, but the districts effected by the votes dichotomy track paper circulation patterns much better than population patterns.
The "ballot box" is a joke in many areas. Between voter fraud and apathy the "machines" control significant parts of the US. The "Elysian Fields" vote easily controls New Orleans politics. The very concept of a voter actually having to show ID to vote is fought tooth and nail by the Democrats in control of the MS legislature, with updating voter registration lists by cross checking death certificates and voter rolls actually prohibited! I won't even get into the effectively closed meetings where party candidates are "selected" by the few who run the machines.
Strangely enough the "Media" and "machines" have both worked hard to eliminate the third box. "Gun Control" is not, and never has been anywhere in the world it has been enacted, about "crime control." It has always been about removing the "Cartridge Box" option to politics as usual.
I have long said that the next American Revolution will not be to install a new government, but to
RE-INSTALL the Constitutional government we should have had all along. I just hope it can happen through the first two boxes. I've lived through one period of blood in the streets shed at the hands of the PTBs. I'd REALLY like to avoid it in my future, and my kids future, if I have a choice.
Until such time as we again get control of our government I never miss a chance to vote against an incumbent, unless of course the challenger is worse and I need to vote against HIM!
FT
