Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award for "The New Guilded Age and the New Citizenship- Response to Kevin Horrigan" by rjluczakII

Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award




That Government of The People, By the People, and For the People Shall Not Perish From the Earth

Cross-posted from the blog at JohnEdwards.com

The New Guilded Age and the New Citizenship- Response to Kevin Horrigan
r
user icon rjluczakII in Arguments & Analyses Feed of
8/19/2007 at 6:43 PM EST

http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/8/19/171114/981



In his sunday 8/19/2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch commentary, 'The New Guilded Age', Post-Dispatch Columnist Kevin Horrigan writes straight to the point and 'right on the money'-

"We are living, we are told, in a "new Gilded Age" in which income inequality is at near record highs, in which labor is taking it on the chin in its battle with capital, in which conspicuous consumption is celebrated and in which corporations, in league with government, have rigged the game like nothing since the Credit Mobilier scandal of the Grant Administration".

He later writes:

"The first Gilded Age began to come apart when the Recession of 1893 ushered in the Progressive Era. Still, it wasn't until the Great Depression brought Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal that the scales began tipping in favor of the great majority of Americans. Is it possible 2008 will bring that kind of change"?"Probably not. The presidential election is going to cost $1 billion, and whoever pays for it will call the tune. What Henry D. Lloyd wrote of the first Gilded Age remains true of the second: 'We have government by campaign contribution.'"

I agree with Horrigan about the small probability of change any time soon. Change to this will only come about through an overall change in public attitude and increased level of involvement of today's citizen in issues and elections. We need a new level of active citizenship for the 21st century to regain control of government and reform it to be 'of the people, by the people, and for the people.'

With information technology the conditions are present- the easy availability of information and the low cost of communication resources- for citizens to mobilize to change votes, change laws, and 'unrig the game' and make it more fair.

However currently there are two factors that weigh heavily against the likelihood of mobilization- 1) the average citizen is not convinced that it is in their interest to mobilize, because they like to identify themselves with the rich, because rich is what they want to be. and 2) it is against their independent nature and history to do so.

The tools are there though, and if the right political leader came along- you never know. That leader just might be John Edwards. With his campaign of 'two americas', John Edwards gives us the best chance at such a change.

The time is right for such a new level of citizenship- a 'New Citizenship' that is demanded by the material conditions of our time, in order to preserve the freedoms guaranteed by our constitution.