The character and purpose of our government

The past five years have seen many changes -- and many that I would hope to reverse through the democratic process in the years ahead. Here are three changes I want to see:

• The priorities of our government have been set by and aligned with big corporations, their lobbyists, and the richest Americans at the expense of the rest of us. Real reform is needed to reduce the corrosive impact of money.
  
  The Abramoff scandal has shown the astonishing scope and severity of corruption under the K-Street alliance established by Tom DeLay and the GOP. Bankruptcy "reform", budget cuts in social services, pork-barrell earmarks, tax breaks for the most affluent Americans, and the President's proposal to withdraw from the promise of a guaranteed income for retirees combined to define the nature of our government as a tool for the haves to screw the have-nots.
  
  The success of democracy in America is linked to the expansion of the middle class in the last century - we should be wary of the effect of the increasing concentration of incomes and wealth in America, and we have to clean up the corruption of our electoral and governing processes.
  
  
• We have also seen our government act brazenly to circumvent laws protecting our rights under the Constitution, insisting on an unlimited power of the President -- presenting very serious and significant challenges to civil liberties we take for granted as Americans.
  
  The NSA surveillance program and FISA need very serious scrutiny. There is no doubt in my mind that the President and his administration have simply run roughshod over the Constitution and Congress in this area -- and it puts the "just trust us" assurances given in support of the Patriot Act in a very poor light. In combination with the detention of suspects, the abuse of detainees, and the government's arguments that these practices are outside of legal rights to counsel or any oversight by the courts, the threat to civil liberties is very real.
  
  
• Finally, we have earned the scorn and hostility of our global neighbors for an ill-considered and unwarranted invasion and occupation of Iraq, for our network of secret prisons and the abuse of detainess, and for our "extraodinary rendition" of detainees to countries that have tortured these people on our behalf.
  
  Our preference for unilateralism and our disdain for the United Nations are well-known. On environmental initiatives related to global warming, on the Geneva Conventions, on responses to global poverty, and on the establishment of international courts and legal processes, we prefer to thumb our nose at the rest of the world.
  
  We are now seen as human rights violators of the first order. We ought to be able to speak for human rights around the world, but now our voice is weakened by our own recent disgraceful record.
  
  We stand back and let genocide continue in Darfur.
  
  The world needs a return of our idealism and leadership.

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