DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC--->REPUBLIC
Leaderless on the left

From the London Guardian courtesy of BuzzFlash:

But unlike the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in his swift boat, Sheehan will not be blown off course quite so easily. The public mood in America is shifting consistently and decisively against the war and Bush's handling of it. Gallup has commissioned eight polls asking whether it was worth going to war since the beginning of the year: every time at least half have said no. For the first time, most people believe the invasion of Iraq has made the US more vulnerable to further attacks. The number of those who want all the troops withdrawn remains a minority at 33% - but that is double what it was two years ago, and still growing.

The reason Sheehan has become such a lightning rod is because that mood has found only inadequate and inconsistent expression in Congress. It has been left to her to articulate an escalating political demand that is in desperate need of political representation. This marks not only a profound dislocation between the political class and political culture but a short circuit in the democratic process. The mainstream has effectively been marginalised.

Click here for the rest.

I'll tell you why Congress is so out of touch.

From Merriam-Webster Online:

republic : a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law

pure democracy : democracy in which the power is exercised directly by the people rather than through representatives

In the United States, we have something of a combination of these two systems of government, a "democratic republic." That is, the US is a republic, but the "body of citizens entitled to vote" is much larger than, say, the citizen elites who voted in the Roman republic or in the Renaissance Netherlands. In other words, the representatives in America are supposed to govern on behalf of average, ordinary citizens, not simply for blocks of societal wealth and power. That's what makes America a "democratic republic." It's kind of like pure democracy, but it's actually a republic. Supposedly.

What has happened is that, by multiple means, including campaign financing, media ownership, lobbying, and plain old bribery, America's wealthy elites have usurped the system, transforming our "democratic republic" into a simple republic. Our Congressional representatives no longer represent average ordinary citizens: they represent the powerful and wealthy, just as in ancient Rome. Obviously, US elites haven't quite yet decided that the Iraq adventure is a huge waste of life and money. Consequently, US policy is to "stay the course."

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