The country is ready for change, but there will be no real or long-term change unless we start with changing ourselves in the way we relate to our government and to our fellow citizens. 

We are, hopefully, at the end of a period of unprecedented damage to our nation and our values.  Our government started a war that was both unnecessary and acknowledged to be illegal under international law by the Secretary General of the United Nations, claimed the right to hold U.S. citizens indefinitely without access to counsel and without charging them with any crime, tortured prisoners and secured torture by other counties on our behalf, spied on its own citizens in violation of law, facilitated a massive economic crisis through ideology-based deregulation, etc…  Both the Administration and the Congress failed again and again in their responsibilities under the Constitution and in their responsibilities to the people.  As a result, Americans want to see changes in these institutions. 

The most fundamental problem, however, is not that these branches of our government fell short.  It is that “We The People” fell short by allowing these policies to continue over extended periods of time. We acted as a nation of sheep – we abandoned our responsibilities in this “Government By The People.”  We failed miserably both to establish appropriate standards of behavior for our government and to insist on accountability for the people we elected to represent us. 

In the November election, a respectable number of us finally spoke with some conviction.  That is progress, but the world moves much too fast to limit citizen participation in government to one election for president every four years.  How can we change our relationship to government so that it will be more responsive? 

To return to a government by the people, it seems that we need at least the following elements.  “We The People” need to (1) be informed on the important issues of the day and express our views on these issues in a healthy national debate, (2) hold our representatives accountable for their performance, (3) protect the operation of democratic processes, and (4) promote decisions that serve the people and the common good. 

On the first element, an informed citizenry, there is good news.  The internet now provides ready access to a much expanded range of information and opinion.  We are no longer restricted to the information and perspectives that a few national media decide, for whatever reason, we should be interested in.  The work by many organizations and individuals on every conceivable issue are now readily available to us.  If we are not informed, we can only blame ourselves. 

Yet, we are in fact not informed.  If you need some proof, just read “Just How Stupid Are We? Facing The Truth About The American Voter” by Rick Shenkman.  To effect “change” in this area, we need to revamp our values.  A large segment of our society has been “dumbed down,” and seems to take pride in bashing intellectual achievement as “elitism.” We pay the people we entrust with the education of our children less than those we entrust with our plumbing. In the sixties, the College Bowl, a competition between the best and the brightest of our universities, was a very popular television program. Today, we instead have reality shows with crazy antics and programs that concern themselves endlessly with airhead celebrities. 

We need to reestablish the value of education and intellectual achievement.  Parents, nationwide, need to stand up for the interests of their children and refuse to accept the continual deterioration of our educational standards.  People, nationwide, need to use their power of the purse to cause the media and other commercial interests to support raising the intellectual level of this nation rather than to undermine it. We now have the knowledge and the technology to distribute that knowledge widely so that we can meet the needs of a twenty-first century participatory democracy.  We must shift our national value system to reward both the acquisition of knowledge and broad based participation in the governmental process. 

The internet also offers substantial hope for genuine national debate and enhanced citizen communication with government.  Anyone can start a national, indeed worldwide, debate on any issue.  Anyone can join in.  The medium is replete with interest groups, blogs, social network groups, and means for collaboration.  The Obama campaign has done an amazing job of getting people to participate in the election process.  The transition team is now planning to extend that effort to the governing process.  It is creating a massive change in the transparency of government and in the degree to which ordinary people can participate in the formulation of national priorities and policies. 

Young people are discovering the political process, and are eagerly adopting the new technology.  Unless the printed media and television engage much more vigorously in promoting the national debate, they will be left behind only to mourn their demise.  The challenge now is to maintain and enhance the reemerging appreciation for the role of citizens in the process of governing.  The new administration and internet-based grassroots groups can play vital roles in supporting this process, but in the end it is up to each one of us. 

Holding government accountable is where our failure seems to have been the most consistent.  Congress abdicated its role and facilitated the emasculation of our constitutional system of checks and balances.  It failed to act as an independent branch of our government.  Even more egregiously, it sometimes retroactively sanctioned what appeared to be clearly illegal actions by the executive.  We, as a people, failed miserably to hold our representatives accountable. We silently stood by for years when our own government violated the law and undermined our values. 

In Korea, massive numbers of people took to the streets over the importation of American beef.  In America, no substantial protests took place concerning fundamental issues such as torture, habeas corpus, spying on citizens, politicizing of the Justice Department, etc…  A number of grassroots organizations took up the challenge, but we never responded in sufficient numbers to permit them to penetrate the Washington bubble. As de Tocqueville said: “in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve.”  We did.  It really is our choice.  Holding our government accountable may be made easier if the Obama administration carries through its intention for transparency.  In the end, however, it will again depend on the will and dedication of each of us. 

We did not perform much better in protecting the operation of democratic processes.  A prime example is our election system.  Blatant violations of citizens’ right to vote occurred in the 2000 Presidential election.  Although some efforts at reform were undertaken, the same or similar problems occurred in 2004 and substantial questions remained in 2008.  The right to vote is supposed to be the most fundamental right in a democracy, and yet we do not get outraged and demand action when that right is blatantly violated. 

Similarly, we continue to tolerate the “pay to play” approach to making public policy decisions.  We seemingly believe the argument that large campaign contributions have no impact on official actions.  Even after the recent Blagojevich episode in Illinois, there is no public outcry to revamp the system. What will it take? 

Finally, our failure to promote decisions that serve the people and the common good is perhaps our greatest downfall.  We have let ourselves be sucked into mindless consumerism, unrestrained self-interest, and the ethic of the fast buck.  Some got rich in the sub-prime bubble, but now our economy is facing the largest crisis since the great depression.  Individual investors and charitable organizations have been swindled out of some $50 billion by a rogue investment advisor who had been brought to the attention of the regulatory bodies for years. On major issues, such as health care and education, we let ourselves fall behind some of the developing countries.  When we could have energized the whole world for the common good after the September 11 attacks, our President instead urged us to go shopping.  Maybe we will now finally wake up and ask the tough questions.  Maybe we will now be able to handle the tough answers. 

We need to shift from platitudes and sound bites to real moral conviction, from ideological entrenchment to genuine open-mindedness, from raw self-interest to larger ideas such as the common good, from unrestrained competition to an appreciation for the power of collaboration, from the worship of uncontrolled growth and consumerism to the need for sustainability. These changes demand a critical examination of both the fundamental values of our society and the structure of our institutions.  However, nothing will change unless we decide individually in large numbers that change must start with ourselves and that we actually carry through on that conviction. 

In an interview shortly after the election of Mr. Obama, his chief of staff designate, Rahm Emanuel, said “Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste … They are opportunities to do big things.” Let us finally start the national debate on the big things we need to do to reclaim our country and our values, and let us do it mindful of Lincoln’s conviction: “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.“