The Democracy Initiative: a Coup in Plain Sight

The American Thinker ^ | January 20, 2013 | Clarice Feldman

[Mrs. Don-o]

This is...about a coordinated effort by about 36 different interest groups with reported revenues of no less than $1.69 billion, pledging millions of dollars to work together to attack conservative supporters and organizations, to intervene directly in Democratic politics, to push for filibuster reform to better enable a push through their agenda without any input from the opposition, and expanding "voting rights" and fighting voter registration laws to further grease the skids for their legislative agenda.

1. Who belongs: Here are a few of them:

...the AFL-CIO, the Center for American Progress, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, the Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, Mother Jones, the National Wildlife Federation, People for the American Way, the Piper Fund, Public Campaign, the SEIU, and Voto Latino. "There will be 50 participating organizations by spring."

How much money will they throw into their effort? The combined budgets of progressive interest groups and foundations and think tanks and nonprofits and community organizations is practically incalculable.

[They pro-actively take control of the language.]

"Equality" today means equality of outcome, or egalitarianism and homogeneity. "Tolerance" today means how dare you give offense -- and your "hate speech" must be controlled. "Fair share" today means an immensely disproportionate amount is paid by those scapegoated by the left and given over to the left's cronies, with some crumbs going to the poor, who become more and more entrenched in their dependence on the state, and more and more permanent clients to the state's war on the free market.

[snip]

As certain linguistic kernel assumptions were adopted, entrenched, and finally institutionalized -- by all political stripes ("Yay, democracy! Go us!") -- the effects ae... preordained: collectivism, consensus, mob rule, all dressed up in the finery of studied, rigorous legal interpretation...

[ForGod'sSake]

BFLR

[Mike Darancette]

Get the popcorn ready they will be fighting with themselves within a fortnight.

[scott7278]

Thanks!

[lentulusgracchus]

This week from CBS political director John Dickerson: “The president who came into office speaking in lofty terms about bipartisanship and cooperation can only cement his legacy if he destroys the GOP. If he wants to transform American politics, he must go for the throat.”

---

Yes, that's right, John. Rip out the throat of the GOP. Destroy the GOP. Destroy the Republicans and Republicanism.

Then try to rip the throat out of the Tea Party. Do us, John. Come on, try us. Go for it, 'Rat -- go for the cheese!

"A man's got to know his limitations."
-- Clint Eastwood, in character as "Dirty Harry".

[rdb3]

So the things we are focussed on now (except the 2nd Amendment issue) is just a distraction.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Half of those groups are communist front organization. Maybe more. The rest are very far leftist or worse.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks EdReform.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I am not competent to say what is a distraction and what is not. Strategic thinking is not my forte.

But it seems that mich of this "Democracy Inititive" is intended to make the political process itself essentially closed to conservatives. It's transforming the electorate demographically by importing undocumented Democrats; jiggering the Electoral college; giving the vote to felons, the mentally incapacitated and others currently disqualified; bringing in masses of Lo-Fo's by making voting, or at least registration, practically mandatory, etc. This must be fought as a special priority.

I mean, once you have a hundred million new voters, it doesn't matter what the Constitution says. It would be like a paper fence to restrain a stadium crowd. --- until the whole damn sysem breaks down because there aren't enough producers/taxpayers anymore.

Then, there will be blood.

I confess myself to be so mesmerized by peripherals I often miss the big picture.

[ProgressingAmerica]

"Fair share" today means an immensely disproportionate amount is paid by those scapegoated by the left and given over to the left's cronies, with some crumbs going to the poor, who become more and more entrenched in their dependence on the state, and more and more permanent clients to the state's war on the free market.

Benjamin Franklin predicted this(a form of it) on the floor of the Continental Congress:

Generally indeed the ruling power carries its point, the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they are never satisfied, but always in want of more. The more the people are discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of money to distribute among his partizans and pay the troops that are to suppress all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure. There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharoah, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_602.asp

[hondact200]

Here is something else to read - Presidential Coups d’etat and regime change in Latin American and Soviet Successor States:Lessons for Democratic Theory. by Maxwell A. Cameron Working Paper#249 - February 1998

Here is the abstract
What safeguards democracy when the demos allows its own voice to be silenced? In Latin American and Soviet successor states this problem took a novel form in the 1990s: that of the self-inflicted presidential coup d’etat, or autogolpe. In Peru, Guatemala and Russian presidents closed congress, suspended the constitution, and sought to rule by decree until referenda or new legislative elections could be held to ratify a regime with broader executive powers. Three contrasting traditions of democratic theory are assessed in light of autogolpes:electoral, liberal, and deliberative democracy.

This is 45 pages long. Read it for yourself and I honestly believe you will see what Obama’s full intent is to put into play democratic theory of a combination of the political theories in the working paper.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Wow. Thank you.

[DrC]

“There is scarce a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharoah, get first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their children servants for ever.”

This sounds like Obama’s second-term agenda!