Manifesto
For A New Constitutional Convention
By Robert S. Becker
01 November, 2007
Countercurrents.org
Our
federal government has degenerated into a scary specter that neglects
core public interests, such as infrastructure and natural disasters,
while distracting us with exaggerated foreign threats. Worse still,
like Iraq, workable solutions remain out of sight.
Stunned by lost liberties,
an autocratic president, a cowed Congress, and an unfeeling judiciary,
angry voters across the spectrum feel the machinery is broken and the
“problem” transcends one smirking president or insular administration.
This crisis clearly extends
beyond “domestic tranquility.” Overseas, America has a monumental
image problem, the worst in our history. 90% of the world stands aghast
at our go-it-alone, belligerent militarism (where diplomacy is dead),
violation of citizen rights, and torture, rendition, and secret prisons
that defy historic Geneva Conventions.
Despite global warming, America’s
prestige has chilled badly, the result of freezing out international
co-operation with a “my-way-or-the-highway” approach. For
too many, elections aren’t working, a certain sign of systemic
breakdown in a democracy. The urgent task is long-term: to (re)establish
core values at home and America's status as beacon of liberty and trustworthy
partner among nations.
Back to our revolutionary
future
This crisis invokes our earliest
days, when following the Revolution the bankrupt, sputtering Continental
Congress called for a Constitutional Convention to rework the feeble
Articles of Confederation, our first-draft Constitution.
This was also when true conservatives
like Thomas Jefferson voiced skepticism towards permanent, man-made
systems, famously advising, “Every generation needs a new revolution.”
His call wasn’t for
violent overthrow but periodic retooling to clean-out the inevitable
gunk and corruption clinging to power-hungry rulers. Favoring sovereignty
of the people above all, Jefferson welcomed a bottom-up, democratic
resurgence of Yankee principles informing the Declaration of Independence
and Bill of Rights.
In the same spirit, modern
conservative and distinguished constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein calls
for immediate impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Fein is no
Bush-hating partisan (formerly, Reagan's associate deputy attorney general)
but concludes only impeachment will save our system by allowing in-depth
inquiry into White House violations and/or abuses. Fein is a patriot
who worships the Constitution as “utterly indispensable”
for “keeping the country in balance, avoiding the extremes and
hubris that comes with unchecked power.”
Alas, impeachment is a political
tactic and House Democrats, wisely or not, exiled it “off the
table.” Even less likely for Mr. Bush or Cheney is court-martial,
though that's the penalty former Iraqi war commander, General Sanchez,
would exact from serving officers whose “dereliction of duty”
produced Iraq, for him “a nightmare with no end in sight.”
Short of rebellion, no army of generals upends our commander-in-chief.
A Convention by the
Spring
Corrective, individual Constitutional
amendments would work, but that requires vision by a servile Congress,
takes years, and requires 34 states to ratify.
There is a final “insurance
policy” when the system stagnates: call a Constitutional Convention,
which also requires 34 states but no specific agenda and cannot be vetoed
by Congress. Yes, getting 34 state houses to agree on the time of day
is a challenge, but that percentage is below the 70% negative on Iraq
or the 75% who disapprove Bush’s performance.
In fact, getting grassroots
citizens pushing for a national roundtable is exactly the bottom-up
“revolutionary” spirit Jefferson loved. It’s certainly
been a generation since the last upheaval, beginning with rejecting
Vietnam and culminating when Richard Nixon resigned for abusing executive
power.
A Constitutional Convention
need not be partisan, nor must it reinvent the original document. Its
opening intentions may be simply to restore American laws and traditions,
identify violations, and regain lost civil liberties. Here is a national
forum to assure foreigners we don’t (and won’t) torture,
reject secret prisons, and forego unilateral, pre-emptive invasions
against sovereign countries not about to attack anyone.
Restating what made
America great
A Constitution Convention
could certainly reinforce America as a secular nation, not beholden
to one religion. We could certify we’re a scientific nation, open
to the best, wisest thinking on global warming and international pollution
plus address more co-operative responses to genocide, pandemics, population
explosions, and a growing arms race.
The notion of periodic, systemic
retooling already exists on the state level. Illinois must vote every
20 years whether to call a state Constitutional Convention. Why not
make that option a first agenda item for a national convention?
Finally, there's no need
to fret over a glorious mission statement. Here the existent “Preamble
to the Constitution:”
“We the People of the
United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote
the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
United States of America.”
“We the people”
– the very best instrument to redeem a great nation in dire need
of rebalancing priorities and power relationships, even, alas, advancing
the dream of a “more perfect Union.”
Robert S. Becker, Ph.D. UC Berkeley, began with university
teaching, then spent 20 years in business, and now writes on politics
and culture. He lives in Mendocino, California.
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