Wednesday 5 April 2017

confederation

To invoke Article V—not to be confused Article L, in the context of the US federal government is to trigger that process whereby the constitution is amended, designed purposefully to be hard to do and reflective of universal values and not subject to the caprices of demagoguery.
Chillingly, as Brendan O’Connor files for Fusion, last summer saw a gathering of legislators and billionaire lobbyists amid the forced atmosphere of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia for a twisted sort of a model UN that yielded the debate and passage of three trial amendments. In this instance, the convention called for fiscal restraint (the balanced-budget amendment), federal term limits and the end of the estate (death) tax, but it was just an experiment with members attesting to a wide-ranging and ambitious agenda.  This convention was also illustrative of how deeply entrenched influence-peddlers have become and how fragile progressive democracies have become in the face of gerrymandering and ballot-stuffing.