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Hobson's Choice \HOB-suhnz-CHOIS\, noun: A choice without an alternative; the thing offered or nothing. It is an apparently free choice in which there is only one real option.
"A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years."
--Lysander Spooner
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Highlights from Populist Party Commentary and the Populist Party Blog
Hobson's Choice
by Steve Osborn
Having chosen the "lesser of two evils" repeatedly and found that the evil still grows, I have run out of choices.
If I cannot find a candidate who believes in peace and diplomacy, with war as a last, defensive action if attacked, if I cannot find a candidate who believes that the Constitution of the United States is more than a "god-damned piece of paper" and wants to see it restored, intact and functioning, to the halls of government...
If I cannot find a candidate who feels that We the People does not mean corporate entities, that government has a contract with the people and that contract is the Constitution and Bill of Rights, then I shall just have to exercise my dwindling right to choose and write in, a large, resounding NO!
(read more here)
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Blockades: Acts of War
by Stephen Lendman
The framers believed that no single official, including the President, should ever have sole authority over this most crucial of all constitutional powers because of how easily it can be abused as post-WW II history shows. In 1793, James Madison wrote that the "fundamental doctrine of the Constitution....to declare war is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature."
During the 1787 Constitutional Convention, George Mason said that the President "is not safely to be trusted with" the power to declare war. Nonetheless, Congress only observed its responsibility five times in the nation's history, lastly on December 8, 1941 following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor the previous day.
(read more here)
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All the Propaganda that's Fit to Print
by Sean M. Madden
We're meant to believe that Russian soldiers just decided, devoid of any cause whatsoever, to move into two Georgian cities. Russia, not Georgia, must be seen to be the aggressor. Not a hint of reality must be allowed to seep in and cause good ol' American patriotic resolve to waver.
The New York Times now asserts -- in case we missed it being gently shoved down our throats the first time -- that only in retrospect did the U.S. decide to deepen its "commitment to Georgia and America's allies in the former Soviet sphere". A bald-faced lie if ever there was one.
But, note, this isn't a U.S. official lying to the American public via the New York Times. No, this is the New York Times, itself, lying directly to its readers, worldwide, as it does day in and day out.
(read more here)
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The Military and American Liberty
by Evans Munyemesha
Liberty is not a child of militarism. The liberty of a people in any society, a rarity to be sure, is dependent on the character of the free members of that society; and therefore, for there to be liberty in society anywhere, its members, individually, must be free. This means that the members must be self-directing individuals.
Liberty sought by use of bombs and other instruments of terror is liberty sought in vain. If found, it is fleeting and only for a special class.
(read more here)
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Bad for Democracy: How the Presidency Undermines the Power of the People
by Russell Cole
We confuse our ability to engage in a ritualized affair - where we cast a single vote that infinitesimally affects the outcome of a Presidential Election - with the operations of a functioning democracy. This illusion is propagated by the growing authoritarianism of the Presidency - which reinforces the prejudice that voting in Presidential Elections somehow epitomizes democratic civic engagement.
As Dana D. Nelson adeptly points out in her book Bad for Democracy (scheduled for publication in September, 2008), democracy is more than mere electoral politics. For a political order to be democratic, public policy must be determined through the direct deliberative participation of the citizenry. The Republican Romans, for instance, indeed had elected officials. Furthermore, the aristocrats in the Republic formed the Senate. Nevertheless, only through passage in the House of Plebes could legislation be enacted. Although the Republican Romans possessed intermediaries between the state and the public, such as the Senate who could advise and consent, the commoners, whose votes were organized according to tribes, remained politically empowered through their ability to directly legislate.
(read more here)
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Published 5 days a week, Populist Party Commentary and the Populist Party blog both strive to provide an alternative point of view to current events and political theory.
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In the spirit of liberty,
From All of Us on the Populist Party team
Copyright 2008, The Populist Party of America
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