Not working for us

This is in response to the recent election in Massachusetts ("Mass. Sends Republican to Senate," Jan. 20). As we saw again, voters swing from the Republicans to the Democrats and back again. Voters are always looking for meaningful change, but never getting it. Frustrated, they blame the politician and never the system. Is the system broken?

In the end, who really feels represented in our so-called representative democracy? Liberals don't. Conservatives don't. Centrists don't.

Perhaps it's money's fault. (And we're about to see a whole lot more money -- especially corporate money -- influencing votes.) Maybe we should blame the filibuster or the undemocratic Senate, in which small states gain widely disproportionate influence and the people of the District of Columbia have no vote.

For solutions, maybe it's time to amend the Constitution to strip corporations of their free-speech rights ("Court Lets More Corporate Cash in Politics," Jan. 22) or more democratically apportion representation in the Senate. Maybe it's time to break up a too-big Union. I'm serious -- do we really believe that the politicians we elect will ever restore the spirit of democracy? I've never met anyone who believes our federal government is of, by and for the people. Yet we keep acting, and voting, as if it were.

 

DAN MALAKOFF
Edgewood