Political reason and sanity no longer reside where the political power

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Heinrich_Heine More than 150 years ago the German writer and philosopher Heinrich Heine wrote, and I shall paraphrase that: “Today the political reason no longer resides at the same place where the political power does reside”.

And he continued: “There has to be an influx of intelligence and intuition from non-official circles if catastrophes are to be prevented and lessened and we must begin not from the back, with the forms of government and methods of politics. We must begin anew, with the building of the character if we want to have again men and women who create a viable future for us”.

As I said, that is a paraphrase translation of the words of Heinrich Heine, written more than a century and a half ago. However, they are valid once again for, indeed, the place where political power resides today lacks political sanity and reason again just as in the days of Heine.

What goes around comes around, they say, but I think we have been getting worse ever since Heine wrote those words and we never considered what he said and we definitely did not act upon his suggestions.

We must indeed start afresh with the political systems and forms of government but it must, actually, not start there. It must begin with changing people and creating people of character and integrity. We all must change in this way to become and be those people of character and integrity that will establish this new future society.

For far too long have people of integrity allowed the powers-that-be free hand simply because they believed that the political system of so-called democracy was the way to go but it was and is not.

The people, in general, with a few exceptions, have all been duped into believing, by those powers-that-be, that they, the people, actually have, through the ballot box, influence on how their lives and countries are governed. But this is but an illusion perpetuated by those that wish to rule. And, in fact, more and more people are falling victim to this belief.

You cross on the ballot paper is, in most cases, not even worth the ink of the pen that is being used. It means nothing and makes no difference. Only when the people are given real power, by being allowed to fully participate in every decision to be made, only then will democracy exist for it has to be participatory. The current systems are all but an illusion making the people believe that they have a voice, which is not the case in all honesty and truth.

The new system must come from the grassroots and not be created from above, from existing models. The old system needs to be torn down so that a new one can rise from its ashes. A new system where everyone has a real voice and this system can only come from the bottom up, truly created by the people for the people and maintained by the people.

© 2012