Reinventing Grass Roots & America For "We The People"

by Xelan Bonn

February 15, 2008

We will soon be launching the Safe America Act and giving Americans a chance to participate in fixing broken government. For too long, this nation has been under the yoke of foreign based ideology that routinely usurps the US citizen worker from his and her rightful place at the forefront of our economic, trade or domestic or foreign policies.

Let us recall that democratic governments must always remain servant to the people. When it’s the other way around, they are no longer democracies or bastions to freedom and liberty. However, freedom and liberty come at a price - they are like two great iron monoliths stretching their hand into the heavens but lest they be continually maintained with elbow grease and care, they will quickly corrode and disintegrate under their own rusty weight. It is not the leadership in democracies that provides the elbow grease but rather the people who they are made to serve.

Americans decide daily what their government will be like in the weeks, months, and years ahead with their daily patriotism and political intercourse - or lack thereof. When our nation of citizens stands back and allows the political thugs to rule with brutal hands, then it is the people’s choice, for they empower their rulers but so often forget they can remove them as well. America is not the exception, but it should be the example and its not.

We can look around the world at democracies and see that others are doing it far better than us Americans. How do some countries achieve low unemployment? or healthcare for all? or an abundance of high  paying jobs? or 10 to 16 weeks of paid vacation time a year - or rock solid retirement plans? or 35 hour work weeks? or family friendly social support systems? and the list goes on!

The answer is they simply care!

In America, we have thousands of grass roots and nonprofit organizations that keep millions of Americans politically active but largely impotent as a national democracy. Their special interests often counter other organization's special interest and we fight to go this way and that way when we all really want to do is go another way. The bottom line is that our grass roots and political activism system keeps us divided and impotent because in the final analysis, we really don't care.

If we, as people, all of one country, all US citizens, were concerned as a nation family about our collective well being, then we would be much closer to proving "we care." 

However, internalizing such a concept is not enough. We must also demonstrate it through action.

We can illustrate this point by examining the French. In France, when one large group of citizens or workers demands to be heard and demands their rights, all French stand in solidarity. When the one group marches on government to show they care about their fellow workers, other groups do not routinely undermine them but rather support them - why - because solidarity is a frightening reality to governments around the world - especially in America! 

Not all ideas get public support or the impetus of march, but in France, marching is common place. The results for French workers alone over the years has been phenomenal: they enjoy less work hours, more vacation time, higher pay, higher productivity, more respect for family time in the workplace, more respect for families throughout all government, and the list of improvements goes on.

Is France perfect - well no - but what country is...

The point is that solidarity works!

The PUA was formed to be that occasional place for all Americans to stand in solidarity. The PUA is not concerned with special interests or partisanship, only solutions on behalf of the common interest of us all.

Consider this possible future: You're a member of the PUA and there is a project that needs your help. Maybe it's inconvenient this month to hold a march so instead you just go online, lodge your vote on the matter (using the PUA voting system) and show your solidarity. A few weeks later, the PUA lobbies the leadership showing them 60 million voters are demanding the change and whaala... the government leaders say no... okay, so then next month you march or refuse to show up for work or whatever the protest requires until you secure the demands of you and your fellow citizens - government gets improved even when it's leaders act elitists or aristocratic!

It's a great concept - unless your countrymen and countrywomen are lazy, living in fear, or are apathetic, or simply refuse to be part of the American team or solution. 

The PUA concept is new and fresh and maybe Americans will ignore it like they ignore their own government... or maybe they will embrace their opportunity to make history!

In just a few years, tens of millions of Americans could be standing in solidarity with each other and through their actions and debates and proposals via their PUA, they could be creating and critical "common sense" and "common good" laws and helping to emerge a new and better form of government. Or not... choosing instead to stick with that miserable little thing called "status quo, foolishly believing that conducting "politics as usual" will create new results.

The bottom line is that fundamental changes are needed to our system of government and culture as a people when Congress routinely gridlocks in partisan politics and the people are made to suffer the consequences of such inactions. Or when the people themselves routinely fail to sound off in dissent and meekly amble into the political slaughterhouse to await a fate fashioned by an incompetent aristocracy elected by a mass of unthinkers.

We must change, as a nation whose fate is determined by outsiders and the super-wealthy, as a people who increasingly embrace pettiness and political inactiveness in our culture, as a government of leaders who routinely succumb to the political bribes of corruption. Great solutions require great changes. Great changes require great action. Great action requires thought, will, and determination. 

Today, Americans as a whole spend more time watching mindless sensationalisms about celebrities than they do on political research and action. And our government and fundamental economy and infrastructure reflect the brokenness of the people, as if our government was an old shoe that can so easily be discarded without our routine cleaning and polishing and re-soling.

Rather than asking ourselves important questions like, how can we take control of an out-of-control Congress, Americans instead ask, "Did Britney cut her hair... did Hilton eat cherry pie..." and the list of worthless brain-drains extends ad nausea...

We have become a lazy-minded nation, apathetic, perhaps fearful, but certainly uncaring for ourselves and our children when it comes to watch dogging and participating in the political spectrum and our own government - the hard realities that ultimately rule our lives at all levels, whether locally, state, or at the federal level 

In the future, millions of PUAers (US voters) will make and create their own federal laws, but only if they can break away from their mindless sensationalism culture and embrace a higher culture, one more centered on care and action rather than mindlessness and political indolence. 

To get Americans started thinking in the right direction, we crafted for them the Safe America Act (SAA). We listened to what America was complaining about and on their behalf, we took action. We crafted a plan to right many past wrongs. 

However, SAA is just another piece of paper toward protecting America and Americans. Although it is the PUA's honest attempt to swing the pendulum back in favor of the US citizen worker and family, it is still only a starting point. There is much more do but most of what remains to be done must be done by caring Americans - by involved US citizen voters who are willing to take action.

SAA is today's challenge to Americans - will they use it to begin taking back control of their government, or not? Will Americans continue living in fear (as the silent majority) and taking what's handed down to them by the greedy elitists, or will they stand and unite and do what it takes to be winners - to brighten the future America - to prove with action - to secure a better America for their children? 

The Patriot Union of America can only lead the American horse to the water trough, but only Americans themselves can decide if they want to drink... and stay alive!

I would ask that you drink to the full and be satiated with a new national pride that truly cares about America... and her children!

I would ask that you take time to understand the issues and their underlying causes and then make one decision: either join the fight and exercise the gift of democratic solidarity and power to ensure change, or silence yourself in resolve and allow your nation to quietly perish without having to endure your complaints – a third choice seems quite irrelevant at this point if you truly do your homework.

Democracy does not work without action and participation from the citizenry so when you sit down to your diner table and think to complain about the cost of bread or fuel or rent or medical care  or that your yearly paycheck just lost $1,200 due to our current oil crisis and other economic woes, then realize that the situation was of your own making – that the collective citizenry chose their government leaders and hence the path our nation has taken to get us to this point – and realize that your choices have consequences - and that you, standing with your fellow Americans, could create a better future, but only if you care.

We get the government we build and deserve - either a sound one due to our collective diligence and continual hard work or one that falls apart in any political breeze and slacks toward tyranny until generating into country of our enemy.

We can either start standing with our collective countrymen and countrywomen in solidarity and make collective choices through participation and improve our government, or not. 

The fruits for such solidarity efforts are exampled all over the globe but only in superpower America are Americans themselves too afraid of their own government to stand together for change--apparently. 

I would ask that you overcome your fear and apathy and join with your fellow Americans by becoming a Card Carrying member of the PUA, that you, too, appreciate the power of solidarity and show your willingness to stand with your fellow Americans.

And I would further ask that if you agree with it, to please do all in your power and resources to support, promote, and help get enacted, the Safe America Act - which was crafted and aided by many concerned Americans worried about your family and theirs - all done in your absence - so please thank them by joining with us.

Let us stand in union, the Patriot Union, and let us stand for positive change through the will and solidarity of We The People!

God Bless,

Xelan Bonn

PUA Founder