The Citizen's Guide to the U.S. Government

Public concerns continue to vie with private interests for control of policy and legislation in the United States. While general global trends toward democracy leave some room for optimism (as do the first few Executive Orders to come from the new administration in the White House), the degree to which lobbying and campaign contributions dictate government policies ensures that public issues such as environmental sustainability and social justice will continue to be trumped by the economic interests of a wealthy minority. The mainstream media, operated by the same corporate interests that dictate policy, rarely encourages public engagement in civic issues, and instead inundates viewers with sensationalized reports of crime and terror that serve only to heighten the general paranoia and distrust of one-another. Meanwhile, the media fail to take note of the critical decisions our elected leaders are quietly making based on corporate interests without any input, oversight or feedback from the people that these elected officials are purportedly serving. If public interests are to compete with commercial interests in the political arena, then the people must learn to use the resources available to allow them to engage in the political process and to organize mass struggle. The objective of this online tutorial is to provide individuals with the basic information needed to lobby in the political arena.

If we are to halt this progress toward corporate rule, then we must do more than complain about what is wrong with the system. We must be willing to take the time to personally involve ourselves in efforts to replace the broken parts of our democracy with a system that truly is of, by and for the people. Our opponents may have the wealth, the media, the power and the privilege, but we have something even better. We have the power to organize into a movement strong enough to withstand any assault by the establishment, and we have the will to do it.

Within our own lives, we have seen individual progressive environmental, social, and political organizations begin to coalesce into a more united call for change, and we believe that this trend represents one of humanity's best hopes for a more humane and sustainable society. The overwhelming support expressed for President Obama and the enthusiasm with which his first three Executive Orders were met are an indication that the people are ready to see change happen, and many are beginning to recognize once again that the primary source of progress is mass struggle1. This brief course is simply a modest attempt to help sustain some of the momentum behind this movement by helping citizens deliver their concerns to our elected officials, particularly those in legislative offices. In designing this course, we have sought to provide you with some basic tools to help you reform the democratic process in the U.S.

Course Overview

We have divided the course content into four short sections (plus a reference section). These sections are ordered roughly chronologically, although you may find yourself moving back-and-forth between the different steps when you actually put the information to practice, particularly if your issue will entail multiple meetings.

1. Where to begin
2. Civics 101
3. Contacting your politician
4. Meeting with your politician
5. Recommended reading

A Brief History of the Conflict

When the Continental Congress drafted the Constitution of the United States, they expected that the citizenry would continue to play an active role in their own governing. Unfortunately, the advent of radio and television broadcasting introduced a new dynamic into U.S. politics that the Constitutional safeguards were not prepared to defend against. By restricting access to the broadcast spectrum with prohibitively expensive licensing fees, the Federal Communications Commission helped to establish the ultimate propaganda machine: an information network that reaches almost every household but in which the traffic can only flow one way. Coupled with the gradual consolidation of other media outlets into the hands of large corporations, most citizens were quietly evicted from the Marketplace of Ideas. The new mass entertainment and vicarious experiences offered by radio and television, which offered stunning images and sounds from around the world and seemed to bring viewers into direct contact with statesmen and celebrities allowed much of this usurpation to pass unnoticed. This mass hypnosis of the U.S. public might have succeeded in wresting control from the people permanently, were the human spirit truly capable of being distracted from injustice indefinitely.

Another technological revolution near the end of the twentieth century has helped to re-establish the concept of an informed citizenry with access to global information: the Internet. While its reach is still limited by the technological demands and its integrity is threatened by unethical spammers and private interests, efforts to provide global access to the Internet could open the Marketplace of Ideas to a broader proportion of the people than has ever been reached, and ideas may actually be evaluated by their merit in stead of their sex appeal. While corporate efforts continue to threaten this new democratic forum from both ends, i.e. by flooding it with meaningless 'spam' messages and websites on one side or by attempting to restrict access to the flow of information on the other, the Internet, as it is today, offers much of the U.S. population an opportunity to reclaim the governing authority that the earlier Revolution should have placed in their hands. !Viva la revolución!

Our hope is that as you learn the truth about what the U.S. government has been doing in your name (and with your money), you will be moved to demand that it begin to answer to you for its actions instead of to the private interests of a wealthy minority. To help you do this, Amélie Davis and Brian Napoletano collaborated to assemble the following course, which introduces some of the basic principles of 'grassroots' activism and describes how the Internet can be a helpful tool in the process.

Uses for this Course

This course was designed to provide you with the tools necessary to contact the proper policy makers for your issue and thus help you take action more effectively. We especially want to stress the importance of the Internet in:

1. Researching your issue
2. Connecting with other people who are working on this particular issue
3. Identifying the best policy makers for you to contact on the issue
4. Researching the policy-maker's position on your issue and related issues
5. Arranging a meeting with them to discuss your issue
6. Disseminating the information you have gathered and working to hold them accountable

This course is designed as an online tutorial, although Brian and I are also developing a 30-60 minute workshop that we will be offering to any on-campus clubs at Purdue and any other organizations interested in this content.

License and an Important Disclaimer

All of the content is offered under the Creative Commons license, so feel free to take our material and present it to your university, home town, etc. Our hope is that you will use this information to push your government into acting on an issue that you are passionate about. While the example issues are important to us, we are more concerned about providing you with the tools that you will need to change your government than with recruiting you to help our causes. We sincerely encourage you to disseminate this information widely and to provide us with feedback on how we can better help you through this site. We would also love to hear how you used the information that we offered in the context of a different issue, and how it worked out!

Both of the authors began engaging in political activism fairly recently. We are both PhD students in Ecology who recently decided that "business as usual" is no longer acceptable in the United States, and devoted some (our advisor would argue too much) of our research and reasoning skills to political reform. While most of the information offered here is based on first-hand experiences, we have occasionally been forced to rely on second-hand reports or analysis. As our knowledge is further seasoned by experience and your feedback, we will update the information and advice we offer here. We will also add more information on other government resources we come across if we believe that they may be of use to you.

1. 1. To put things more bluntly, we believe that our generation has been denied access to its history of class struggle, resulting in the widespread belief that progress was bestowed on the people by a benevolent government and that mass struggle is an anachronism. We believe that this, in addition to the crass commercialization of our culture, is largely responsible for much of the apathy and cynicism amongst young people. Conversely, as more young people engage in organizing, and as the working class begins to once again find its voice, the potential for real change once again becomes a reality, and cynicism and despair are replaced by hope and determination. How the ruling class will respond to this growing class consciousness, and whether they will succeed in crushing it before it develops into a coordinated movement, remains to be seen.