OUR GOVERNMENT NO LONGER WORKS T he mechanisms by which we have been governed and govern ourselves are losing their responsiveness to the problems of our time. Our new world is complex and overloaded with information. Excess information demands choices. In response to the overwhelming range of choice which is set before us, the response is paralysis and a growing decline in the quality of life. The American people, more or less aware of this loss, are grasping for a solution to what is clearly a larger, deeper prob- lem -- a problem for which opinion molders cannot agree on a definition. The naive perceive nothing more than gridlock, an ineffectiveness that is merely superficial, in which the mechanisms and processes of government can be unlocked with the right lubrication and the right leadership. But it is difficult for politicians to develop the needed debate over what no longer works for a nation. There are no revealing historical pathways for clues to appropriate reme- dies, for our founding fathers deliberately designed a system in which change was difficult. Their concern was protecting “established” interests from the rabble. Our concerns are with not being trapped by what was “established” as we grow toward the future. Our future is well beyond what could have ever been imagined by the designers of our political system. Their world was one of farms and a strong
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