The parties (and therefore the government) no longer give a rats ass about you

I was reading Quin's fabulous piece Good Cop Bad Cop about the police actions at both the Dem and Rep conventions.

It's official- there is no government for us lowly citizens.

So my little chickadees, what are we going to do about it? How are we going to take back what is ours and force politicians to be responsive to us mere voters? I know I keep asking this, but until some brilliant idea strikes me I am going to be painfully redundant.

How do we get our politicians to do the right thing and look out for the people?

Now I've made more than a wee bit of a stink about the fact that Obama is anti-Keynesian. There is a reason for that, other than my increasing dislike for the guy.

Keynes had this radical idea that governments should protect people not just from the physical violence of war but the economic violence of downturns. Huhm, imagine that? A government that protects its people. Keynes' rational was that you temper the boom times a bit with higher taxes in order to cushion the busts. A very moderate idea. He certainly wasn't some radical commy. But recent governments have fucked that whole idea up. They temper the bad times, sure. If you happen to be wealthy the government will do everything in its power to keep you that way through a recession. But the little people, the regular people, are fucked. In all the talk about the current housing crisis, very little is being done to help the actual homeowners. And the it's about to get much worse. It's been easy so far for the PTB (powers that be) to blame the current foreclosures on bad people with bad credit who should have known that the American Dream of homeownership was not meant for them. But people who have good credit and didn't get subprime loans but got ARM (adjustable rate mortgages) are next on the foreclosure block. Where is the government now? Is it freezing interest rates on these loans? Is it putting a temporary halt on foreclosures? Is it doing anything to fix the people's problems? Or is it too busy figuring out which bank it's going to bail out next?

That's just one example. I am sure you peeps can think of a thousand more where the government is not acting in our interest. (healthcare, tuition costs, food and drug safety, clean air and water- take your pick).

So how do we make them listen to us now? How do we make the people we elect responsible to those of us who elected them? Old methods are failing, we need new and bold ideas for holding their feet to the fire.